Apple Pie Cupcakes with Salted Caramel Buttercream

I've been wanting to try cupcakes for a really long time, but just not knowing what kind of cupcakes to make. And after watching friends spend so much money for buying just one cupcake from Twelve Cupcakes, I was rather disgruntled that people can earn so much money from just cupcakes. I was determined to make a cupcake so awesome that it would outshine those that people pay $3 per piece for.

I have this obsession with apples. I especially love the crunchy ones, and I eat the whole apple. All the way to the core. And then I spit out the seeds. I don't understand why people only eat the sides of the apple and throw away the core when it doesn't really taste much different. I always think I'm getting my worth out of my apple when I eat the whole thing (;

So I was searching around for an apple-y cupcake recipe, while thinking of being lazy and just throwing in apple bits and ground cinnamon into the cupcake batter, just like what I did for my Apple Muffins. Then I found these amazing Apple Pie Cupcakes from Theresa over at The Craving Chronicles. She is awesome she has the coolest and totally mouth-watering food and recipes that I just drool and faint over *o*

I have a trusty cupcake recipe from my mom, so I just used it, and incorporated Theresa's idea of the apple pie filling using the recipe she stated. Then I was out of eggs and Theresa's frosting recipe requires egg whites, so I ended up using this Buttercream Frosting from The Cupcake Project. Not sure whether this is the best one, but it's rather convenient, and I substituted all the orange things with salted caramel. Recipe for the salted caramel is from here! I added a little but more whipping cream than stated, to make the caramel a little runnier.

And this was it!! I drizzled leftover salted caramel over the tops, and they look so good (: I brought this to A levels results day to diffuse the nervous tension, and everyone fell in love with this cupcake, from the icing to the moist cake and the crunchy apples inside. Perhaps I should have cooked the apples a bit longer, but I do so love crunchy apples x)

And also, I'm so happy with my results! Straight As (: Merit for H3 Biodiversity though, but I guess I should be happy with the rest (:

I think this is worthy of Twelve Cupcakes, yeah?

Brownies with Oreo and Dulce de Leche

So there was one day where I was just surfing the net and making myself hungry by looking food blogs, and I came across this Dulce de Leche recipe from David Lebovitz! It sounded super awesome and heavenly and simple to make so I just went ahead to the super market to buy a can of condense milk ;D

And here it is! In all its golden and sweet-smelling glory. It works quite wonderfully as an ice cream topping, but it's too sweet for macarons. Downside to the simple recipe is that it requires a really long time in the oven, not very ideal when the electricity bills are already sky high :/

As my heart was in pain from the electricity bills, I had to put the Duche de Leche into good use. As I have this trusty brownies recipe from Martha Stewart, I decided to make brownies filled with dollops of this milky goodness and scattered with leftover oreo cookies from my previous baking of Cookies and Cream Mint Macarons.

The outcome was rather magical! I love the texture of the softened oreos and the randomly scattered sweet drops of dulce de leche amongst the bitter and chewy brownie. And did I mention how I looove the brownie crust? <3 10="" a="" and="" awesome.="" beyond="" crust="" egg="" ensure="" for="" formation.="" has="" is="" it="" martha="" minutes="" mixture="" of="" p="" stewart="" sugar="" the="" thick="" to="" whisking="" whole="" words.="" you="">

Peanut Butter Cups Macarons!

I spent January to February working, and on my last week of work, I decided to bake some macarons for my colleages as a farewell present (: I was itching to try a Reese's-inspired flavour, and hence I made some peanut butter cups macarons!

For the filling, I mixed some creamy peanut butter with some warm whipping cream, and then piped a circle on plain macaron shells. Then I added a dollop of dark chocolate ganache in the center. These were a huge hit at my office, and everyone told me it was wonderful, and I thought they were all just being nice. But when I got home and took a bite out of the tiny one that I saved for myself- wow.

These are officially my new favourite macaron flavour!

I thought peanut butter was one of the best fillings ever in macarons, but POW with dark chocolate, it wins plain old peanut butter hands down. The nutty flavour combined with the bitter dark chocolate tastes heavenly and complements the sweet shells without overpowering it.

I also made my all-time favourite green tea macarons with green tea dark chocolate, as well as mocha macarons with coffee-infused dark chocolate.

I discovered something interesting! When I added the macha powder or coffee powder to the dark chocolate, it was at room temperature. Somehow the flavours weren't awaken when it wasn't heated, so when people bite into the macarons, the first thing they taste was the dark chocolate, and then the green tea or coffee flavour explodes at the back of their tongues. Quite exciting!