Baking with Booey

I got a request for some Christmas themed cupcakes last night and since I didn't have much time (or supplies) at home, I thought the closest I could come was making some Santa hat cupcakes with red and white frosting. As I was baking and frosting them, I was trying to come up with a good blogging topic other than just the photos of what I've made (which I'm still including, because they turned out really cute). The one that came to mind was the one question I get asked all the time: why does your "fill in the blank here" taste so much better than mine, even when I used your recipe?

Answer? I don't know. I don't use any secret ingredients and I usually buy the generic store versions of everything from flour to sugar to butter. I do try to buy real vanilla extract, but honestly...I can't really tell the difference in anything other than frosting. I know baking is more of an exact science, but I'm not the type of person who sifts my flour and mixes the dry ingredients first in a separate bowl and wet in another only to combine them in a whole new bowl. Are you kidding me?! Do you know how many dishes I'd be doing?! I do mix everything (except for frosting and whipped cream) by hand rather than using the Kitchen Aid stand mixer that Santa left for me last year. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE it and couldn't live without it, but there's something about mixing a recipe by hand with a spatula that makes the end product so much more of an accomplishment. Plus, how else do you know if you've over mixed it??

I jokingly tell most people that my secret is that I make everything with love and that's why it tastes so much better. I have very fond memories of watching my grandma whip up carrot bars or rhubarb cake for the endless parade of friends or relatives that were coming to visit. She always used this tan colored ceramic bowl and had a heck of an arm whipping together whatever was in there. I think of her and that bowl almost every time I bake. I wonder if that bowl is still floating around somewhere...

Back to Santa hat cupcakes: here they are! In case you're wondering, I used plain red cupcake liners and then piped the white frosting using a large star tip in a circle for the base of the hat. I sprinkled on some white sugar sprinkles and then piped the red frosting* using a bigger star tip, followed by a little dot of white on the top (with some more sugar sprinkles). I really like the addition of the sprinkles, I was hoping it would make them a little more festive and I think it worked. I hope they're a hit at the Christmas party!

*On a side note, if you're making something that needs a lot of red frosting, make sure you buy the red food coloring that specifically says "no taste" on it. There is a difference, and it takes a LOT of food coloring to make a deep red color. I use the Wilton gel food coloring, you can find it at Michael's and some Walmart stores now.