Watermelon Cupcakes with Watermelon Cream Cheese Buttercream

 Difficulty: easy
Time consuming: about an hour start to finish for the cakes and 30ish minutes to make the frosting and top the cupcakes

Sweet Your Heart Out is officially 1 year old. I can't believe I've been posting recipes for a whole year. Although I didn't post as much as I wanted to, a lot has happened in the past year: another school year has passed, we went to Florida and planned our next vacation, we bought a new car, I started weight training at this awesome new gym (I can dead lift my body weight!), I replaced the bicycle I got in 2nd grade, I assisted coaching cheerleading, I coached a Girls on the Run team for my school, and  now we're in the process of buying a house!

So the best way to celebrate a year of sweet recipes and as a perfect way to kick off summer, I made watermelon cupcakes with watermelon icing. I brought 2 1/2 dozen of these to a party on Memorial Day weekend and they were gobbled up. The pink cake is moist and speckled with black jimmies to look just like watermelon seeds. The icing has cream cheese in it which I think helps temper the overall sweetness of the cupcake and keeps from having an overwhlming watermelon flavor. The watermelon flavor of these cupcakes reminded many of starbursts, jolly ranchers, or bubblegum.

I bought the black jimmies, large black nonpareils, chunky white icing sugar, and watermelon oil from Cincinnati Cake and Candy located in Reading , Ohio. For the cupcake liners, although I bought bright green liners, they turned brownish with the pink batter inside (flashback to basic art skills - complimentary colors make brown). To remedy that problem, I printed this cupcake liner template, traced it onto green scrapbook paper, and wrapped it around my cupcakes.

These cupcakes tasted phenomenal! But if you wanted to vary up the flavors a bit, I would try the watermelon cake with a vanilla basil buttercream, these watermelon cupcakes with white chocolate and lime, or just make a plain vanilla cake and tint it pink and use your favorite buttercream recipe - you could even add chocolate chips to the batter instead of jimmies to look like seeds since the chocolate would be paired with vanilla (yum) instead of watermelon (watermelon and chocolate, nothankyou).

Watermelon Cupcakes
Makes 2 1/2 dozen

Ingredients

Watermelon cupcakes
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened at room temperature
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 dram (1 teaspoon) watermelon flavoring oil (like Lorann) - link to ccc
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 – 16 ounce container (2 cups) sour cream
Food coloring (optional) (I used Wilton rose colored gel food coloring)
3-4 tablespoons black jimmies (optional)

Directions
Watermelon cupcakes

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. line to muffin pans with cupcake liners and set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt together and set aside.

2. In a large bowl or the bowl of a standing mixer, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.  Add eggs 1 at a time, mix well between each additions.  Add watermelon flavoring and mix to incorporate.

3.  Add 1/3 of the flour mixture, and mix until just combined.  Then add 1/2 the sour cream, beat until just mixed.  Then the second 1/3 of flour.  Then the last 1/2 of sour cream.  And finally add the last 1/3 of the flour mixture.  You should have mixed until combined between each addition.

4.  Add food coloring as desired.

5.  Fill cupcake liners about 2/3 of the way full, and bake for 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with only a few moist crumbs sticking to it.

Allow to cool completely before frosting.

Watermelon Frosting
makes enough to lightly (not huge swirls) frost 24 cupcakes

Ingredients
1 dram (about 1 teaspoon)  teaspoon watermelon flavoring (like LorAnn's)
1/2 cup butter
2 cups powdered sugar
8oz cream cheese, room temperature
*food coloring (optional)

1.  In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream the butter and cream cheese together.

2.  Add sugar (1/2 cup at a time so it doesn't *poof* all over the kitchen) and mix until blended.

3.  Add food coloring (if using) and watermelon extract, beat on high until light and fluffy.

*If you want a thicker frosting, add more powdered sugar.  If you want a thinner frosting, add milk 1 tablespoon at a time until the desired consistency is reached.

To make the cupcakes really look like watermelon, I rolled the edge of the frosting in white icing sugar (the big crystals) and dotted the top with large, black nonpareils.

Watermelon Cake recipe from Bakingom
Frosting from Group Recipes

Banana Split Cupcakes

Difficult: No
Time consuming: this was a 2 day cupcake for me, but no individual part took too long

Whenever given the option at an ice cream shop, I almost always opt for something predominantly chocolate.  Or covered in fudge.  Or blended with chocolate milk and more chocolate fudge.  I rarely ever go for a fruity flavor.  Unless is Graeter's Black Raspberry Chip, but that's about the only exception.

But when I saw these Banana Split Cupcakes on Annie's Eats, I knew I had to make them (and then donate them to the Lent fish fry as a courtesy to my waistline).  The banana cake is so moist and is the perfect vehicle for the strawberry and pineapple filling.  Topped with a whipped cream frosting, ganache, sprinkles, and a cherry, and that's as close to an ice cream banana split as you're gonna get.

The recipe yielded 33 cupcakes for me, but I only wanted to bring 24 cupcakes to church, since my husband really like the cake and wanted to take it plain as "muffins" to work for breakfast.

The Recipe:

yields 33 cupcakes

Ingredients

Banana cupcake
2½ cups all-purpose flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon. salt
12 tablespoons (1½ sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2½ cups sugar
6 eggs
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons buttermilk (If you don't have buttermilk on hand, use: 1 tablespoon of lemon juice in a glass measuring cup, then filled to the 1 cup line with milk, +2 tablespoons milk)
1 1/3 cups mashed ripe banana (for me, this was from 3½ bananas)

 Strawberry Pineapple Filling
10 ounces of diced, hulled strawberries, fresh or frozen (if frozen, thaw first)
1½ tablespoons powdered sugar
8 ounces canned, crushed pineapple (fresh would be better if you have it, but canned is fine)

Whipped Cream Frosting
12 ounces heavy cream
1½ teaspoons gelatin, + 6 teaspoons cold water
3/8 cup powdered sugar
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Ganache Topping**
 6 ounces chocolate (I used milk chocolate chips, but bittersweet chips or chopped bar chocolate is fine too)
2 ounces heavy cream
1 teaspoon corn syrup

*Note: the ganache I used had equal parts cream to chocolate (6 ounces cream, 6 ounces chocolate), but I found that it never really "set up" - even after cooling to room temperature, then an hour in the freezer, which made a kind of runny mess on my cupcakes.  So the ingredients above reflect ganache for a "hard glaze."  Also, the ganache I had made way too much, so hopefully I've adjusted the ingredients enough so that you can top the cupcakes (if not, let me know in the comments and I can try to fix it)

Garnish
marashino cherries
rainbow jimmies

Directions

Make the cupcakes
1.   Line cupake pan with liners, set aside.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt, set aside.

2.  In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add eggs 1 at a time, scraping the sides and bottom of the bowl between every egg or 2.  Mix in the mashed bananas.

3.  Add 1/3 of the flour mixture to the stand mixer, and mix until just incorporated.  Then add half of the buttermilk.  Mix.  Then another 1/3 of the flour mixture, mix.  Then the rest of the buttermilk, mix.  Finally, add the remaining 1/3 of the flour mixture and mix until just combined.

4.  Fill cupcake liners 2/3 of the way full, pop into the oven, reduce oven temperature to 325 degrees, and bake for 20 minutes.  The cupcakes should spring back lightly when touched, and a toothpick inserted should come out with only a few moist crumbs.  Let cool a few minute in the pan, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Make the filling
5. Macerate the chopped strawberries with the powdered sugar for at least a half hour.  Strain berries from liquid.  Strain pineapple from juices.  Set both aside.

Make the frosting
6.  Combine the gelatin and water in a small, microwave safe bowl.  Set aside for 3 minutes...

7.  In the meantime, in the bowl of a stand mixer, whip the cream and powedered sugar to soft peaks (do not over beat, you will end up with butter!)

8.  Back to the gelatin - microwave for 30 seconds so that it's completely liquidy and all the gelatin dissolved.  Let cool (but don't let it become solid).  With the mixer running on low, add the liquid gelatin to the cream, increase mixer speed, and beat until stiff peaks form.  Mix in vanilla.

Make the ganache
9.  Put the chocolate in a small bowl, set aside.

10.  Heat the cream in a small saucepan until it simmers, then pour over chocolate.  Let sit for a few minutes, then whisk to combine.  Add corn syrup, whisk to combine, and let sit so that it's cool but not too thick.

Assemble the cupcakes
9. Core out the middle of the cupcakes (using a cupcake plunge or the cone method), save the cake scraps.  Fill the cupcakes with scant a teaspoon of each strawberry and pineapple, then top with a portion of the cake from the core.


10.  Pipe the whipped topping on the cake (I used a large Wilton round tip).  Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.  Top with a spoonful of ganache.  Before the ganache sets, sprinkle with jimmies and garnish with a marashino cherry.




Cupcake recipe adapted from Annie's Eats
Ganache info from The Kitchn

DIY Colored Sugar

Difficulty: Easy
Time consuming: No

I saw a really interesting post on Pinterest the other day about making edible glitter.  I was pretty excited because even though I didn't have a project in mind, I could already see my cookies and cupcakes sparkling.  I followed the pin to the original site and it showed bowls of colorful and glittery glitter.  Using salt.  Eh, not so great for decorating sweets.  But another pinner had commented on it saying you could do it with sugar. 

So why not?  I measured 1/4 cup of sugar into a bowl and added 1/2 teaspoon of  liquid food coloring (I did mostly red with some drops of yellow), mixed until there was no more white, and baked on a foil lined baking sheet at 350 degrees for 10 minutes.  I was pretty sure the sugar was gonna melt together and I'd throw the whole thing away.  To my surprise, the sugar dried nicely with an awesome tint of red.  I sifted the sugar through a fine wire mesh sieve and stored in an airtight container.  Colored sugar can be pricey at stores and it's nice to know I can make my own at home!

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Ta da!

Adapted from Planetpals Craft Page