The first BWF event was hosted at Magaly’s house, one of the many beautiful members of the “Venezuelan Mafia” (see About section).
There were about 15 people in the kitchen working on four recipes: Red velvet cupcakes, cream cheese frosting, sugar cookies, and a lemon bundt cake.
Red velvet cupcakes:
Ingredients
- 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon cocoa powder
- 1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
- 1 cup buttermilk, room temperature
- 2 large eggs, room temperature
- 2 tablespoons red food coloring
- 1 teaspoon white distilled vinegar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line 2 (12-cup) muffin pans with cupcake papers.
In a medium mixing bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder. In a large bowl gently beat together the oil, buttermilk, eggs, food coloring, vinegar, and vanilla with a handheld electric mixer. Add the sifted dry ingredients to the wet and mix until smooth and thoroughly combined.
Divide the batter evenly among the cupcake tins about 2/3 filled. Bake in oven for about 20 to 22 minutes, turning the pans once, half way through. Test the cupcakes with a toothpick for doneness. Remove from oven and cool completely before frosting.
Courtesy of foodnetwork.com
- 1 pound cream cheese, softened
- 2 sticks butter, softened
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 4 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar
Directions
In a large mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese, butter and vanilla together until smooth. Add the sugar and on low speed, beat until incorporated. Increase the speed to high and mix until very light and fluffy.
Courtesy of foodnetwork.com
These are both easy recipes to complete but mixing the powdered sugar in with the cream cheese can be a tiring task but luckily Steven’s strong arm helped us mix the icing to a smooth consistency and because of his performance was given the title “Ice King.” After finishing both of these quick recipes, we iced the cupcakes and simply decorated them with Christmas-themed sprinkles. They were delicious!
Sugar cookies:
Ingredients
- 3 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup margarine, softened
- 1 1/2 cups white sugar
- 2 eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- Sift flour, baking powder, and salt together, set aside. In a large bowl, cream together the margarine and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Gradually blend in the sifted ingredients until fully absorbed. Cover dough, and chill for 2 hours.
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Grease cookie sheets. On a clean floured surface, roll out small portions of chilled dough to 1/4 inch thickness. Cut out shapes using cookie cutters.
- Bake 6 to 8 minutes in the preheated oven, or until edges are barely brown. Remove from cookie sheets to cool on wire racks.
Courtesy of allrecipes.com
After letting the cookies sit in the refrigerator, we used Christmas-themed cookie cutters to make santas, Christmas trees, reindeer, ornaments, and stars. We used the leftover cream cheese icing that we made for the red velvet cupcake and turned our cookie icing portion of BWF into a competition to see who could decorate each shape the best. There were some clear winners, and some clear losers for each category (I’m pretty sure you can tell which ones won and lost from the second picture!)
Lemon Bundt Cake:
This recipe was actually a box recipe but it was still fun to make together! To top off the lemon bundt cake, we drizzled melted German chocolate over the top to add a delicate touch and a tasty complement to the lemon cake.
And here are some of the BWF-ers of the day:
Baking with Friends 
Leave a comment