Cupcake Monday: Confetti & Beignets

I recently posted about my new blog ‘intentions’ (as opposed to resolutions) and another intention or rather, blog feature that I’m introducing today is Cupcake Monday. 

Now, don’t take the title too literally.  I probably won’t always stick to a post about cupcakes that I make.  There is a high chance that I will make some other confection or I might share a recipe with you that I found through another source.  It’s whatever floats my boat.  For the most part, however, I will try to stick to doing a new cupcake every weekend to post every Monday – barring any tragedies ;)

Today we have two baked treats to share.

To start, my very first Cupcake Monday features the (saved for another time) Valentine’s Day Confetti Cupcakes that me and the Little Diva made.  We also tested the Beignet recipe that was in her Princess and the Frog cookbook (more on that later):

Since I never got around to making the planned cupcakes for the Sweets & Treats party that we hosted for Valentine’s Day, I told Miss Thing we’d make them over the weekend. So, we got to bakin’ and decoratin’….

We took my Triple Vanilla Cupcake recipe and added red and pink sprinkles into the batter and they were some kind of good!  The picture doesn’t show it, but I came up with the idea to do two-tone frosting.  Using a large star piping tip, I piped on a swirl of pink frosting on the outer layer and a drop of white in the center.  My daughter thought sticking a lollipop in the center would be ‘fun’.  I think it is a great substitution for a cupcake pick! 

Here are the other cupcakes we decorated.  Actually my daughter wanted to use the ‘swirly thing’ again (aka star piping tip) and this is what we got:

I think our Valentine's Day Cupcake do-over was a success!

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be getting items together for The Little Diva’s Princess and the Frog themed party for her birthday.  My daughter got a Princess Tiana’s Cookbook for Christmas and has been begging to make beignets.  So, we tested the recipe from the book.   

Honestly, I never even heard of a beignet until I saw the movie, so I was a bit apprehensive about making them.  I have a thing about dough; we don’t get along unless it’s already baked and coated with either sugar or cheese.  That’s why I tend not to do cookies or bread or pie…..However, I sucked it up, put on my game face, pretended like mommy knew what she was doing and powered through.   

Here is how they turned out:

They reminded me of those zeppole's you get at the Italian Fair. 

According to the my little princess, the beignets were really ‘so, so, yummy mommy!’  So, my plan is to make these for the party.  They have to be made and eaten the same day within a few hours of making them or they loose their joie de vivre. 

I would share the recipe with you, but since it came from a published cookbook, I can’t.  You can however find the book here.

….and you can see the ingredients and steps/tips here:

Flour

Sugar

Buttermilk

Water

Egg

Vanilla

Baking Soda

Baking Powder

Nutmeg (next time I’ll use more, I’m originally from Connecticut and I dig nutmeg)

Confectioner’s Sugar 

First, we added all the dry ingredients…… 

then all the wet ingredients….

We mixed everything until well combined and doughy….

We floured our work surface and top of the dough and flattened it out into a square; this part was a bit tricky and messy because the dough is sticky.  I just had my ‘assistant’ and her ‘assistant’ sprinkle more flour when it got too sticky until I was able to work with it.

Then we cut the dough into 2.5” squares. I did let the dough rest for 10 minutes - this step isn’t in the cookbook but I thought that it would help them rise a bit.

I heated a large pan of oil up to 325 degrees using a candy/deep fry thermometer and dropped the dough pieces into Crisco ® Vegetable Oil one at a time.  (Note: Technically, you shouldn’t put more than 3 pieces into the pan at a time to keep the oil from losing heat – clearly, I cheated). We then let them fry to a golden brown on each side for about 3 minutes…

Next, we removed the beignets from the oil and let them cool on a wire rack and sprinkled them with powdered sugar.  They’re best eaten within 1-2 hours after frying and if you don’t have a sifter you can put the sugar in a bag and toss the beignets in there and shake the bag to coat them with the sugar.

VOILA!!!! 

Princess Tiana’s Beignet’s

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