Cupcake Sugar Cookie Pops

A while back, I saw these beauties featured on one of my favorite food blogs, Our Best Bites, and knew that I had to try it! This blog always has such great tutorials on how-to's. They make the most complicated things seem easy! Even this sugar cookie business.


I haven't had a whole lot of experience with decorating sugar cookies. I've never gone all out and covered the entire cookie with beautiful designs, as I have seen others do fantastically! I've only done the draw-a-few-white-lines-on-snowflake-cookies thing. It's...a daunting thing to take on, you know? But after reading meticulously through Our Best Bites' tutorials, I felt like I was ready!

(Since they do such a great and thorough job on guiding you through the process, and since I'm such a novice at this whole sugar cookie decorating thing, I'm going to be brief in this entry. I will only discuss the areas that I personally had problems with. For more info, please reference their awesome site for detailed tutorials- see links below. They explain it better than I ever could!)

(1) The Sugar Cookie Dough

Their sugar cookie recipe was super easy to follow and make. It came together really well, and quite quickly! On their site, they say to refrigerate it after the dough comes together for about 1-2 hours.


However, as a time saving tip, they suggested rolling out the dough right away and sticking it in the freezer. I found that this was the best way to go. I tried it both ways and found that freezing it was more effective than refrigerating it because:

(1) Freezing it only takes about 5 minutes before the dough is good to go- SO much less time!
(2) Freezing it automatically gives you the right consistency, so that the dough lifts up easily after you cut into it.
(3) With the refrigeration method, I found it harder to control the consistency of the dough, making it harder to cut out the cookies. Sometimes, if I left it in for too long, the lump of dough would be too cold to even roll out. Then, if I left it out to warm a bit, it might get too soft, then I'd end up freezing it anyway, after I rolled it out.

Basically, forget the refrigeration step. Go straight to rolling it out and freezing it for 5 minutes. As for the excess dough, it will be too hard to roll back into a ball at first, so leave it aside and work on a different piece. It will thaw out quickly. Or you can play around with it a bit by rolling it with your hands. This will speed up the process.

(2) Making the Sugar Cookie Pops

One of the reasons why I put off making these was because I didn't have the right cutters. I wanted something cool and kept my eye out for it whenever I was at kitchenware stores (which is quite often). Imagine my excitement when I saw these cupcake cutters at Crate and Barrel! I couldn't believe it! Perfect for my blog, wouldn't you say?! They came in two sizes, too! Yup, there were two cutters in each pack!


I only used the smaller cookie cutter because the larger one would've been too heavy for the lollipop sticks.


I bought some 6 inch long lollipop sticks from Michael's, which ended up being the perfect length.

You see how the cookie dough doesn't sit flatly on the lollipop stick? I was worried about that. I wanted my cookie to bake flat, but it looked like that wasn't going to happen. I think I didn't roll out my dough to be thick enough.


Here's what they looked like when they came out of the oven. They expanded a bit, but not too much. Not enough to become flat and completely cover the lollipop stick. I started to panic and thought about baking another batch. But then I thought: hey, maybe I can cover it up with frosting! So I pushed on.


The cookies held up pretty well! Here's a front and back view. They weren't falling off the stick, as I was half expecting.

(3) Frosting and Decorating

Their icing recipe consists of a few simple ingredients: light corn syrup, powdered sugar, milk, and extract.


The directions were really easy to follow and pretty soon I achieved the right consistency.

I used simple icing bags and snipped off the tips ever so slightly. Yess! Ready to decorate!

It was easier than I expected! Although, I did use really simple decorating techniques. =) I basically just colored them in and stuck on some M&Ms.

Leave the cookies sitting out for about 24 hours, so that the frosting can dry and set.

(4) Cute Packaging!

I found some clear treat bags, a spool of cute ribbon, and an amazing cupcake stamp from Impress.


The stamp is a two-in-one! On one side of it, there's the cupcake image, and on the smaller end, you can use it to stamp the words "hey cupcake." How cute is that?!


I also made a few non-pop cookies. These packaged up nicely! I used the "Hey Cupcake" stamp to seal the back of each package. It worked out pretty well with some double sided tape.


The pops turned out even better! I love how the ribbon matches the cupcake frosting! And see how you can barely notice the "wrinkles" in the cookie, now that they frosting has set and dried? Awesome!


For the pops, I attached the "Hey Cupcake" tags to the end of each ribbon. It turned out to be super cute too!


I'm really glad I finally got a chance to do this cookie project! It took a long time, from beginning to end, but it was really fun and acted as a great artistic outlet. Wouldn't these be perfect for a birthday party or shower?

Give these a try! If a novice like me can do it, anyone can! Just be sure to read through Our Best Bites' great tutorials first! =)

Click HERE for Our Best Bites' Sugar Cookie Decorating Tutorial
Click HERE for Our Best Bites' Sugar Cookie Pops Tutorial
Click HERE for Our Best Bites' Basic Sugar Cookie Recipe

Rose Water Cupcakes with Flour Frosting

These cupcakes were totally an experiment, from frosting to cake. I've never baked with rose water before and was super excited when I found some at a local kitchenware store. I didn't really know what to do with it, so I thought I'd stick with the basics before I branched out. Cupcakes, it was!


But instead of my usual SMB, I wanted to try a unique flour frosting recipe that I recently stumbled upon. The fact that it's made with a flour base instantly piqued my curiosity. I mean, flour in frosting? How weird was that?! I needed to taste it. Immediately.

Needless to say, I was super excited about the day of experimenting in my kitchen! New flavor, new frosting- new cupcake!

(1) The Rose Water Cupcakes

These cupcakes were really simple. Just use your favorite vanilla cupcake recipe and replace the vanilla extract with rose water. (Use whatever measurement the cake recipe calls for. You can probably even add a tiny splash of vanilla to it too, but I left it out because I didn't want it to mask the flavor of the rose water.) I personally like the Vanilla Cupcake recipe from Williams Sonoma. It's the same recipe I used for the Blueberry Lemon Filled Cupcakes.

(2) The Rose Water Flour Frosting

Ok, now on to the interesting part! I found this recipe on Obsessed with Baking.

In a heavy bottomed sauce pan, combine flour and sugar.

And add some milk. Don't worry if it produces flour clumps at first.

On medium heat, whisk constantly, making sure that it doesn't boil and that the clumps made by the milk has dissolved. After a few minutes, the mixture will thicken. Ready to go!


Transfer the mixture to a stand mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment and beat on high for several minutes until it has cooled. (Took me maybe ten minutes.)


Once the mixture has cooled, slowly add in the butter until well incorporated. This is what it looked like after all the butter was mixed in. It was a bit soft, which concerned me. Can you tell that it's like... mushy? Reminded me of a cream cheese frosting that was too soft. But I pushed on anyway.


At this point, I added 1/2 teaspoon of rose water and 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract, along with some red gel food coloring. Then I mixed it again for about a minute.


Hm.. still too soft. The consistency was off. You wouldn't be able to pipe with it. The instructions said that if this happens, you should stick it in the fridge to cool down. Ok, so I did that. Then I checked on it 15 minutes later. Still too soft. Then 40 minutes later. No good. Finally, more than an hour later, it looked like it had stiffened a bit, so I tired piping on the swirls. (You know, my usual swirly-cupcake-frosting-thing.) The swirls turned out ugly! I wish I had taken photos to show you guys. The frosting just wasn't stiff enough to hold.


So I had to use my off-set spatula. Which didn't make me happy, because I had to squeeze all that frosting back out of my piping bag. And I had already done this once before, when I decided to use a different tip (because I don't use couplers for my jumbo tips). The frosting was WAY soft... to the point where it was difficult to smooth out with an off-set spatula. humph! You know how I like my cupcake swirls...


So without the swirls, I had to find other ways to spruce these babies up. Luckily, I recently purchased these pretty pink liners that seemed to match the frosting pretty well!


Then I topped them off with some cute white sprinkles. Not bad. I was happy about being able to salvage them. (You know how obsessive compulsive I am about creating aesthetically pleasing cupcakes. tee hee.)

Ok, so how did they turn out? FANTASTICALLY! They were so delicious! The rose scent in the cupcake/frosting was phenomenal! It was subtly fragrant without being overly "perfume-y." It tasted like how a rose smells...wonderful! The frosting was pretty awesome in its own right. (I couldn't detect the flour at all. You wouldn't even know that it was there.) It was creamy, rich, and just melted in your mouth, without being too over overpoweringly sweet. Even though I didn't like the texture when I was piping it on, it was love at first bite! har har. It was very smooth and creamy- could definitely hold its own against other buttercreams!

These cupcakes have definitely made it to the top of my list! It's right up there with (gasp, dare I say), the chocolate salted caramel cupcake! I think the rose water frosting would also go well with a chocolate cupcake too. Well, doesn't everything go well with chocolate?

I highly recommend getting your hands on some rose water! It sure was a great flavor experience. =)

Click HERE for the WS Vanilla Cupcake Recipe.

Click HERE for the Rose Water Flour Frosting Recipe.

White Chocolate Mousse Cake

I meant to post this entry sooner, but I've been so busy recently that I don't know where all the time goes!


Anyway, as promised, here's a look at my third cake ever! It's the White Chocolate Mousse Cake from Salty's on Alki, a really well known and beloved seafood house in Seattle. I am so in love with this cake! It's one of my favorite desserts!

A significant part of the cake batter consists of egg whites beaten to soft peaks, giving the cake a super light and fluffy texture. The crumb is absolutely perfect! It's covered in white chocolate mousse and white chocolate curls, to finish! The white chocolate mousse is basically fresh whipped cream with melted white chocolate mixed in. It's the most fantastic blend of flavors and textures! It's so delicious and light on the palate that you'll find yourself eating slice after slice! I can never get enough of this cake!

(1) The Fluffy Egg-White Cake

Mix & sift the dry ingredients.

In a separate bowl, cream together butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.


Then add the vanilla.



Next, add the flour mixture, alternating with milk...


...until everything is well combined. Set aside.

Now, onto the egg whites! The eggs are supposed to be at room temperature. But if you don't have ones readily available, you can set them in warm water before separating out the whites. Beat until soft peaks form.

Only fold in 1/3 of the egg whites first.

Use a cutting motion from the middle of the bowl, and turning it as you fold.

Gently fold the rest of the egg whites into the batter until just combined. Don't over mix, or you'll destroy the air whipped into the egg whites and your cake will turn out to be tough and dense. This cake is supposed to be super light and airy.

Ok, now onto the baking part...when I last blogged about the White Velvet Matcha Cake, remember how I talked about the sides browning too quickly and the cake creating a dome in the center? Well, this is how to solve that problem:


You'll need some baking strips. You can find these at any specialty baking store. They are also available on Amazon for a pretty reasonable price. You gotta make sure to get the right sized strips- they come both for 8 inch and 9 inch pans.


So here's how you use them: wet the strips through entirely and then wring out the excess water. Wrap the strips around the pan and you're ready to go! This makes sure that the cake bakes evenly throughout, not browning the edges before the middle is fully done. It will also help with the dome shape. Grease the pan, and bake your cake as usual. I used 9 inch spring form pans and lined the bottom with parchment paper rounds.

Ok, one warning about the baking strips: the first time you use them, you'll think that your kitchen is on fire after about 5 minutes. It produced a super strong stink in my kitchen: like burning rubber. I kept checking on the cake every other minute, worried that the strips had caught on fire. I think it was just because they had never been used before. The second time I used them, the smell was hardly there. So don't be alarmed! hehe.

After I posted about the Matcha cake earlier this week, I received the most wonder email from a reader. She had some pretty fantastic tips for resolving these issues. Here's what she said:

Regarding the dome, the strips work great. But for your fans, they can also save a buck and make their own. Take an old terry towel and cut in strips that are twice the height of the pan. If the pan is 2 inches high, cut the towel in a 4 inch wide strip that is several inches longer than the circumference of the pan. Fold the strip in half lengthwise. Wet and wring out just like the boughten strip. Wrap around the pan and attach with a metal t-pin, safety pin (you don't need to close it) or a metal office binder clip. Works just like the boughten strips. It also helps to lower the oven to 325 when baking.

And if you take a metal flower nail, spray with some Pam, and after you pour the batter, place the nail upside down in the center of the pan. So the top of the flower nail is touching the pan and the nail is sticking up. The strips slow down the baking on the outside edge of the pan, the nail brings more heat into the batter in the center of the pan. Both allow the center to bake at the same time as the edge. When I use the strips, 325 oven, and a flower nail I never have a dome. Nice and flat with no cutting a dome off or having uneven layers.

Wow! I was so amazed by how savvy and creative she was! I never thought to make my own strips! The flower nail tip was pretty cool, wasn't it? I haven't tried it yet, but the next cake I bake, I'll be sure to put it to the test! Flower nails can be found anywhere- even at Michael's. It's the kind you use to pipe buttercream roses. Thanks so much, Denette, for the awesome tips!

(2) The Red Currant Filling

The recipe called for red currant jelly as the filling. Basically all you do is whisk the jelly until it becomes smooth. There's not actually a whole lot of it once you spread it around the cake. The idea is to have a tiny bit of flavor in the center. However, I always wish there was more! I'd double what the recipe calls for, to get a more flavorful cake!

(3) The White Chocolate Curls

The chocolate curls are super easy to make. Be sure to use a high quality white chocolate bar, with real cocoa butter in it. I usually get mine from Whole Foods. All you have to do is take a potato peeler to it. I have a nice red one with a ceramic blade from Sur La Table. It works perfectly on white chocolate.


A great trick to getting perfect curls: warm up the surface of the chocolate first, before curling. Do this by placing the palm of your hand over the bar of chocolate for a few seconds before shaving the chocolate. This will make sure it's soft enough to curl easily, without breaking.

(4) The White Chocolate Mousse

First, melt your white chocolate and make sure it's had ample time to cool down completely.

In an electric mixer, beat heavy whipping cream until stiff peaks form.


Yay! I love freshly whipped whip cream!


Pour in the white chocolate..


...and mix until well combined.

If your chocolate is still slightly warm, you'll get chunks of white chocolate in your whipped cream, and it won't be as smooth. It's fine if this happens, it'll still taste just as great!

What you can do is slowly drizzle the melted chocolate in while the mixer is running. This will also reduce the chances of getting clumps. (I find that folding it in by hand usually creates more lumps.)

(5) Putting it all together

Start with the first layer. Spread the red currant jelly evenly.

See how beautifully the sides of the cake turned out to be this time?! =) The baking strips worked like a charm! (Thanks Patricia!) Although, there was still a tad bit of a dome on top that I had to trim down, but it wasn't such a big deal this time. It was a tiiiiiiiiiny dome that probably wouldn't have made a difference if I didn't trim it. But I wanted to get rid of the "brown top" anyway, so I gave it a tiny trim. I will be sure to try the nail thing next time! It sounds so cool! hehe. And wouldn't it be nice to get a completely flat layer?! I'll be sure to let you know how it goes. =)

Anyway, moving on... spread some white chocolate mousse over the red currant layer.



Continue to frost the cake completely, until the entire thing is covered with the white chocolate mousse.

Then top with white chocolate curls to finish!

I didn't mean to do another cake with white chocolate curls. It just so happens that this cake was designed that way. The curls are super forgiving and will cover a lot of flaws. Whipping cream is hard to get smooth anyway, so the curls are perfect. But I really need to do some cakes with "real" decorating, by using a SMB or IMB. That's what I really need to practice!

Remember how I last talked about icing tips that I got from my readers? Well, Denette had something to say about those too:

To use the roller (or viva paper towel technique that is also popular and effective) you need a buttercream that crusts. You have to be able to lightly touch it with your finger and the buttercream won't come off on your finger.

I'm glad she told me this because I was super excited about trying out the roller technique. But as you all know, I don't ever use American buttercream that crusts. So, she saved me from a lot of potential frustration! hehe. I wasn't aware that some techniques don't work on certain buttercreams. See what I mean about being a novice? hehe. =)

Ok, so how did this third one turn out??

Definitely better, since I had the baking strips. But I still had problems with the layers. I didn't weigh out the batter to make sure it was even this time- I should never skip that step!! hehe. because you can see here that my layers weren't even. I put more batter in one pan and less in the other. Also, when I went to trim the top, I didn't trim it entirely flat. And also, I seemed to have trimmed the edges more than the center..? lol. Not sure how I pulled that one off! oh well, this just means that I have to practice more, right? hehe.


As for how it tastes: AMAZING! I brought it to a party and everyone loved it! A lot of people commented on the fact that it was super light and fluffy. Of what little we had left over, people were signing up to take some home!

It truly is a great cake! It's subtly sweet, but has a great flavor at the same time. I hope you will put this on your list of To-Trys, it truly is an amazing cake!



Click HERE for the recipes shown in this entry.