Printer-Friendly Recipe
For Halloween I did a giveaway for a copy of The Hello Kitty Baking Book. My video gives you a sneak peek of this adorable cookbook.
The Cookbook
It is an excellent price and would make a fun yet unusual Christmas present so I wanted to review it here on my blog. A lot of the recipes call for a Hello Kitty cookie cutter and I looked around and even went out to Michaels but could not find one and ordering online would take too long. So I decided to make the Mini Chocolate Sweetheart Cupcakes instead. What could do wrong?
The Recipe
This is the Hello Kitty Perfect Pink Cake recipe divided in half to make the cupcakes which was a super pain in the ass. I had to get Reg to help me with the math but here it is:
Dry Ingredients: 3/4 cup + 2 tbsp all purpose flour, 1 cups sugar, 1/4 cup + 2 Tbsp cocoa powder, 1 tsp baking powder and 1/2 tsp salt.
Sift flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a mixing bowl. Whisk until combined.
Wet Ingredients: 1/2 cup whole milk, 1/4 cup vegetable oil, 1 eggs, room temperature, 1/2 tsp vanilla extract, 1/4 cup hot coffee and 1/4 cup hot water.
Add to dry ingredients in three batches, whisking after each addition.
Add hot coffee and water. Stir to combine. Scrape bottom of bowl with rubber spatula.
Divvy into each paperliner to 3/4 full.
Bake for 15-20 minutes until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean. Mine were done in 15 minutes.
Foodie Results
Oh my god do not attempt this without paper liners! I did not have ones for the mini cupcakes and instead greased the hell out of them. The problem? The mini cupcakes are so damn tender that they were almost impossible to remove from the tray.
As a result of using toothpicks and mini spatulas to dig them out, they looked all funky! It was at this point I decided to forego making the cream cheese frosting. I thought for sure this was just going to be a disaster.
When it comes to cleaning, it was one HELL of a disaster! Oil! Thankfully I now have paper liners and will not be making this mistake again.
I took this photo and thought, well, maybe I can rescue these little guys and get a real photoshoot of them? I tasted one and it just melted in my mouth. I love it when a cupcake is so good it does not require frosting. These are that good. Doesn’t mean I won’t frost them though!
I got out a bottle of PC The Decadent Chocolate Chip Cookie Spread (please tell me the rumour of its foodie demise is incorrect) and lightly smeared the cupcake top with this delicious spread. Which wasn’t easy to do considering they were already decapitated and so tender.
It was worth it though! The frustration of dividing the recipe in half, scraping the mini muffins out of the tin… All of it. These were damn good! Perhaps some of the best mini brownies I have ever had.
I wish I could give them five out of five but there were logistic issues with the actual recipe I can not ignore. As a result, I give them four and a half out of five wooden spoons.
So glad I bought cupcake liners! I will be making these again. A total foodie winner despite the hassle and frustration. We ate them all in just a manner of days and they remained super soft and chocolatey.
Not sure I’m understanding but this is where metric kicks ass. So easy to reduce a formula with metric. That being said, I enjoyed reading this post and as I type to you, there’s an apple crumble bumble pie, cooling in the fridge.
Have a great new week and again, neat guitar pick maker, you gave Reg.
And damn that pie looks awesome Ivy! Thanks, I’m a little nervous about everything he is going to start punching with it but it’s all good.
Mmmmm, I’d eat them all anyway. Who cares what they look like? I’m a practical person that way.
Same here Debra! The hard part was getting them out of the damn tin so we could eat them!