I love vampires.  I love Buffy, and True Blood and Twilight and many, many more.  If vampires are real, can one seriously come and bite me?  I promise not to kill any nice people, only bad ones.  I’ll be the best baking vampire ever.  I swear.

 

Going off of my love of vampires, I decided to make a cupcake inspired by the name of this blog.  These cupcakes are filled with coagulant rich blood that oozes out when you take a bite. 

Ok, so maybe it’s actually a puree of raspberries and beets.

It’s definitely delicious.  I used beets to get the color I was looking for.  Don’t be scared off by them, stewed with raspberries and sugar, you won’t even know they are there.  Then again if you like beets, you can up the amount so the flavor comes through.  Either way this puree is soooooo good, and it makes so much more then you need.  I have two jars of it in my fridge now.  I might just eat it with a spoon.

 

The cake itself is also wonderful. 

I just used my basic cupcake base and added a little bit of lemon zest and juice.  The end result is a fluffy, moist cake with just a hint of lemon.  It’s good.  Really, really good.  

 

I topped these off with cream cheese frosting.  You just can’t go wrong with it.  I finished them by drizzling a bit more puree on top, to look like blood, or two puncture wounds.  You can pretty much do whatever you like.  While I made large cupcakes this time, I do think this recipe is more suited to mini cupcakes.  I think the puree to cake to frosting ratio would be perfect for a mini cupcake.  So have a Buffy marathon and whip up a batch of these.  You won’t be sorry.  They are to die for.

 

Vampire Bites 

Makes 24 regular or 48 mini cupcakes

 

            Ingredients 

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour          

2 cups cake flour

2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder

1 1/4 teaspoon salt

1 1/4 cups whole milk

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

2 sticks plus 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened

2 1/4 cups sugar

6 eggs

zest of 2 lemons

juice of 1 lemon

 

          Directions

 

1.     Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line 12-cup muffin tins with baking cups.

2.     Whisk together flours, baking powder and salt in a small bowl.  Stir milk and vanilla in another small bowl.  Zest and juice lemons in milk mixture.   Beat butter in mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy, approximately 3 minutes.  Add sugar slowly while mixing.  Beat until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes.  Beat in eggs 1 at a time, mixing after each addition.  Scrape bowl and beat until smooth.

3.     Reduce speed and slowly add 1/3 of flour mixture.  Alternate adding milk mixture and flour mixture until all ingredients added.   

4.     Divide batter among muffin tins.  Using a small cookie scoop is the easiest way to do this, filling each cup with two large scoops (one scoop if doing mini cupcakes).  Bake until a toothpick comes out clean, about 20-25 minutes (about 14 minutes for mini cupcakes).  Cool completely.  Fill center with raspberry beet puree using a squeeze bottle.  Frost with cream cheese frosting once raspberry center has set for a few minutes.

5.  Drizzle cupcakes with more puree, spatter for a blood like effect.

 

Raspberry Beet Puree

            Ingredients

12 ounces of frozen raspberries

1/2 cup sugar

2 beets, peeled and chopped

 

            Directions

1.  Combine all ingredients in medium saucepan over medium heat.  Stew until beets have softened, about 30-45 minutes.

2.  Transfer hot mixture to blender.  Leaving the center insert off, but cover the hole with a kitchen towel.  Blend until smooth.

 

Cream Cheese Frosting 

 

            Ingredients

8 ounces cream cheese

1 stick unsalted butter, softened

2 cups confectioners’ sugar

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

 

            Directions

1.  Beat cream cheese in a mixer on medium speed with paddle attachment until smooth.  Add butter and beat until light and fluffy.

2.  Reduce speed to low.  Add vanilla.  Slowly add sugar.  Beat until Smooth.

 

 

 

It’s April.  In Wisconsin.  In some places that means spring.  Here it means we go outside in shorts and t-shirts in 40-degree weather.

 

I’m done with winter.  It snowed today.  On April 1^st.  Don’t misunderstand me.  I love the snow.  I love winter.  I am a Wisconsin girl through and through.  But enough is enough.  I’m ready for outdoor farmer’s markets and hammocks and vegetable gardens.

 

I bought some strawberries at the grocery store last weekend.  

 

They were not perfect, juicy, ripe summer strawberries, but they’re still lovely little signs of spring.

 

 

 

After I bought these lovely strawberries I ran out of things to do.  I got bored.  So, I decided to make some cupcakes.  I’m on a bit of a cupcake kick these days.   These cupcakes that I made up on a whim were quite frankly, delicious.  They were like little baked bits of spring.  It was exactly what I was hoping for on a cold spring morning.

 

I think even my dogs are wishing for spring.  My 18-pound puggle keeps refusing to come in when the sun is out, even when he starts shivering.

 

Ok, back to cupcakes.  My husband called these baked strawberries. 

 

He said they are more like strawberries then they are like cupcakes.  This is a good thing.

 

After making these cupcakes, I would change one thing.  The cake is perfect, the frosting is divine, but a bit of fresh strawberry puree in the middle of the cupcake would have been simply amazing.   Enough talk, lets eat some cupcakes.

 

Baked Strawberries

·      A note on this recipe:  I decided I wanted a small batch of cupcakes.  So I quartered my stand-by cupcake batter.  The measurements are odd and small, but it makes 24 mini cupcakes perfectly.  So stick to the small amounts or double it, or even quadruple it.

 

Ingredients

 

1/2 cup plus 1/8 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup cake flour

1/2 teaspoon plus 1/8 teaspoon baking powder

pinch of salt

1/3 cup whole milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 stick plus 1/2 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened

1/3 cup sugar

2 large eggs

1/4 cup pureed strawberries

1/4 cup chopped strawberries

 

Directions

 

1.     Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line two 12-cup mini cupcake muffin tins with baking cups.

 

2.     Whisk together flours, baking powder and salt in a small bowl.  Stir milk and vanilla in another small bowl.  Beat butter in mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy, approximately 3 minutes.  Add sugar slowly while mixing.  Beat until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes.  Beat in eggs 1 at a time, mixing after each addition.  Scrape bowl and beat until smooth.

 

3.     Reduce speed and slowly add 1/3 of flour mixture.  Alternate adding milk mixture and flour mixture until all ingredients added.   Add pureed and chopped strawberries.

 

4.     Divide batter among muffin tins.  Using a small cookie scoop is the easiest way to do this, filling each cup with one level scoop.  Bake until a toothpick comes out clean, about 14 minutes.  Cool completely.  Fill center with more strawberry puree using a squeeze bottle if desired.  Frost with strawberry cream cheese frosting once strawberry center has set for a few minutes.

 

Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting

            Ingredients

 

8 ounces cream cheese

1 stick unsalted butter, softened

2-3 cups confectioners’ sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4  cup pureed strawberries

 

            Directions

 

1.     Beat cream cheese in a mixer on medium speed with paddle attachment until smooth.  Add butter and beat until light and fluffy.

 

2.     Reduce speed to low, add 2 cups of sugar slowly, beat until light and fluffy.  Add strawberry puree and mix until smooth.  Continue to add sugar until frosting has reached desired thickness.

 

Hi.

 

My name’s Katie

 

 

I’m in my late 20’s.  I’m not 30.  Not yet, and probably not for at least 5 years.  At least that’s what I keep telling myself.  Seriously, I have convinced myself that I am a year younger then I actually am.

 

I like food.  I mean I really like food.  I love cooking it.  I love the way it tastes.  I love the way it looks.  I love the way it smells.  I even love the way it feels.

 

I spent 4 years and $80,000 on art school and here I am, in love with cooking and baking. 

 

Especially baking.  There is something about mixing together a bunch of all together ordinary ingredients and coming up with a luscious sweet treat that makes me swoon.  I like simple recipes and extremely complex labor indulgent, time-consuming recipes.  I love real frosting.  And chocolate.  And raspberries.  And caramel.  Okay I had better get back on track here before I run off to the kitchen.

 

I tend to bake late at night.  Which is fun, and productive.  It is not however conducive to dreamy food photographs.  It’s something I’m working on.  I don’t really enjoy mornings, unless you count lying on the couch drinking espresso watching the food network.

 

My philosophy about food is pretty simple.  Cook with things that you know what they are and where they came from.  If it came out of a box, it’s probably not good for you.  If it came out of your garden, eat until you burst.  If it sounds like it belongs in a science lab, it probably doesn’t belong in your tummy.  If you’re willing to take the time and make sweets from scratch, they can’t really be bad for you, right?  Right?

 

I have a husband, and two wonderful dogs.  They’re perfect.  

 They would never work together to steal 8 cupcakes.

I work a mundane, soul sucking 9-5 job where I daydream about cupcakes.  And cookies.  And whipped cream.

 

I’ve decided to funnel my wonderfully creative cooking and baking tendencies into a blog.  I have absolutely no professional experience in the food world (unless you count waitressing at Country Kitchen for a month when I was 17.  I don’t).  Maybe you will read this blog.  Maybe you won’t.  But cooking the food and putting up lovely photographs of it sounds divine.

 

So enjoy and have a snack.  Or, two, or 20.  I won’t tell.