Signs of Spring and Orange Pistachio Cupcakes

People.
Tulips are here. So are forget-me-nots. Also...the sun stays up til eight o'clock.
This means SPRING!
Okay, so it is still raining cold, hard, ugly rain and venturing outside usually means misery, but it's coming. There are signs. I love the signs.

So today being a Saturday completely to myself (my family is out of town) with zero obligations to the outside world I decided to wake up at 7 o clock in the morning and be HAPPY and PRODUCTIVE. (See  how those things are in caps? That means stuff just got real.) Do you know how much more time you have when you wake up at 7 instead of at ten? It's crazy...

So. What does HAPPY mean in my personal dictionary? It means making cupcakes. And cupcakes can kind of be productive, right? (I did three loads of laundry and cleaned all the bathrooms just to make sure I covered the PRODUCTIVE aspect of the morning. You know, just in case. I wanted there to be no doubts regarding the matter.)

Enter:
Happy Productive Signs of Spring Cupcakes;
Mandarin Orange and Pistachio Almond Cupcakes
So that's a long name. I'm sorry, you'll have to deal with it because all those words are important for everyone to understand how awesome these cupcakes are.
Fluffy almond cake: check

Juicy bits of mandarin oranges: check

Crunchy pistachios: check

Lightly sweet almond buttercream and cute springtime topping of orange segments and pistachios: check

Happiness and productivity: check

Now, decorating these cuties proved a challenge. I started with green tinted frosting. Because pistachio cupcakes=green. Understandable.

But it didn't look quite right. So I added orange tinted frosting to the equation. Better....But then I tried frosting them with just the plain white un-tinted frosting. I liked the way those ones looked best.

What can I say? I like simplicity. And it seems classier that way. But of course, when you make these yourself (You will be making these, right? RIGHT? Ok, good.) you can decorate them however you please. You can even skip all the trial and error of frosting tinting since I got that out of the way for you.

Mandarin Orange and Pistachio Almond Cupcakes (Makes 12)
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 Tablespoon baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
6 Tablespoons unsalted butter
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp almond extract
1/4 c. buttermilk
2 cans mandarin oranges, with syrup
1/2 cup shelled and chopped pistachios
Preheat your oven to 350 F and line a muffin tin with cupcake liners. Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt in medium bowl. Set aside. Open the cans of mandarin oranges and measure 1/4 of the syrup in to a small bowl. Add 1/4 cup of buttermilk to this syrup, set aside. Using mixer, cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time. Beat in vanilla and almond extract. Beat in the dry ingredients and milk/syrup mixture in 3 additions to the batter. Chop orange segments roughly to measure 1/2 cup. Fold with pistachios into the batter. 
Measure the batter into the muffin cups, filling 3/4 of the way full. Bake 20-25 minutes or until the tops spring back when lightly pressed. Let cool completely before frosting. Top with additional chopped pistachios and remaining mandarin orange segments.

Almond Buttercream Frosting:

1 lb powdered sugar

1/2 cup milk

1/4 tsp vanilla

1/4 tsp almond extract

1 stick of softened butter, cut into cubes

1/2 cup shortening

Whisk together sugar, vanilla, almond, and milk in stand mixer. Add butter one slice at a time, beating until incorporated. Add shortening and whip about 8 minutes until double. 

Once Again...

And once more, my oven ruins my plans.
I know that my oven bakes too hot. But it's a fact I try so hard to ignore. (I should just buy a freaking oven thermometer and get it over with)
Recently, The Duvall Church came to me with an order for over 100 desserts for their Volunteer Appreciation Dessert Event. (Hurray! We now dedicate this time to a moment of silent contemplation of over 100 desserts. Yes, we know. It's lovely.) Included in these tasty plans are 4 wonderful cheesecakes. So today, I whipped up a test cheesecake in order to catch any malevolent mishap that may spring up in the recipe I'll be using for the event.
Ah yes. Mishap in two words: cracked cheesecake.
My oven bakes too hot! I'm sure it was over baked as well. It isn't too awful. It IS a test bake and over baked cheesecake still tastes awesome. It just doesn't look too fancy.
So I'm topping the whole thing with orange marmalade sauce and mandarin orange slices. Cracks concealed and citrus goodness = crisis averted.

Cupcake Craze: Orange Dream

I set out to make two kinds of cupcakes for a family who came to dinner on Sunday. (They were VERY nice company. They laughed a lot and weren't scared to actually make real interesting conversation despite the fact we had just met.) Orange Dream and Key Lime. Key Limes are their own kind of animal, so this is all about my orange concoctions. I'm pretty excited because they turned out great! And I created the recipe on my own. The cupcake itself tasted like an Orange Creamsicle, but filled with Orange Marmelade and topped with Cream Cheese Frosting and candied orange peel, they were better. Our company (one of whom is a self confessed food snob) really liked them. :) That's the best part of baking- when people get happy from eating it. And for extra fun I'm posting my recipe for Candied Orange Peels. They are super tasty and fun to make. (Who am I kidding, everything is fun to make!) Plus they make the kitchen smell like that old fashioned orange peel potpourri that Christmas Fairs sometimes smell like.

Candied Orange Peels

Peel an orange with a vegetable peeler and put the peels in a pan of cold water. Heat the pan until the water is boiling. Let them boil for about 3 minutes. (The orange water smells great and you can save it for linen spray to keep your towels and sheets smelling orange and fresh)  Drain quickly and place in cold water. When the peels are cool enough to touch, drain them and pat them dry on paper towels. The next part is probably the most extensive part. Take a knife and scrape/slice off the white part that is normally closest to the fruit. Make sure you get all of it off. If you leave the slightest part on, the candy will be bitter. After they are all scraped, cut the peel into the shapes you want your candies to be. I usually cut them into thin strips so they look nice on a cupcake. You can cut them into fun shapes with kitchen scissors too, if you want. In the same pan you boiled the peels in before, mix 1/4 cup of water with 1/2 cup of sugar. Heat until the sugar is dissolved and the syrup is boiling. Add the peels to the syrup and boil them until they become transluscent. Then spoon them out of the syrup and roll in sugar. Place them on paper towels to dry. You can then use them to top cupcakes, cookies, muffins, or just to eat on their own.