How to Bake White Chocolate, Walnut Cupcakes

Ingredients:
Basic Chocolate Cupcake Batter
about 1 cup white chocolate chips
about 1 cup chopped walnuts

Directions:
mix white chocolate chips and walnuts, put in baking cups and bake accordnig to chocolate cupcake recipe.

Oh no! I forgot something!

Yes, it happens to all of us.  We start baking and right when we think we're finished... well I've forgotten to get this or that.  This can be incredibly discouraging and, well, you worked hard to make whatever that is!  Here are some tips to use, when this fateful event happens.

1.) Be prepared!  Before you make that recipe, check that you have everything.  This includes baking cups, all the ingredients, the recipe, the baking pan, enough of everything, a clean mixing bowl, the time etc., before you start making your mess make sure your ready to make it!

2) I forgot butter!  This has actually happened to me before.  I was making something and I forgot to get butter.  It seems so unlikely that something like this could ever happen but it does.  I suggest using canola oil.  This can be a substitute for melted butter, but I have used it instead of solidified butter.  The cupcakes still tasted wonderful, but this is still a dirty habit to get into.

3.) No baking cups.  Well, yes this is not that hard to solve, first, I suggest you go out and see if you can get some.  The ones I get are about $1. If you want a helpful trickfor this situation go to my "Parchment Paper Baking Cups" post.  Or at last resort put your cupcakes in a very clean scrubbed muffin pan with nothing, soft and fluffy cupcakes will be hard with that method, and that is why I do not recommend it.

4.) I don't have vegetable oil.  Instead of Vegetable oil you can use grape-seed oil.  Actually, my mom only uses grape seed oil now.

5.) Look it up!  This website is hopefully not your only rescourse for baking!  Just type in an ingredient that you have or don't have and see what comes up!  for example, type in, "Can I substitute blank for blank." and, let me put it this way, DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY WEB PAGES ARE ON GOOGLE?  ANY OTHER SERVER?  Your bound to find something useful!

New Idea

I have a new idea for a cupcake!  Being myself, I once again ventured into the depths of the baking section of my local grocery store, and found a bag of "Toffee Bits".  I have no idea what to do with them, but I'm thinking a little trial and error here.  My ideas are, toffee in a coconut cupcake, or a vanilla tofee cupcake, with mayber a couple other things there too.  Hopefully I can make a youtube video about what happens!

How do I make my own recipes?

Making your own recipes does not nessesarily mean you have to make up how much baking powder and how much flour and how much sugar is added, it just means that you use the knowledge earned by people before you to make new recipes.  I genereally use the Basic Chocolate and Basic Vanilla cupcake recipes when making my own recipes.  I go to my local grocery store and take a wild adventure into the baking section.  There I have found butterscotch morsels, toffee bits, coconut flakes, chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, all kinds of things.  And when doing this I always try to buy them to see what interesting cupcakes I can make out of them.  For example I made the butterscotch chocolate cupcakes from seeing the butterscotch morsels.  I usually take the home, then try a few of them, then I ask myself, what would this go well with?  Should this be with chocolate or vanilla?  Coconut?  Usually I have to try... a... few...guilty.
Another way to do this is to take something that isn't a cupcake, that you already know.  For example, there are these cookies that I have had.  They are chocolate with white chocolate chips and walnuts in them.  I already had some walnuts that were in my cabinet and all I needed was some white chocolate chips.  I made these using the Basic White Cholate chips and they were delicious.
As you can see making your own recipes isn't hard, all you need is some sense of adventure, creativity and to be open to failure.  See what you can make.

Can I Substitute All Purpose Flour For Cake Flour?

In fact, you can.  Cake flour is lighter than all purpose, which means there is more space in between each little bit of flour.  You have to take out 2 tablespoons from every cup of all purpose to make it equal to cake flour.  Purhaps it won't be as light and fluffy as it would be if the correct flour were infact used, but it is still delicious.  In my experience with using this nifty trick I have still made absolutely amazing cupcakes.  If you don't want to buy different flour then I would suggest using this.
   Here is some math that I will do so you don't have to do it.  When making the Basic Chocolate Cupcake the recipe asks for 3/4 cup cake flour.  Well here you can say that instead of taking out 2 tablespoons of flour, you can take out two 3/4 tablespoons cake flour.  Which, to make it simple for you, is (excuse me for my math here, 3/4+3/4 =6/4=1 and 1/2 tablespoons) 1 and 1/2 tablespoons of flour out of every 3/4 cup (I happen to be rather good at math.)

Colored Cupcakes

If you want to make yuour cupcakes a certain color, like I did this weekend for St. Patricks day.  I made a Basic Vanilla Cupcake batter.  I squirted a bunch of drops (Maybe 5 to 8, I wanted it dark) of food coloring into the batter.  Then I used my electric mixer to mix it all together (you don't need to do that, you can just mix it) next I cooked it and made half of the Basic Frosting (I find that the recipe makes to much, infact the original recipe says to make double what I put the recipe up to be, but that made so much it felt like a waste) and squirted 2 or 3 drops of food coloring in.  Then I frosted it and put on some green decorating sugar that I found at my local grocery store for around $2.66, but there are other ones that I saw for $1.99 but they didn't have green.  Then I sprinkled this sugar on to the frosted cupcakes.  The sugar gave it good looks and a nice crunch.  I liked that it was green because not only am I going to use it for St. Patricks day, but for Christmas and other holidays too.  I hope this helped you on your holiday, or baking day.

How to make Black and White Cupcakes

(Just for two cupcakes)

Ingredients:

 1 Basic Vanilla Cupcake
1 Basic Chocolate Cupcake
Some Basic Frosting or Glaze

Directions:

Cut the Vanilla and Chocolate Cupcake into 2 or 4 pieces (have fun with it).  Next use the frosting to glue the parts together.

Here is a link to my cooking video, that I made for this.  It offers tips and visuals for making this!  You can also click on the video below the picture, or find it in the video bar at the end of the page.

 

How to make a Basic Chocolate Cupcake

Ingredients;
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup sour cream
1/3 cup canola oil
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup cake flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda

Directions:
Preheat the ove to 350 degrees F.  Mix ingredients together.  Divide among baking cups in a muffin pan.  Bake untill tops spring back when lightly tapped, 20-25 minutes.

If you want to have a cooking video please visit my video for Butterscotch/ Chocolate Cupcakes and just take away the butterscotch.

How to make a Basic Frosting and Glaze

Frosting:
Ingredients:
3/4 cup confectioners (icing) sugar
1/4 cup butter, at room temperature
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon heavy cream
1-3 drops food coloring

Directons:
Mix together with electric mixer.

Glaze:
Ingredients:
1 cup confectioners (icing) sugar
1-2 tablespoons water

Directions:
Mix together.

How to Bake a Basic Vanilla Cupcake

Ingredients:

1 cup cake flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspooon salt
1/4 cup butter at room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup sour cream

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350degrees F or 180 degrees C.  Mix together all the Ingredients.  Divide batter evenly among some baking cups, in a muffin pan.  Bake untill tops spring back when lightly touched, 20-25 minutes.  Cool on a wire rack.

Here is a link to a cooking video I made for this.  It offers tips and visuals! You can also reach it below, or find all of my videos in the video bar at the end of
the page.

Here is a picture of what mine look like.

Butterscotch, Chocolate Cupcakes

Ingredients:

1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup sour cream
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup cake flour
1/3 cup cake flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup butterscotch morsels

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F or 180 degrees C.  Mix all ingredients together, then divide amongst baking cups.  Bake until the tops spring back when lightly tapped, 20-25 minutes.  Cool on wire rack.  Enjoy!

Here is a link to a cooking show I made, this shows you how to do everything, gives tips, and shows what they look like at the end! Click here to access!  You can also watch it below or find it in the video bar at the end of the page.