Christmas tree cupcakes {green tea cream cheese frosting}

This is my first Christmas featured post :D Of course it's post Christmas but this is definitely a recipe that's worth bookmarking for the future. I never imagine it's so fun to create a forest of mini christmas tree cupcakes. As I was still brainstorming this year's Christmas treats for my family, I came across these inspirations by Martha Stewart (which I am hoping to recreate someday) and these cute meringues. In combination of our Tasty Tales' original cupcake recipe, I made my very own Christmas tree cupcake! 

In the real kitchen, I had to admit it was quite a mess. The original plan was to make cute christmas tree meringues on top of the frosting, but it didn't happen smoothly and I changed to plan B. Then the digital weight went out of battery and I ended up making everything manually using my best guess and my measuring cups. I am thankful those frosting came out amazing which completes my entire mission. 

Ingredients:

Cupcake recipe (I mixed the batter together to create marbled patterns, so it only yielded 6 cupcakes)
80g unsalted butter
120g sugar
2 large eggs
45ml milk
90g natural plain yoghurt
130g plain flour
1g (1/4 tsp) salt
2g (1/2 tsp) baking powder
10g unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 tsp vanilla extract (optional)

Green tea cream cheese frosting (enough for 6 cupcakes)
adapted from here
125g cream cheese (preferably Philadelphia)
50g unsalted butter
1/4 cup icing sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla bean paste
1 tablespoon milk (optional)1 1/2 tsp green tea powder
2 drops of green food coloring

Decorations
Assorted sprinkles for tree decoration

Steps:

Marbled Cupcakes

1. Preheat oven to 180 °C (356 °F). Line muffin trays with festive liners. Sift flour, salt and baking powder. Make sure butter, eggs and milk are in room temperature
2. Beat in eggs. One at a time
3. Add flour mixture and beat until everything JUST incorporates. DO NOT OVERMIX!
4. Stir in milk and yogurt. Mix well then add vanilla extract if desirable
5. Split half of the batter, half plain and half add cocoa powder to make chocolate batter
6. Pour lined muffin tray until 2/3 full with the plain batter, then scoop 2-3 teaspoons of chocolate batter into each one. Use a toothpick to swirl a marble pattern
7. Put the tin into the oven and immediately turn down to 150 °C (302 °F). Bake for 18-20 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. Transfer the tin to a wire rack to cool

Green tea frosting

1. Meanwhile the cupcakes are cooling down, use an electric mixer to cream butter and cream cheese until fluffy and soft (Make sure cream cheese and butter are in room temperature)
2. Sift icing sugar into the mixture gradually and mix until smooth and stiff
3. Add vanilla paste, green tea powder, food coloring and milk until a smooth consistency
4. Put frosting into a star tip piping bag and pipe out the frosting into a tree shape! 
5. Decorate the frosting with festive sprinkles. Enjoy!

Jungle party: Animal butter cookies {no-chill recipe I}

Okay, I know I have a batch of experiments I should have updated in November and ended up pushing back to December. Too many reasons but no more excuses this year :( First post I need to catch up is about these butter cookies. So flavorful and so soft, yet it stays in shape. One thing I haven't been able to achieve is the "no-chill" claim by the original recipe. I hope at some point I can provide some good news. Baking cookies is such a fun activity for friends hang-out, with kids, and special occasions. My first try of no-chill cookie recipe was for my son's first birthday party (which will update soon!), but I am intrigued to try this out when I saw the name "The End-All for Chocolate Cookies Recipe". No-chill mission didn't succeed but still a very tasty recipe – definitely worth trying! I adapted this recipe from Lilaloa's version, and split the batter into two flavors (matcha and cocoa), which taste absolutely amazing. 

Ingredients:
1 cup butter
1/4 cup shortening (optional, if not you can substitute with extra butter)
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/3 cup cocoa

1/3 cup matcha powder
3 or 3 1/2 cups flour

Steps:

1. Preheat oven at 375 F° (190 C°). Line baking sheets on cookie trays
2. Cream butter, shortening (if you have it) and sugar together. Add eggs and vanilla. Mix well
3. Split dough in half before adding any dry ingredients. Add baking powder and salt and mix again. Add flour 1 cup at a time. For no-chill cookie dough, add 3 1/2 cups flour. If you will chill the dough for later stop at 3 cups
4. Split the flour in half, mix in cocoa powder in one half and matcha in another. Mix until roughly combine. Do not over mix
5. Roll the dough into about 3/16"(about 5mm) thick, and use your desired cookie cutters (I used safari animals and fruits this time!)
6. Bake cookies for 6-7 minutes or until golden brown
7. Remove from oven and cool the cookies on the cooling rack. If you stack them too soon they will get soft from the hot steam

Enjoy!