Amaretto Dream Cupcakes!

HI,
This is about the Amaretto Dream cupcakes!

I decided I wanted to do an amaretto cupcake for my son's second birthday. So I found THIS recipe. I did pin in on my pintrest.

Here is the recipe.

Amaretto Dream Cupcakes Recipe

* 24 Servings

* Prep: 20 min. Bake: 15 min.

Ingredients

* 3/4 cup butter, softened

* 1-1/2 cups packed brown sugar

* 2 eggs

* 1/2 cup buttermilk

* 1/4 cup Amaretto

* 2 cups all-purpose flour

* 1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder

* 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

* 1/4 teaspoon salt

* 1/3 cup slivered almonds

* Amaretto Butter Frosting (recipe also found in Recipe finder)

Directions

* In a large bowl, cream butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each.

* In a small bowl, combine buttermilk and Amaretto. Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add to the creamed mixture alternately with buttermilk mixture, beating well after each addition. Stir in almonds.

* Fill paper-lined muffins cups two-thirds full. Bake at 375° for 14-16 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pans to cool completely. Yield: 2 dozen.

(copied and pasted. Is totally theirs)

***

The frosting!

It can be fund HERE

Here is the recipe

Amaretto Butter Frosting Recipe

* 24 Servings

* Prep/Total Time: 15 min.

Ingredients


* 3 cups confectioners' sugar

* 1/4 cup butter, melted

* 3 to 4 tablespoons heavy whipping cream

* 2 to 3 tablespoons Amaretto

Directions

* In a small bowl, beat confectioners' sugar and butter. Add 3 tablespoons cream and 2 tablespoons Amaretto; beat until smooth. Add remaining cream and Amaretto if needed to achieve spreading consistency. Yield: 2-1/4 cups.


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So Let's start!


I placed the brown sugar in the bowl.

Then I added the butter and creamed it. Then added the eggs.

It says to combine the Amaretto and Buttermilk. I don't have buttermilk. I have this wonderful powder, that when combined with water, creates buttermilk. I think it looks like baby formula.

I don't feel like keeping buttermilk handy and outside the occasional recipe I have no use for it. This powder is AWESOME.

In a separate bowl I combined the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. I mixed them together so it would be more even.

The recipe calls for slivered almonds. My mother did shopping for them and bought the kind used in salads and are roasted. Oh well used the anyways. (No difference really just more expensive)

I filled my muffin cups. Now I don't own a muffin pan. I have 12 silicone cupcake cups that stand up on a cookie sheet and I also had some paper that are paired with foil liners. No muffin pan needed.

Then I baked them.

Ok Now onto the frosting!

****




I simply combined the ingredients as listed. Was super easy.

I did add some vanilla and almond extract. Made it 100% better.

Then I had some fun.

I placed a piece of plastic wrap down and got out my food colorings. I did a couple spots of color down the put my frosting on top. Then put color on both sides and color on top.

3-4 drops worked well per color.

Then I wrapped it up.

It looked pretty cool.

I use tips with connectors
.
I threaded the edge of the bag through the opening.

then folded back the wrapping and placed my tip on. Easy and clean adding of frosting.

The frosting comes out beautiful and because I used many colors it was very colorful.

Perfect for a little boys birthday.

I was proud of myself. (this is the second time I have ever used a pastry bag!)

***

My thoughts



The cupcakes were a little dry. They tasted great just very dry. The batter was thick too.

The frosting was to die for. I do believe that the addition of the vanilla and almond extract totally made the amaretto sparkle.

Here are come pics of my son with his special cupcake. It had extra frosting and was all white.

He had a great birthday!

Butter beer cupcakes.

OK, I bake a lot because it is fun for me. I also post on Face book about said baking and cooking. Well my friend Jess, has stated I needed to start a food blog. So yeah. (you can see her blog here BTW)

I will start with my adventure of two days ago. I made butter-beer cupcakes. Yes I do like harry potter, and yes I went to Orlando on my honeymoon and had the butter-beer at Universal studios.

I have a pintrest board and I had the boys choose a recipe they wanted to eat off my dessert board. (Gratuitous link to my pintrest board)

For some reason the link to the blog that had the recipe is not working today. Here is it BTW. (if you have not noticed I like to hide my links in the action words.)

Since my previous cupcake making skills result in absolutely yummy foods, yet look like I let the boys decorate them, my dear husband bought me my first pastry bag and tips. I am quite proud of how pretty they turned out.

Here is the cupcakes after they came out of the oven.


Here they are after I frosted them.


Here they are after I added the gauche. (think that is spelled incorrectly?)




They are fun to make. They taste great. My 8 year old stepson says, "If I had ten hands I would give you ten thumbs up" They did last the night because they are super rich. but were gone by lunchtime the next day. And yeah they taste a lot like the butter beer.

I had a lot of the ganache leftover. My husband loves butterscotch so he had been using that on ice cream.

Here is the recipe for those that are interested.


Makes 18 Cupcakes

Ingredients For Cupcakes:

* 2 cups flour
* 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
* 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
* 1/2 cup granulated sugar
* 1/2 cup dark brown sugar, packed
* 3 large eggs
* 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
* 1 teaspoon butter flavoring
* 1/2 cup buttermilk
* 1/2 cup cream soda


Ingredients For Ganache:

* 1 11-oz. package butterscotch chips
* 1 cup heavy cream


Ingredients for Butterbeer Frosting:

* 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
* 1/3 cup butterscotch genache
* 1 teaspoon vanilla
* 1 teaspoon butter flavoring
* 1/8 teaspoon salt
* 1 16-oz. package powdered sugar
* splash of milk or cream (as needed)



Directions for Cupcakes:

Step 1: Preheat oven to 350F.

Step 2: Line the bottom of cupcake tins with paper liners.

Step 3: In a mixing bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt and set aside.

Step 4: In a different mixing bowl, cream butter until light and fluffy. Add sugars and beat until well combined. Beat in eggs (one at a time) and mix well after each addition, then mix in vanilla and butter flavorin.

Step 5: Alternate adding buttermilk, cream soda and dry ingredients in batches until all ingredients are well incorporated.

Step 6: Fill each cupcake liner 3/4 full and bake for 15-17 minutes until a tester toothpick is inserted into the center of cupcake and comes out cleanly.

Step 7: Cool cupcakes completely on a wire rack.


Directions for Ganache:

Step 1: In a double boiler (heat-proof bowl over a pot of simmering water on the stove), combine butterscotch chips and heavy cream and stir until completely combined and smooth.

Step 2: Cool completely to room temperature.

Step 3: Pour ganache into a squeeze bottle and use tip of squeeze bottle to insert tip into center of cupcake and squeeze ganach into cupcake until filling begins to overflow.


Directions for Buttercream Frosting:

Step 1: Cream butter in a large bowl until fluffy.

Step 2: Add in genache, vanilla, butter flavoring, and salt and mix until well combined.

Step 3: Beat in powdered sugar 1 cup at a time until reaching desired consistency. Add milk or cream by the Tablespoon as needed.

Step 4: Frost cupcakes and top with a drizzle of remaining butterscotch ganache.

(The recipe was totally copied and pasted from MuggleNet)