Rose Water And Raspberry Cupcakes

It's been a quiet few months here. After Christmas and New Years are both over, everyone seems to go into hibernation mode. Well, at least here in Canada, where it has been a super cold and dreary winter.

Everyone hides and inside and there are very few reasons to bake or use the new cupcake book and supplies that I got for Christmas.

Yes, I was the lucky recipient of a William-Sonoma gift-card this Christmas! 

The first thing I bought was this amazing cupcake book.

That was quickly followed by a jar of rose water and a jar of orange blossom water. I have been looking for those everywhere!

As St. Patrick's Day approached, my work's social committee decided to have a comfort food pot-luck. And what is more appropriate for me than to make cupcakes?

Since I really wanted to use the new stuff that I had got, I decided to make these!

(sorry, I forgot to take process shots again)

Rose Water and Raspberry Cupcakes

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

3/4 cup confectioners' sugar

1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 tbsp rose water

2 large eggs, at room temperature

1/2 cup whole milk

Position oven rack in the middle of oven; preheat oven to 350°; line a standard 12-cup muffin pan with paper or foil liners.

In a small bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, and salt together; set aside.

In another bowl, with an electric mixer on med-high speed, beat the powdered sugar and butter together until light and fluffy, 2-3 minutes.

Add in rose water and the eggs, one at a time, beating on low speed until combined after each addition.

Add in the flour mixture in 3 additions, alternating with the milk in 2 additions, beating on low speed until just combined; scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.

Divide the batter evenly among the prepared muffin cups, filling each about 3/4 full.

Bake until lightly golden and a pick comes out clean, 15-18 minutes.

Let the cupcakes cool in the pan on a wire rack for 5 minutes; transfer the cupcakes to the wire rack to cool completely, about 1 hour

Rose Water Glaze

1 cup confectioners' sugar

1 tbsp while milk, plus more as needed

1 tsp rose water

2 drops red food colouring

Make the glaze--in a bowl, whisk the sugar, milk, rose water, and food colouring together until smooth; the glaze should be spreadable. If too thick, whisk in additional milk a few drops at a time. If too thin, whisk in additional sugar, one teaspoon at a time; use right away.

Spoon the glaze over the cupcakes (the glazed cupcakes can be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to 3 days; bring to room temperature before finishing).

Top each cupcake with the fresh raspberries and sugared rose petals (if using), dividing evenly, and serve.

Don't they look super pretty?

They were really delicious, although a bit intense with the rose water. I would cut it back a bit next time.

These weren't really the right thing to take to a comfort food pot-luck. They are a little too fancy for that. They would be much better suited for an afternoon high tea.

I will for sure make them again.

Star Wars Sugar Cookies: Flood Addition

You may recall when I started this blog back in 2010, I goal was to make Star Wars Cookies that looked like this

Well, today I am one step closer to this awesomeness.

This past weekend I learned how to flood cookies! YAY!

What is flooding, you ask? It's a technique that I've been reading on some of may favorite baking blogs like Bake At 350 and have wanted to try for years. It's how you get your icing to looks super smooth; like the picture above.

Here's a video to give you an idea of how it works.

Since my royal icing sucks, I decided to try out her recipe as well, which I have decided that I like much, much better than mine.

4 tbsp meringue powder
scant 1/2 cup water (as in not quite)
3 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 - 1 tsp light corn syrup

Combine the meringue powder and water. With the paddle attachment of an electric mixer, beat until combined and foamy.
Sift in the powdered sugar and beat on low to combine. (Do NOT skip the sifting!)
Add in the corn syrup and extract if desired. (I added almond extract)
Increase speed to med-high/high and beat for about 5 minutes, just until the icing is glossy and stiff peaks form.
(You should be able to remove the beater from the mixer and hold up and jiggle without the peak falling.) Do not overbeat.
Cover with plastic wrap touching the icing or divide and color using gel paste food colorings.
This "stiff" icing is perfect for outlining and even for building gingerbread houses and monogramming. To fill in your cookies, add water to your icing a teaspoon at a time, stirring with a rubber spatula, until it is the consistency of syrup. This technique of filling a cookie with thinned icing is called "flooding." - Royal Icing 102

Now, before I show you my flooded cookies, lets take a trip in time to see my Star Wars cookie progress so far.

June 2010

Remember us? Don't you wish you could forget again?

July 2010

A little bit better? I'm not so sure.

Well, this time I wanted to do it right. There are 2 reasons for this;

1) Ron's sister and her girlfriend bought me the only set of Star Wars cookies cutters that I didn't have for Christmas! Now I own all of them!! (Thanks Sam and Rico!!)

2) I had been commissioned to make a Boba Fett bag for this really nice guy to give to his girlfriend for Christmas, but I underestimated the time it would take to get there and it didn't arrive in time! I was horrified, but they were really great about it, so I decided to make and mail them some Star Wars cookies to make it up to them.

So I started off by outlining the cookies

Note: Don't waist time with details that you'll just end up flooding over and having to redo. Learn from my mistake. Let that fully dry before adding the flooded icing.

As you can see, most of the detail is hidden, and what isn't didn't turn out as well as I wanted.

You may also notice that some of the scalloped cookies seem to have stuff on them. Well, Sam and Rico also got me the Star Wars Cupcake Stencil Set so I decided now was the perfect time to try them out.

These bad boys are curved slightly for cupcakes, so they didn't quite sit flat, which made them a little hard to use. Also, coloured sanding sugar is a little too coarse to work properly, a shimmer dust would've worked much better. As it were, I went wit icing sugar and it worked pretty well. Since I was already using the sifter, I sifted the sugar to get a nice soft, even coat.

Finally, once all the flood icing is dry, you can add the detail back on and voila, your cookies are done!

Tie fighters are hard to decorate... Oh and that weird Death Star was me trying out some food colour markers that I got for Christmas

I like the black outlined Darth Vader's better that the white

Is it just me or does this picture remind you of KISS?

So, I know I'm not up to professional quality yet, but I do totally think that I'm on my way. Practice makes perfect, right?
Now, all that was left was to package some of them up and mail them. I used this guide from Allrecipes and I think I did pretty good. I can't wait til they receive them! Hopefully they'll all be in one piece. They seem like such a nice Star Wars couple. He even sent me pictures of her with her new bag!

isn't she adorable? What a great Christmas gift ;p

Speaking of Christmas, check out some of the awesome things I got!

My mom got me heart measuring cups and spoons!!! YAY!

Ron got me a really kick-ass pasta maker with a ravioli attachment! (don't worry, more on that to come)

Oh yeah! Stormtrooper Mug!!!

My Mother also got me this amazing apron!

I love cherries!!!

Look at the cute checkered ruffle around the bottom!!

And, as mentioned above, Food Writers!! Darth Vader has never looked so colourful!

Star Wars Sandwich Cutters

That's right folks, it's sandwich time... Star Wars Sandwich time!

Williams-Sonoma is back with more awesome SW stuff for me to add to my already ridiculous addiction to Star Wars related food.

Like the pancake molds (which I bought at the same time as the cookie cutters), I'm a little worried that they're not going to get used or at least not for their intended purpose. You see I don't really like sandwiches, or pancakes for that matter, but I'm still intrigued by this product.

Oh hell, I'll probably just use them as cookie cutters and make cute falcon and tie cookies.

These run a little steep at $30 USD, but they do come with a collectible tin, so at least I will now have somewhere to store all my treat tools.

I can't wait to see what they come out with next!

Come on pie mold or cakelet pan!