Karin's Cupcake Adventure

Pumpkin Pie

2015-11-14T22:43:00.001-06:00

This recipe has kind of become a family joke, or at least a joke between my Mom and me. A few years ago I was at a friend’s house getting ready for Thanksgiving and came prepared to make us a pumpkin pie. I brought a copy of our famous family recipe on a note card and all of the ingredients, including a can of Libby’s 100% pure pumpkin. I made the pie per our family recipe, doctoring it up with a bit more spice as I am wont to do.

I popped the pie in the oven and set about cleaning up, which is when I looked a little closer than normal to the recipe on the back of the Libby’s pumpkin can. It looked familiar, and I mean awfully familiar. In fact, it looked just like the famous family recipe I had on my note card. I grabbed my note card, and sure enough it was, ingredient for ingredient, identical to the Libby’s recipe.

Of course, I had to call my Mom and present her with the fact that I’d figured out her secret. I mean, who wouldn’t, right? She and I got a great laugh out of it (and still do), and she truly didn’t remember that she had copied the recipe from the can at some point in the past. It was the recipe we had used just about every year for as long as I could remember.

Last week, I was home visiting with my Mom and Dad, and since my sister, her husband and her oldest daughter were visiting as well, we decided to have an early Thanksgiving meal. And of course no Thanksgiving meal would be complete without the requisite pumpkin pie. So, Mom and I set about making the pies together. This time there was no secret to keep, so we just used the recipe right off the back of the can of Libby’s, with a little extra spice of course.

A few weeks ago, I made some pumpkin spice cupcakes that used my own mixture of Pumpkin Pie Spice, which as you’ve probably already guessed is what I also use in my pumpkin pie. I also love to make my own whipped cream for it (and it’s so easy with a mixer). This time we used store bought crusts for ease and speed, but if you want to make your own I recommend Alton Brown’s pie crust. It’s fool proof. As someone who was scared of making her own pie crusts for way too long, I speak from experience.

So below, please find my “spiced up” version of Libby’s Pumpkin Pie, and thanks for indulging me with our little family joke. J

Tomorrow I’m baking some gingerbread cupcakes, so stay tuned for that post in the near future.

"Secret" Family Pumpkin Pie

¾ cup granulated sugar

½ tsp salt

2 tsp Pumpkin Pie Spice

2 large eggs at room temperature

1 can 100% pure pumpkin – 15 oz.

1 can evaporated milk – 12 oz.

1 unbaked pie crust

Preheat oven to 425. If using store bought refrigerated crust, unroll and place in a deep dish pie pan. Pinch edges.

Mix the sugar, salt and pumpkin pie spice together and set aside.

In a large bowl whisk eggs with pumpkin and then stir in the sugar and spice mixture.

Slowly stir in the evaporated milk. Once thoroughly mixed, pour mixture into prepared pie crust.

Bake in 425 degree oven for 15 minutes then reduce the temperature to 350 and bake for another 40-50 minutes until the center looks set or until a sharp knife inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Let cool and then serve with whipped cream.

Hint: to help insure a nice moist pumpkin pie, when you put the pie in the oven place a 9” round cake pan filled halfway with water on the lower shelf. It will help keep your crust from burning and it’ll keep your pie from drying out.

Whipped cream

1 cup heavy whipping cream

2 tbsp granulated sugar

I find this works best in a pre-chilled metal mixing bowl with a pre-chilled whisk.

In the bowl of a mixer, put in both ingredients and whisk just until the cream reaches the stiff peak stage.

Use immediately, or store in an airtight container in the refrigerator and re-whisk a little bit just before using it.

Cranberry Bread

2015-11-08T13:42:00.000-06:00

A few weeks ago I shared my Banana Bread recipe. Which, I'm sure you remember, is this single most requested item in my baking repertoire. Well shortly after I posted the recipe and brought in the loaves I'd made to share with my co-workers two things happened. One, a number of my friends made loaves of the bread themselves, and loved it just as much (or more) when it came from their own kitchen, more on that later. And two, I had a discussion with my husband and a good friend about the recipe when she mentioned that her banana bread recipe only has one banana, as opposed to the 3 in mine, and that she'd adapted hers from a recipe for cranberry bread. That conversation, my friends, has led to this post.

See, my husband, who I love dearly, hates bananas and all things banana. Okay, to be fair, hate may be going a bit too far, but he definitely doesn't like them and that includes banana bread. And this explains why I always have to bring my banana bread into work, because if I left it at home, I'd eat the whole loaf. But anyway, he may dislike bananas, but he LOVES cranberries, so the mention of cranberry bread was a welcome idea. I used to make it all the time way back in the day, but I haven't made it in years. And I do mean years, in fact, I think it's been almost a decade. But he seemed so excited by the idea that I decided to go ahead and make some, and it was delicious.

But before I get to the recipe I use for Cranberry bread, I need to share a little something with you about the banana bread. As I mentioned earlier, after posting the recipe for my banana bread, a few of my friends made it for themselves including my sister. Okay, my sister didn't actually bake it herself, but she did the next best thing. She left some overripe bananas out on the counter next to a bag of chocolate chips and she forwarded the blog post to her husband, who is an excellent cook in his own right, and then she went to work. He got the hint, and when she arrived home there were a couple of loaves of Banana Chocolate Chip bread waiting for her, which she took into the hospital with her the next day (she's an RN). The reviews from her, her husband and her co-workers were overwhelmingly positive, including my favorite, "I don't normally like banana bread but this is awesome." So, my friends, if you haven't tried it yet, I still highly recommend it. And let's face it, you (if you're like me) probably have some bananas hanging around just waiting to be made into bread. :)

Back to the cranberry bread though. It's been a long time since I've made this, but it's so moist and delicious, that maybe it has a hope of being as much of a hint as the banana bread. It's a nice hearty bread, that's not too dense and not too airy, with a nice crust. It's much more like a true "bread" than the banana bread/cake. And because of the cranberries, it's a little tart (but not too much so) with just a hint of citrus. The best part of this recipe though is that there's no mixer needed, just a couple of bowls, a whisk and a spoon.

All in all, I think this maybe the perfect fall food. It's great as a snack, it's great toasted with a little butter for breakfast (probably not the healthiest option, but still good), and it's good as a side with dinner, particularly turkey and pork. So, bake away my friends.

Cranberry Bread

2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour

1 cup granulated sugar

¾ teaspoon salt

1 ½ teaspoons baking powder

1 ½ teaspoon baking soda

1 egg

2 tablespoons butter, melted

3/4 cup orange juice – fresh squeezed is the best

Zest of one large orange

2 cups chopped cranberries

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

Lightly brush a 9 by 5 by 3-inch loaf pan with butter, or give it a healthy spray with baking spray.

Whisk the flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, and baking soda into a large bowl. Add the cranberries and stir until they’re coated with the flour/sugar mixture.

In a separate bowl or large measuring cup, mix together the egg, oil, orange juice, and orange zest.

Pour the egg mixture into the flour mixture, and stir until just blended. Pour the batter into the prepared pan.

Bake for 60 to 65 minutes in the preheated oven, until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean.

Cool in the pan for about 10 minutes, then remove to a wire rack, and cool completely. Although it’s also really good warm. Enjoy!

Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes

2015-11-01T14:22:00.000-06:00

It’s officially November, which means that it’s time to start sharing some of my favorite fall recipes, like these incredible pumpkin spice cupcakes. Yes, I realize that all of the pumpkin spice craziness starts sometime in September, but I’m old school. I can’t really get into it until the weather actually cools down and it starts feeling like fall, which living here in southern Texas usually means November. Or, in the worst case scenario, when it doesn’t cool down at all, I can’t get into it until after Halloween. Fortunately things here have cooled down thanks in part to all of the rain we’ve had lately, although it is rather soggy outside. All the more reason to stay in and cook and bake, I say.

Last night was Halloween, and I attended a small gathering of good friends out at one of their houses. We had a lovely time visiting, handing out candy, and of course, eating dinner. My contributions were these Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes, half a loaf of Cranberry Bread I made earlier this week, and some healthy roasted vegetables because it can’t always be all sweets all the time. The best thing there, though, was some homemade French bread that another friend brought. I have got to have her share that recipe with me. It was so very good. Mmmmm...carbs.

Anyway, it’s fall, and it’s time for all the good things that brings, lots of gatherings of family and friends, good times, good food, hockey, and football. It also means I’ll be upping my time at the gym! In the next few weeks, you can expect to see me post a bunch of fall foods including the aforementioned cranberry bread, my homemade cranberry sauce, the best candied butternut squash, pumpkin pie and gingerbread cupcakes, among others. I’m also going to try to adapt this cupcake recipe into a hopefully delicious pumpkin bread (no more buying pumpkin bread at Starbucks!).

A few notes about holiday baking before I get to the recipe. When the holidays roll around (or, to be perfectly honest, all year in this house), we often tend to stock up on baking staples, so whenever we want to make a batch of cookies, a pie, or cupcakes we have everything on hand and ready to bake. But sometimes, we go into the fridge/pantry and discover that we only have 1 egg when we need 2, or only dark brown sugar when we need light brown sugar. Over the years, I’ve discovered and used a number of different substitutions that can be used when you’re missing one of more ingredients, and thought I should share them with you, so here we go:

· Missing eggs? Replace each egg that’s missing with ¼ cup applesauce (preferably not the kind with cinnamon in it).

· Missing dark brown sugar? To make dark from light brown sugar, mix 1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar and 1 tbsp. molasses. To make it from white sugar mix 1 cup granulated sugar and 1/4 cup molasses. Or.

· Missing light brown sugar? Replace with half granulated white sugar and half dark brown sugar.

· Missing baking soda? Replace with 3 times the amount called for of baking powder. So if your recipe calls for 1 tsp baking soda, use 3 tsp baking powder instead.

· Missing baking powder? Make your own with cream of tartar and baking soda. Mix 2 parts cream of tartar to 1 part baking soda. So 2 tsp cream of tartar and 1 tsp baking soda equals 3 tsp of baking powder.

· Missing buttermilk? Mix 1 tbsp lemon juice or white or cider vinegar plus enough milk to make 1 cup and let it stand for 5 to 10 minutes.

These are the substitutions I use most often, but there are many more substitutions listed on http://joyofbaking.com/IngredientSubstitution.html if you need them. So, replace away, and keep on baking without a quick run to the grocery store.

Also, while I’m talking about substitutions, several years ago I stopped buying “Pumpkin Pie Spice” pre-mixed at the grocery store. It’s expensive, I already had all the ingredients at home to mix my own, and I often found myself adding additional spices to the store bought mixed stuff anyway. Below the recipe for cupcakes is my pumpkin pie spice mixture. Feel free to mix your own and use it all things pumpkin, including pies, hot chocolate, coffee, cake, and so much more.

Now finally, here’s the recipe for Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes. These are super moist, delicious, pumpkiny and spicy. And topped with the pumpkin cream cheese frosting they’re the perfect treat for a cool fall day. My co-workers dubbed these as being in the top 5 cake recipes I’ve ever made, so I hope you enjoy these as much as we did.

Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes

Makes 2 dozen

2 ½ cups flour

2 tsp pumpkin spice – recipe below

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

16 tbsp (2 sticks) butter – at room temperature

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup light brown sugar

1 ½ cup pure pumpkin puree

4 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line 2 cupcake pans with cupcake liners. Set aside.

Whisk flour, pumpkin pie spice, salt and baking powder and soda together, set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer or large mixing bowl whisk together the melted butter, sugars, pumpkin puree, eggs and vanilla until smooth. If using a stand mixer, switch from the whisk attachment to the regular mixer attachment. If mixing by hand, switch from the whisk to a hand mixer (or spoon) for the next part.

Beat in the flour mixture until the flour is just incorporated and the batter is smooth. Do not over beat once the flour has been added.

Place batter into the prepared pans adding approximately 1/4 cup batter to each liner (or until they're 3/4 full).

Bake in preheated oven for 18 to 20 minutes until the tops bounce back when lightly touched or when a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. Let cool in pan for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

Once cool, frost as desired and enjoy.

Pumpkin Cream Cheese icing

6 oz cream cheese (¾ of a block)

6 tbsp. butter – softened to room temperature

2 tbsp. 100% pumpkin puree

5 cups confectioners’ sugar

Pumpkin pie spice

In the bowl of a mixer beat butter and cream cheese until light and fluffy; start adding the confectioners’ sugar in a ¼ cup at a time beating slowly at first. Occasionally speed the mixer up to get some air into the mix, then stop and scrape down the sides of the bowl and continue adding the sugar.

Add the pumpkin puree and mix until incorporated. Beat the icing on medium- high for 3-4 minutes until icing is the desired consistency. Frost the cupcakes and then sprinkle with more pumpkin

pie spice.

Pumpkin Pie Spice

3 tablespoons ground cinnamon

2 teaspoons ground ginger

2 teaspoons nutmeg

1 ½ teaspoons ground allspice

1 ½ teaspoons ground cloves

Combine spices in a small bowl and mix well. Store in a small jar or spice container.

Curried Vegetable Soup

2015-10-25T19:33:00.000-05:00

The fruits, um, veggies, of my refrigerator cleaning.

This rainy Sunday in our house is, among other things, refrigerator cleaning day. As I’m sure is true for other people, this process has resulted in some interesting, um, forensic finds in the back corners of the fridge. Among them, a bag of something I’m sure was once fresh cilantro, some very past due yogurts, half a casserole pan of baked ziti made from Ree Drummond’s recipe (it’s delicious and I highly recommend trying it), and a Ziploc bag full of some left-over pizza (don’t judge). This cleaning also resulted in some pretty awesome and very fresh veggies, including asparagus, half a butternut squash, onion, celery, carrots, fresh thyme & sage and half a head of cauliflower.

There are several things I take away from this cleaning.

1.I clearly need to make smaller versions of casseroles and baked pastas, since our wee household of 2 will get tired of eating it before we go through all 10 or 12 servings a 9 x 12” pan will make.

2. Order smaller pizzas, or remember to eat the cold pizza for breakfast the next day.

3. Actually eat the yogurt that we buy (its way healthier for breakfast than the cold pizza is too).

And perhaps most importantly:

4. I have to find something to do with all those veggies!!

So, what is a girl to do with squash, cauliflower, and carrots? Make a yummy rainy day curried soup of course. I’ll leave the asparagus for another day. J

I suppose I should say that the recipe that follows is one that I’ve made many times with many different varieties of root vegetables. It’s fairly adaptable, and can really be made with anything you have hanging around the kitchen. I first started making this after Thanksgiving every year with the left over mashed sweet potatoes, or the candied butternut squash (which makes for a really rich delicious soup).

I’ve made it with potatoes, sweet potatoes, butternut squash, carrots and parsnips. This is the first time I’ve ever incorporated cauliflower, but it works really well with it. Once the soup is pureed, the vegetables themselves stop being the star, and the flavor that develops from the spices really takes over. I hope you enjoy this as much as I do.

The soup. It's way tastier than it looks. I promise. Oh, and I had to add a bit
of fresh parsley in for the photo, because that's what food bloggers do, right?

Curried Vegetable Soup

1 tbsp olive oil or butter

3 cloves garlic – chopped

½ medium yellow onion – diced

3 stalks celery – cleaned and diced

6 cups chopped veggies which (this time) consisted of

Half a head of fresh cauliflower – chopped

6 carrots- peeled and chopped

1/2 a butternut squash – peeled and chopped into 1” cubes

1 sprig fresh thyme

1 tsp kosher salt

½ tsp black pepper

4 cups vegetable broth

1 tsp curry powder

½ tsp garam masala

¼ tsp turmeric

¼ tsp ground coriander

Salt and pepper to taste

In a dutch oven or large soup pot, heat oil or butter and add in the chopped garlic. Cook the garlic just until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add in the onions and celery and cook until softened, about 3-5 minutes more.

Once the onion and celery is softened, add in the chopped veggies, thyme sprig, salt and pepper and then top with the vegetable broth. Bring to a boil and then let simmer for 20 to 25 minutes or until the vegetables are tender. Remove the remains of the thyme sprig.

Simmering.

Carefully puree the soup in the dutch oven with an immersion blender until smooth, or in a regular blender in small batches. If you use a traditional blender be sure not to fill it beyond ½ full or it may splash back (which is not fun)

The spices.

After the soup is pureed, add in the remaining spices and stir until thoroughly combined. If a richer soup is desired, add in ¼ to ½ cup heavy cream or coconut milk.

Banana Bread

2015-10-22T20:02:00.002-05:00

Without a doubt, the item that I’m requested to bake most often is my banana bread. I don’t think it’s anything special, although it is moist, banana-y, and delicious, but I’ve consistently been told that my banana bread is the best there is. I’ve offered to share the recipe with friends, but more often than not, they’ll bring me their over-ripe bananas and ask me to bake a loaf and bring it in. And, to be honest, I’m happy to oblige, since it’s a super easy, quick and hard to screw up recipe. Oh, and it is tasty. All of which leads me to why I’m writing this post now. It’s time to share the recipe.

The theatre I work at is pretty spectacular in the things they do for their staff. We have excellent benefits, work with an awesome group of people, and produce wonderful work, but we do work a lot. And I do mean, A LOT. We produce at least 14 shows a year, and each one of those has a minimum of a week of tech rehearsals in the theatre before we get to our first preview. Tech rehearsals often mean that we as artisans and technicians are here from 9 in the morning until midnight each day, 6 days a week, which as you can imagine can become quite tiring.

Because we work so much one of the wonderful things that our production managers do for us is provide a tech snack station. This station used to consist only of potato chips, candy, bags of peanuts, chocolate, and other unhealthy things. And then some of us became pretty health conscious (perhaps from the pounds we were gaining eating the chocolate, chips and candy), and to respond to that our PM’s decided to make it a healthier tech snack station. So now not only do we have everything we had before, but we also have a giant bowl of fruit (apples, oranges and bananas), packets of peanut butter, string cheese, and a cooler with individual serving sizes of celery, carrots and snap peas. Which of course leads me right back to the beginning…the bananas.

Usually the bananas in the tech snacks go pretty quickly, but clearly the show we’re working on right now isn’t in need of that much potassium because we discovered earlier this week that the bananas had gone over to the dark side. They were just a bit too ripe for anyone to want to eat them, which is when our Associate Production Manager said, “hey Karin, want to make us some banana bread?” Ya know… because, well, people bring me their bananas and I make bread.

The perfect banana bread banana. They can even be a little riper
than they are in this photo and they'll still make a delicious bread.

I do have a secret suspicion about why people love this banana bread so much. It’s because it’s not really bread. It’s really more like a banana cake disguising itself as bread. As I said earlier, it’s super moist, banana-y, buttery, super versatile and delicious. I actually brought in 3 loaves this morning, two for tech rehearsal and one for my shop. The loaf in my shop didn’t survive longer than an hour. I left it in the shop while everyone was out, came back an hour or so later, and there was almost none left. I’m still not sure how they ate it that fast, but when I texted one of my staff members about it all she said was “We were hungry. And it was delicious.” And I’m not kidding; this is all that was left when I went down:

All that was left after the shop got to the bread.

So now whenever you have 3 extra ripe bananas lying around, you can make your own load of banana cake, ahem, bread. Enjoy!

Banana Bread

1 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon fine salt

2 large eggs, at room temperature

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

½ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus more for preparing the pan

1 cup sugar, plus more for preparing the pan

3 very ripe bananas, peeled, and mashed with a fork (about 1 cup)

1/2 cup toasted walnut pieces

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Lightly brush a 9 by 5 by 3-inch loaf pan with butter, and then sprinkle the sides with some additional granulated sugar.

Sift the flour, baking soda, and salt into a medium bowl, set aside.

Whisk the eggs and vanilla together in a liquid measuring cup with a spout, set aside.

In a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment or with an electric hand-held mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Gradually pour the egg mixture into the butter while mixing until incorporated. Add the bananas (the mixture will appear to be curdled but it’s not, so don’t worry), and remove the bowl from the mixer.

With a rubber spatula, mix in the flour mixture until just incorporated. Fold in the nuts and transfer the batter to the prepared pan.

Sometimes I also add a sprinkle of sugar in the raw, or regular large grain sugar on top of the batter before baking to give it a nice sugary "crust" on top.

Bake for 55 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the bread comes out clean. Cool the bread in the pan on a wire rack for 5 minutes.

If desired turn the bread out of the pan and let cool completely on the rack.

Note: This recipe is super versatile. I’ve made it substituting apple sauce for the eggs (¼ cup apple sauce per egg) and have it turn out just like normal. I’ve also added cinnamon and nutmeg to give it a spicier flavor. I’ve substituted the chopped nuts for chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, and even blueberries. Sometimes (honestly most times), I leave the nuts out altogether. So, feel free to experiment!

Dark Chocolate Raspberry Cupcakes

2015-10-18T16:05:00.002-05:00

It’s been a few years since I’ve posted here, so Hello again! Life has been a bit crazy the last few years, and while I’ve been baking and cooking, I haven’t been posting anything here. As some of you know, I work in theatre production with a company that’s recently re-opened a newly renovated building. We spent a year preparing for the renovation, a year performing off-site and are now back in our brand new fancy building. It still has that wonderful new building smell. You know the one, the smell of fresh paint and carpeting? It’s so lovely and so chemically. But anyway, I decided that to honor the opening of our new building, and to keep feeding sugar to all the wonderful people I work with who’ve put in crazy amounts of hours, that maybe I’d start baking on a regular basis again. And maybe, just maybe, I’d restart this blog. Which, since I’m here, and you’re here means that I actually have re-started it.

I have decided to make a few changes to the blog to have it reflect my life now a little better, and to have it not be so pigeon-holed into being JUST about cupcakes. The first change is the title. No more Great Cupcake Adventure, now it’s Karin’s Culinary Adventures, so I won’t feel bad if I decide to post my cabbage-beet soup recipe, or my baked ziti recipe. The second change is the format. It’s hopefully a bit more streamlined and easy to use now. There’s a handy search bar right at the top, but if you keep scrolling down the main page it will keep pulling up blog posts on the main page, right back to the very first post. And, finally, the content will change a bit to include more savory foods, and may even reflect my current goal of finding lighter recipes of all of my favorite comfort foods.

As for the cupcakes, I’m going to keep those recipes to a minimum, and will primarily only be baking those for the first Sunday tech rehearsal of each show that we produce. I actually started back with this a couple of weeks ago when I made some Malted Milk Chocolate Cupcakes for first tech of One Man, Two Guvnors. I promise to post that recipe sometime soon, but to kick off the newly re-launched blog I figured I’d start with the cupcakes I made yesterday for today’s tech of The Other Place, which are these wonderful Dark Chocolate Raspberry cupcakes.

These little cakes aren’t just topped with a raspberry; they also have a delicious and subtle raspberry flavor in the chocolate cake itself. A disclaimer before we get to the recipe itself though. While I call these “Dark Chocolate Raspberry”, I actually used a half and half combination of dark chocolate cocoa powder and regular cocoa powder. The reason? I was afraid that all dark cocoa powder would overpower the raspberry flavor. The upside to doing this split of cocoas was a wonderful, moist chocolate cake that tastes of dark chocolate, but it wasn’t too overpowering. So without more of my babbling here’s the recipe.

Oh, one more thing. My tech table buddy wanted to make sure that I mentioned him specifically in the first blog back, so, Hi Aaron. Thanks for keeping it real up here in the cold, dark theatre. Now…get back to work.

Dark Chocolate Raspberry Cupcake

1 ½ cups flour

¾ tsp baking soda

¾ tsp salt

¾ cup Hershey’s cocoa powder (I used half dark cocoa, and have regular cocoa).

1 cup whole milk

1 ½ cups sugar

1 cup vegetable oil

2 large eggs

1 ½ tsp vanilla

¾ cup Smucker’s Natural raspberry jam

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line 2 cupcake pans with cupcake liners. Set aside.

Whisk flour, salt and baking soda together, set aside.

Place cocoa powder in bowl of stand mixer, or large mixing bowl. Heat the milk in a small sauce pan on the stove top until hot, but not boiling. Pour hot milk over cocoa powder and whisk until smooth. Let mixture cool slightly.

Once cocoa and milk are cooler, whisk in the sugar, oil, eggs, vanilla, and preserves. Whisk until smooth.

If using a stand mixer, switch from the whisk attachment to the regular mixer attachment. If mixing by hand, switch from the whisk to a hand mixer (or spoon) for the next part.

Beat in the flour, salt and soda mixture until the flour is just incorporated and batter is smooth. Do not over beat once the flour has been added.

Place batter into the prepared pans adding approximately 1/4 cup batter to each liner (or until they're 3/4 full.

Once cool, frost as desired and enjoy.

Basic Vanilla Buttercream Icing

16 tbsp unsalted butter (2 sticks) – at room temperature

4-5 cups confectioners’ icing

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 tablespoons Milk or Whipping Cream

In the bowl of a mixer beat butter until light and fluffy; start adding the confectioners’ sugar in ¼ cup at a time beating slowly at first. Occasionally speed the mixer up to get some air into the mix, then stop and scrape down the sides of the bowl and continue adding in the sugar.

Add in the vanilla extract and milk. Beat icing on medium- high for 3-4 minutes until icing is the desired consistency. Frost the cupcakes!

Dark Chocolate and Raspberry Topping

2 Mini Hershey’s Dark Chocolate Pieces

2 Dozen Fresh Raspberries

1 tbsp Raspberry Preserves

1 tbsp Water

With a fine grater, grate the dark chocolate over the top of the frosted cupcakes.

In a small bowl, mix the Raspberry preserves and water. Toss in the fresh raspberries and place one on top of each cupcake.

Enjoy!

Grandma's Buttermilk Biscuits

2013-06-10T21:05:00.000-05:00

No one and I mean NO ONE could make biscuits like my Grandma did. I remember standing in her un-air-conditioned kitchen in the middle of a hot Florida summer and her telling me “Now, you just create a bowl within the bowl with the flour, then pour in the buttermilk, and slowly work the flour into the buttermilk. Just like this.” And so it went over and over again. I must have watched her make those biscuits hundreds of times and truly believe that her technique of mixing was half the reason they were so good. When someone you love puts that much love and care into the food she makes it can’t help but be good. But those memories are almost 25-30 years old now and I've NEVER been able to recreate her super delicious biscuits and I CRAVED them. Every time I’d go to a new local brunch spot, I’d order a biscuit and hope that it would be close to the ones she made. I bought every brand of store bought biscuits hoping that one of them would solve that craving. And not once did it ever happen.

And of course I’ve tried and tried over the years to make them myself. My Aunt Janet did all of us cousins a huge favor by writing down all of her and my grandma’s recipes as they made them. The problem I think I’ve had with the biscuit recipe over the years was that, like all good home cooks, my Grandma never measured anything. She just cooked by feel (and love). Needless to say, I’m not that good. Not sure I’ll ever be, but I’ll dang sure try.

Well, that craving for biscuits finally won out and I had to try again. Just one more time. I had to shake off all those biscuit failures. The ones that just tasted like flour. The ones that were as hard as rocks. And the ones that I just plain overcooked. One more try. And it was my cousin Molly who came to the rescue. She claimed to have mastered the biscuits. This I had to see and fortunately we both happened to be at my parent’s house this Christmas and she offered to give me a tutorial on them.

Grandma, Janet and Molly only use 3 ingredients in their biscuits. THREE! Mine are nowhere near that simple, but they do seem to work out every time, and until I can master the three ingredient biscuit, I’ll keep making them this way. So what are those 3 ingredients you may be asking? Well, they are: very fresh self rising flour, Crisco shortening (or in Molly’s case, veggie oil) and buttermilk (or milk). I haven’t had any success with the self rising flour and have opted to use All purpose and add my own leavening with baking soda, powder, and cream of tartar instead. It hasn’t failed me yet. And neither did Molly’s Christmas biscuits. She was definitely on to something! And if she could do it, maybe I could too. When I got back home to Houston I tried her way and nope. Biscuits were too floury and heavy. So I started experimenting and looking up other buttermilk biscuit recipes. The result of my research and tests is the recipe that follows.

There’s some debate amongst the cousins as what the best topping is for Grandma’s biscuits. Some claim plain old honey and softened butter, other’s crave Grandma’s tomato gravy (which I still have yet to master), and my cousin Carrie and I prefer Fig Preserves and butter. I think Carrie and I have it right, but hey, to each his own when it comes to biscuit toppings.

On a side note, Carrie reminded me of something that I don’t think I’d heard since I was a kid. These biscuits were often “called ‘cathead biscuits’ ‘cause there were the size of”, well a cat head. Just a fun family fact. Wonder if anyone else (outside of our little family) called them that.

So now that I've mastered Grandma’s biscuits, I’m having crazy cravings for the sweet pickles she used to make. My mom and I both have two different recipes written down on how she made those, so as soon as we move into a bigger apartment (in 2 short weeks), I’m going to try to master the pickles! Wish me luck!

Grandma’s Buttermilk Biscuits

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

¾ tsp salt

½ tsp baking soda

½ tsp cream of tartar

¼ cup butter flavored shortening

1 cup buttermilk – at room temperature

Butter

Preheat oven to 450 degrees and grease a 9” cake pan (or cast iron skillet if you really want biscuits like my grandma’s). I typically use Pam Baking Spray for this.

Whisk all dry ingredients together in a large mixing bowl. Then using a pastry blender (or a whisk, if like me you don’t own a pastry blender) cut the shortening in until well blended.

Create a well in the middle of the flour/shortening mixture, leaving about ½” of flour on the bottom of the bowl, then pour in the buttermilk.

Now comes the tricky part. My grandma used her beautiful arthritic hands in an amazing gentle scooping motion, which I haven’t yet been able to recreate without either a silicone spatula or my whisk. Slowly start working the flour into the buttermilk evenly from all sides. I usually spin the bowl and leave the whisk mostly in one place. Once all of the flour on the sides has been incorporated (and it’s become a bit too difficult to mix with the whisk, I flour up my hands and dive in to finish mixing in the flour left on the bottom of the bowl. The dough will stick to your hands a bit, and it’s okay to add in a bit more flour to get the right consistency, but try not to add more than an extra ¼ cup of flour or the biscuits won’t rise properly and they’ll be a bit heavy.

What is the right consistency? Well, it’s a bit like Play-dough. The dough should be a bit elastic and should remain moist. If you've added too much flour, the dough will become too dry (trust me, I've done that more times than I can count).

Once the Dough is mixed, you can start to form your biscuit. Pluck off a piece of dough about the size of a large egg and roll it in your hands until it’s formed, then place it in the pan and squish it down a little bit. Repeat 8 times until all the biscuits are in the pan. It’s fairly important to make sure that all of the biscuits are about the same size, and I often find that I need to pull one biscuit back out of the pan and add a little bit more dough to it (there’s always a bit left in the bottom of the bowl).

Alternatively, you can roll out the dough to ½” thick on a lightly floured surface and cut biscuits out with a 2” biscuit cutter or a juice glass. Place the biscuits in the greased baking pan like above.

After the biscuits are formed and in the pan, put a thin pat of cold butter on top of each biscuit. Side Note: I only use real butter, not margarine, so I’m not sure how margarine will work with this.

Next step: baking! Pop the pan of biscuits in a completely preheated oven. Bake for 10-14 minutes or until the biscuits are baked through and golden brown on top. Cooking length will really depend on your oven, but they’ll take at least 10 minutes to bake through. My oven, which is a bit off temperature takes 14 minutes. So keep an eye on them once they hit that 10 minute mark and pull them out when they look good to you.

This last step isn't necessary, but is something my Grandma always did, so I always do it. Once the biscuits are done, place a plate on top of the pan and flip them over onto the plate (just like you would a cake) so that the bottoms of the biscuits are facing up. Your biscuits are now ready to serve. Enjoy!

Cherry Coke Float Cupcakes

2012-09-09T15:00:00.000-05:00

These cupcakes are what happened when my previous plan went horribly horribly awry. Honestly though, I think these turned out WAY better than my original idea would have. What was my original plan you might be wondering? (or maybe not, but I'm going to tell you anyway.) I was going to make a chocolate cupcake with fresh Strawberry icing. All was going really well until I tried to pull together my icing. It seems that the fresh strawberries contributed too much moisture to the icing and to combat that I kept adding in sugar to try to absorb the liquid. I ended up with a sickly sweet strawberry icing that didn't hold together well enough to pipe onto anything. And it was way WAY too sweet. In hindsight, after pureeing the strawberries, I probably should have placed them in some cheesecloth and squeezed out all of the extra liquid. But I didn't. In the meantime I had some beautiful Chocolate Coke cupcakes and no icing to top them with.

So what's a girl to do? Well, since I'd already swapped out the coffee that I normally use in my chocolate cupcakes with Coke (just to see what difference it made), I figured I'd run with it. I made a quick run to the grocery store, grabbed some cherry pie filling, more coke and whipping cream. I then cored my cupcakes, filled them with the Cherry pie filling and topped them with a Coke glaze (to up the Coke-ness of them, since the coke in the cake isn't very powerful). Then, since any good float is never complete without whipped cream, I whipped up the whipping cream and piped it on. Once I topped that with a Maraschino cherry I had some wonderfully decadent cupcakes that tasted just like a Cherry Coke float.

The moral of this baking tale? Sometimes when things go wrong in the kitchen and you have to punt, you'll end up with something greater than what was planned in the first place. Perhaps not always, but definitely sometimes.

Cherry Coke Float Cupcakes

3 cups all purpose flour

6 tbsp cocoa powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

2 large eggs

1 cup buttermilk

1 1/2 cups Regular Coke (don’t use diet coke, this recipe needs the sugar from the coke)

3 tsp vanilla extract

1 can cherry pie filling*

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line 2 cupcake pans with cupcake liners. Set aside.

In a medium sized bowl whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt and cocoa. Set Aside.

In a large mixer bowl beat the sugar and butter together until light and fluffy. Add the eggs in one at a tme, beating well after each addition.

In another small bowl combine the buttermilk, Coke and vanilla extract. Make sure you let the foam from the coke settle down before moving on to the next step.

Add the flour mixture into the butter and egg mixture in three batches, alternating with the coke mixture, starting and ending with the flour (3 additions of flour mixture and 2 of the coke/buttermilk)

Place batter into the prepared pans adding approximately 1/4 cup batter to each liner (or until they're 3/4 full. Bake in preheated oven fo18-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs. Let cool in pan for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

Once cooled, core center of cupcakes using either a cupcake corer, apple corer or a paring knife, then add a heaping spoonful of cherry pie filling inside each cupcake.

*Since the cherries in pie filling are still whole, they’re a bit had to fit into the cored cupcakes. I opted to chop the cherries up a bit before filling the cupcakes. To do this strain the cherries and reserve the liquid. Give the cherries a rough chop up on a cutting board and then toss them back into the reserved liquid.

Coke Glaze

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

3-4 T Coke

Whisk the powdered sugar and coke together in a small bowl until smooth. Add in more sugar if needed to obtain a thicker consistency. The goal is to glaze the top of the cupcake and not be completely absorbed into the cake.

Whipped Cream Icing

1 1/2 cups heavy cream

6 Tbsp confectioners’ sugar

Maraschino Cherries for garnish

For best results, chill your mixing bowl for 10 to 15 minutes before you are ready to make your icing. Whisk heavy cream in chilled bowl on low speed. Slowly add in the confectioners’ sugar in, one tablespoonful at a time. Once all sugar has been added, increased the speed of the mixer to medium high. Whip cream until it holds stiff peaks. Then pipe whipped cream on the cupcakes and top with maraschino cherries.

This whipped cream is excellent for many other uses, such as topping pies or fresh fruit. I pretty much use this recipe instead of cool whip or Redi-whip these days. It’s so easy and much cheaper than the pre made kinds.

Pretty!

Salted Caramel and Chocolate Cupcakes

2012-09-02T12:10:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I had the pleasure of not only attending a baby shower for good friends, but also of baking cupcakes for the baby shower. Something I learned 3-4 years ago still holds true now: when baking cupcakes for an expecting mom, make whatever flavor it is she loves. In this case, I was told that she loved chocolate, caramel, peanut butter, raspberries, and a few other things, which was the perfect guide for deciding what to make. My choice? I decided to take those first two flavors and run with them. And I may have made my new favorite cupcake. At the very least it's right up there with the Dark Chocolate Chili, Creamsicle, Cookie Dough Cupcakes, and the Buckeye cupcakes I made a few weeks ago.

It's incredibly rich, moist and super delicious. I decided to put as many variations of caramel and chocolate into this as I dared. It's a chocolate cake, filled with a caramel sauce, then topped with a semi-sweet chocolate ganache and a salted caramel butter cream. Then just to make it extra super special, I topped the icing with more of the caramel sauce and some milk chocolate and toffee chips. This was just heavenly!

Chocolate Cupcakes

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder

1 ½ tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

2 cup granulated sugar

2/3 cup vegetable oil

2 egg

2 tsp vanilla

1 ½ cup buttermilk

Preheat oven to 350F. Line 2 cupcake pans with paper liners. Set aside

In a medium bowl whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

In a large mixer bowl whisk together the sugar, oil, eggs and vanilla until smooth. Add the flour into the egg mixture in 3 batches alternating with the buttermilk, starting and ending with the flour.(so 3 additions of flour mixture and 2 of the buttermilk)

Place batter into the prepared pans adding approximately 1/4 cup batter to each liner (or until they're 3/4 full. Bake in preheated oven fo18-22 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs. Let cool in pan for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

Chocolate Ganache
6 oz. bittersweet or semi-sweet chocolate chips, finely chopped*

½ cup heavy cream

Place the chocolate in a small bowl. Bring the cream to a simmer in a small saucepan over medium-high, then pour over the chocolate, and let stand about 2 minutes.

Whisk together until a smooth ganache forms. Let cool at room temperature to thicken slightly before using.

*the type of chocolate used is up to individual taste, although I prefer semi-sweet over bittersweet.
*To save a little bit of time I actually used semi-sweet chocolate chips, which worked just fine.

Caramel Sauce
To note: I chose to make the caramel sauce myself, since it's surprisingly very easy to do, but if you don't have the time, or just choose to use one, a store bought caramel sauce would work just as well. I should also note that while I would love to claim this caramel sauce recipe as my own, I can't. This is a recipe directly borrowed from Simply Recipes, as they have the best, clearest instructions on how to make it. Link to original recipe is below.

2 cups of sugar

12 Tbsp unsalted butter cut into 1 tbsp pieces

1 cup heavy whipping cream

First, before you begin, make sure you have everything ready to go - the cream and the butter next to the pan, ready to put in. Making caramel is a fast process that cannot wait for hunting around for ingredients. If you don't work fast, the sugar will burn. Safety first - make sure there are no children under foot and you may want to wear oven mitts; the caramelized sugar will be much hotter than boiling water.

Heat sugar on moderately high heat in a heavy-bottomed 2-quart or 3-quart saucepan. As the sugar begins to melt, stir vigorously with a whisk or wooden spoon. As soon as the sugar comes to a boil, stop stirring. You can swirl the pan a bit if you want, from this point on. Note that this recipe works best if you are using a thick-bottomed pan. If you find that you end up burning some of the sugar before the rest of it is melted, the next time you attempt it, add a half cup of water to the sugar at the beginning of the process, this will help the sugar to cook more evenly, though it will take longer as the water will need to evaporate before the sugar will caramelize.

As soon as all of the sugar crystals have melted (the liquid sugar should be dark amber in color), immediately add the butter to the pan. Whisk until the butter has melted.

Once the butter has melted, take the pan off the heat. Count to three, then slowly add the cream to the pan and continue to whisk to incorporate. Note than when you add the butter and the cream, the mixture will foam up considerably. This is why you must use a pan that is at least 2-quarts (preferably 3-quarts) big.

Whisk until caramel sauce is smooth. Let cool in the pan for a couple minutes, then pour into a glass mason jar and let sit to cool to room temperature. (Remember to use pot holders when handling the jar filled with hot caramel sauce.) Store in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks. Warm before serving.

Yield: Makes a little over two cups of sauce.

Recipe was borrowed from Simply Recipes with adjustments made to quantities. http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/caramel_sauce/

Salted Caramel Buttercream Frosting

¾ cup caramel sauce (from recipe above)
8 tbsp salted butter at room temperature
4 tbsp unsalted butter at room temperature

1 teaspoon sea salt
4-5 cups confectioners’ sugar

6-8 tbsp heavy cream

In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter, salt and caramel sauce together until well combined and light, about 2 minutes. Slowly add in the confectioner’s sugar, a quarter cup at a time, until it’s all incorporated and well blended.

Add in 3 tablespoons of heavy cream or milk. Blend on low speed until moistened. Add the rest of the heavy cream 1 tbsp at a time until you reach the desired consistency. Beat at high speed for 4-5 more minutes until frosting is smooth and fluffy.

Cupcake Assembly:

Once cupcakes are completely cool and other components are made it’s time to assemble the cupcakes.

First step is to core the cupcakes, reserving the removed cake to put back in later.

Once all cupcakes are cored, spoon 1 ½ teaspoons of the caramel sauce into each cupcake.

Then replace the previously removed cupcake centers.

With a teaspoon, drop and spread 2 teaspoons of the chocolate ganache on top of each cupcake.

Pipe icing onto cupcake.

Drizzle with remaining caramel sauce. I use a small plastic bottle for this that I got at my local restaurant supply store for less than a dollar.

Top with Heath Bar Chips if desired.

Enjoy!

Nutella Cupcakes

2012-08-30T17:47:00.000-05:00

I knew that someday I had to make Nutella cupcakes, but quite frankly I've been putting it off for reasons that I don't think I could possibly explain. I love Nutella. I love cupcakes. You'd think that this would have been a no-brainer for me to make years ago. And yet, it wasn't until last week that I attempted it. I think that it was the fact that one of my co-workers has become obsessed with Nutella (or is just more out about her obsession). Okay, perhaps she's not obsessed, but she has a giant jar that always comes out at lunch time and she just can't seem to get enough. I thought that maybe the time had come to make her some Nutella cupcakes, complete with extra icing in a tub that she could dunk her pretzel sticks into.

In researching the web for existing Nutella cupcakes I ran across many different recipes for what everyone called "Self Icing Nutella Cupcakes". This mostly seemed to consist of dropping a certain amount of Nutella on top of the batter in the cupcake liner and then swirling it in, which seems a simple enough idea, so I found a vanilla cake recipe I haven't tried before and made these so-called self icing cupcakes. And while these cupcakes are certainly delicious, I don't know that I'd call them "self-icing". The Nutella stays on top of the cupcake and melts a little bit, but mostly it forms a bit of a crust on the top. In the end, without a legitimate butter cream icing these didn't exactly conform to what I'd call a cupcake. Thankfully I'd purchased one of the large jars while at the grocery store, so I had plenty left to make a wonderfully light and delicious Nutella butter cream to top the cupcakes with. Yummy!

Nutella Cupcakes
2 sticks (16 tbsp) unsalted butter, softened
1 ½ cup granulated sugar

1 tbsp tsp vanilla
6 eggs
3 ½ cups all purpose flour
½ tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp baking soda

Nutella - approximately1 ½ teaspoon for each cupcake

Preheat oven to 325F. Line 2 cupcake tins with paper liners.

In a large bowl with a mixer, beat the butter, sugar and vanilla together until light and fluffy, approximately 2-3 minutes. Add in the eggs one at a time, beating the mixture thoroughly after each addition. Make sure to scrape the sides of the bowl periodically.

In another bowl, whisk together all the dry ingredients (flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda), then slowly add into the sugar mixture. Beat batter until flour is fully incorporated. Batter will be very thick.

Fill each paper liner ¾ full, approximately ¼ cup each. I prefer to use a 2 oz ice cream scoop*. Spoon 1 ½ teaspoons (a heaping teaspoonful will do) of Nutella on top of each cupcake and swirl into the batter with a toothpick.

Place cupcakes in oven and bake for 18-20 minutes until top springs back when touched or a toothpick inserted on the side of the cupcake (where there is no Nutella) comes out clean. Cool in the pan for 5 minutes and then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

These are great just like this, but if you’re like me and love the icing part, make some whipped Nutella buttercream to pipe on top and these will be heavenly!

Recipe makes 24 cupcakes.

*I bought my ice cream scoop at a local restaurant supply store for $4 and I highly recommend using one to scoop the batter into the liners as it makes sure that all are evenly filled.

Nutella Buttercream Frosting

2 sticks (16 tbsp) unsalted butter at room temperature
1 jar of Nutella (13 oz)

Pinch of fine ground sea salt
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
4-5 cups confectioners’ sugar
6-8 tablespoons heavy cream or milk

In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and Nutella together until well combined and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Slowly add in the confectioner’s sugar, a quarter cup at a time, until it’s all incorporated and well blended.

Add in the salt, vanilla, and 3 tablespoons of heavy cream or milk. Blend on low speed until moistened. Add the rest of the heavy cream 1 tbsp at a time until you reach the desired consistency. Beat at high speed for 4-5 more minutes until frosting is smooth and fluffy.

Jack-n-Coke Cupcakes

2012-08-25T20:45:00.000-05:00

Jack and Cokes have been my long standing drink order at bars when I'm not feeling in a wine or martini mood, so it seemed only natural to make one of my favorite drinks into a cupcake. Especially a chocolate coke cupcake, filled with a bittersweet chocolate whiskey ganache and topped with a whiskey buttercream. How could you possibly go wrong with chocolate, coke and whiskey? You can't! These are so good. The whiskey isn't overpowering and these have the perfect blend of these three flavors. Yum! So if you have a friend who's feeling down and could use both chocolate and a drink, make them these. They'll lift spirits quicker than well.... spirits!

Coke Chocolate Cupcakes

1 cup coke
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (preferably Dutch-process)
2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
2/3 cup sour cream

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line two cupcake pans with paper liners.

Place coke and butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. When mixture comes to a simmer, remove from the heat and whisk in the cocoa powder until smooth. Set aside and let cool slightly.

In a small bowl or large measuring cup, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking soda, and 3/4 teaspoon salt.

In a large bowl of a mixer, beat the eggs and sour cream together until blended. Add in the coke-chocolate mixture and beat just to combine. Slowly add in the flour mixture (about ½ cup at a time) and beat on slow speed just until incorporated. Remove mixer and using a rubber spatula, fold the batter and scrape down the sides of the bowl until completely combined.

Spoon the batter into the paper liners, filling them ¾ of the way (approximately ¼ cup batter each). Place in preheated oven and bake 16-18 minutes until tops spring back when lightly touched or a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Oven Fresh!

Cool for about 5 minutes in pans, and then remove cupcakes to a wire rack to cool completely. Once cooled, core center of cupcakes using either a cupcake corer, apple corer or a paring knife.

Cored and ready for ganache

Helpful hint: while cupcakes are baking, start preparing the whiskey chocolate ganache as it will need to cool some before being used.

Whiskey Chocolate Ganache Filling

8 ounces bittersweet chocolate chips
2/3 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature
1 to 2 teaspoons Irish whiskey (optional)

Pour the bittersweet chocolate chips into a heatproof bowl and set aside.

Heat the cream in a small sauce pan until it starts simmering and then pour it over the chocolate and let stand for two minutes.

Whisk together until a smooth ganache forms. Stir in the butter and whiskey until combined.

Let cool at room temperature to thicken slightly before using. (the fridge will speed this along but you must stir it every 10 minutes).

Once the cupcakes and ganache are cooled, and the cupcakes have been cored, fill the cupcakes with the ganache. This can be done either by piping the ganache in, or simply spooning it in.

Filled and waiting for icing

Jack Daniels Cream Buttercream

6 cups confections sugar

1 ½ sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature

6 tablespoons Jack Daniels, or other whiskey (or cream or milk)

In a large mixer bowl, whip the butter until light and fluffy (approximately 2-3 minutes).

Add in the confectioners’ sugar a quarter cup at a time alternating with tablespoons of the whiskey, until all is mixed in and buttercream is desired consistency.

After all ingredients are mixed in, I like to turn the mixer on high and whip the icing for 2-3 minutes to make it super light and fluffy.

Ice the cupcakes as desired by spreading or piping the icing on, then sit back and enjoy!

Buckeye Cupcakes

2012-08-23T20:05:00.001-05:00

Okay, so perhaps not exactly Buckeye Cupcakes, but Buckeye inspired cupcakes. These are delicious! I’ve decided to call them buckeye cupcakes, because they taste just like a buckeye plopped on top of an incredibly moist chocolate cake. If you don’t know what a buckeye candy is, feel free to check out my blog about and recipe for them here. They’re super easy and delicious to make.

But I guess that before I wax poetic about these cupcakes I should explain my latest absence from the blogosphere. Back in July, just over 1 month ago, I got married! Yup…after swearing that I’d never date a co-worker or get married again, I’ve managed to do both. It was a fun, fabulous and small event with our closest family and friends on the beach. So far married life is brilliant (and very similar to life before being married) and quiet. We went on an amazing 9 day honeymoon to the Baja coast of Mexico and really didn’t want to return, but we’ve been back for a couple of weeks now and already have another show about to open at work.

This all goes to show that life never really slows down much, which gives us all the more reason to sit back and enjoy a cupcake every now and then! So… for all my chocolate and peanut butter loving friends and family out there, here’s the absolute perfect send up for these two flavors! Enjoy!

Buckeye Cupcakes

1½ cups hot brewed coffee
¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2¼ cups all-purpose flour
1½ tsp. baking soda
¾ tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
12 tbsp. (1½ sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1½ cup packed brown sugar
¾ cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1 tbsp. vanilla extract

To make the cupcakes, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 cupcake pans with paper liners.

In a heat safe bowl, whisk together the hot brewed coffee and cocoa powder until the cocoa has dissolved completely. Set aside.

In another bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar. Beat on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes. Add the eggs in one at a time, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Mix in the vanilla.

With the mixer running on the lowest speed, add the dry ingredients in three batches, alternating with the coffee-cocoa mixture, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. (Flour, Cocoa, Flour, Cocoa, Flour). Mix each addition just until incorporated, being careful not to over mix the batter.

Divide the batter between the prepared liners, with ¼ cup in each. Bake 17-19 minutes or until the top of the cupcake springs back when touched or when a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with only a few moist crumbs.

Let cool in the pans briefly, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Chocolate Ganache

6 oz. Semi-sweet chocolate, finely chopped*
½ cup heavy cream

Place the semi-sweet chocolate in a small bowl. Bring the cream to a simmer, pour over the chocolate, and let stand about 2 minutes.

Whisk together until a smooth ganache forms. Let cool at room temperature to thicken slightly before using.

* To save a little bit of time I actually used semi-sweet chocolate chips, which worked just fine.

Buckeye Filling Icing

2 sticks (16 tbsp) unsalted butter, at room temperature

2 ½ cups creamy peanut butter
5 cups confectioners’ sugar

Combine the peanut butter and butter in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat on medium-high for 1 minute.

With the mixer on the lowest setting, add the confectioners’ sugar in a quarter cup at a time until all sugar is fully incorporated. Increase the speed to medium and mix until smooth, about 2 minutes.

Scoop approximately 1 rounded tablespoon of the peanut butter mixture (about the same amount as a good sized PB cookie) and using clean, dry hands to form it into a patty. Use the tines of a fork dipped in additional confectioners’ sugar to make the classic crisscross pattern on top of the “cookie”. Repeat with the remaining peanut butter mixture, laying them all out on a piece of parchment paper that’s been dusted with more confectioners’ sugar. The extra confectioners’ sugar here (on the parchment and the fork) will prevent the icing cookies from sticking to everything you don’t want it to.

Assembly: Using a teaspoon (the kind of silverware, not a measuring one) to drop the ganache onto the top of the cooled cupcake and the back of the spoon to spread it over the top of the cupcake. Then carefully place a peanut butter “cookie” on top of each cupcake. Now just sit back and enjoy!

The idea for making the icing look like a peanut butter cookie and the recipe (although I did tweak it a bit) for these was borrowed from Annie’s Eats.

And.... buckeyes!

Cadbury Crème Egg Cupcakes

2012-04-08T11:40:00.000-05:00

Happy Easter everyone! I set out yesterday to make some nice Easter themed cupcakes. I was going to buy some of those fabulous mini Cadbury Crème Eggs and bake them into a chocolate cupcake. Only one problem, I could only find either full sized Crème Eggs or Cadbury Mini Eggs, which are just candy coated solid milk chocolate eggs. One of which is too big to place into a cupcake and the other just wouldn’t be the same. So what’s a girl to do? Well make Crème filled chocolate cupcakes and make them look like a Cadbury Crème eggs, that’s what. So I made my favorite chocolate cupcakes, made some yellow and white cream filling, piped it into the cupcake, so when you bite into it, it actually looks like a Cadbury Egg. And they were delicious! And so simple. Mostly it’s just a fancy chocolate cupcake with vanilla filling and vanilla icing. Yum!

Cadbury Crème Egg Cupcakes
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
3/4 cups Hershey’s cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup buttermilk, shaken
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup freshly brewed hot coffee

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line two standard cupcake tins with paper liners.

Sift the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment and mix on low speed until combined.

In another bowl, mix the buttermilk, oil, eggs, and vanilla. With the mixer on low speed, slowly add the wet ingredients to the dry. With mixer still on low, add the coffee and stir just to combine, scraping the bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula. The batter will be fairly thin.

Spoon the batter into the prepared liners, with approximately ¼ cup of batter per cupcake. Bake for 15-18 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean or with only moist crumbs. I suggest to start testing at 15 minutes to avoid over-baking. Remove the pans from the oven and let cool on a wire rack until cool.

Creme filling
½ cup unsalted butter at room temperature
2 cups confectioners’ sugar
1 pinch of salt
5 tbsp heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla extract

In a large bowl, beat the butter until light and fluffy. Blend in the confectioners sugar and the pinch of salt.

Gradually beat in the heavy cream and vanilla. Beat on high speed until light and fluffy.

Fill a pastry bag with filling and top with a small filling tip. Push filling tip through the top of the cupcake and fill each cupcake until you see the top rise from the filling. I actually did this twice, once with white filling and once with yellow filling to make it look more like the inside of a Crème egg.

Buttercream Icing
1 cup of unsalted butter - at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2-3 tablespoons heavy cream
4-5 cups confectioners’ sugar
Yellow food coloring

Beat the butter until light and fluffy. Mix in the vanilla extract until blended. Slowly add in the confectioners’ sugar 1/3 cup at a time until well mixed. Add in the heavy cream a tablespoon at a time only if needed. Turn the mixer on high and beat the icing thoroughly for 2-3 minutes to obtain a nice creamy consistency.

Remove 1 ½ cups of buttercream and mix the yellow food coloring into it until desired yellow color is achieved. With a round piping tip, pipe on the white buttercream in a ring onto each cupcake. Switch the tip out to a bag with the yellow buttercream and fill the hole in the top with the yellow icing.

Top each one with a chocolate egg and wah-la. A Cadbury Crème Egg inspired cupcake.

Devils Food Cupcakes with Praline Icing!

2012-03-17T09:35:00.000-05:00

What could be better than Devils Food Cake topped with a creamy praline icing? Not much I think. Especially if you like chocolate and pecans! So good it’s almost sinful!

Oh - and watch out for my pecan praline recipe in a couple of days! They're also sinfully delicious!

Devil’s Food Cupcakes

1/2 cup cocoa powder, sifted

1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar

1 cup boiling water

11/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

9 tbsp unsalted butter - at room temperature

3/4 cup sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 eggs

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line two standard cupcake pans with 18 paper liners.

In a medium sized bowl, whisk the cocoa and dark brown sugar together and then pour in the boiling water. Whisk to mix it then set aside.

In another small bowl, mix the flour, baking powder and baking soda together. Set aside

Cream the butter and sugar together, beating until pale and fluffy. Add in the vanilla extract and then the eggs one by one. Slowly incorporate the flour mixture and beat just until mixed. Fold in the cocoa mixture, making sure to scrape the bowl out well with a rubber spatula.

Scoop the batter into the paper liners until they’re about ¾ full (or ¼ cup each). Bake in preheated oven for 14-17 minutes or until the tops spring back when touched and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean or with only a few moist crumbs.

Cool on a wire rack and ice as desired. Makes 18 cupcakes.

Adapted from Nigella Lawson’s Devil’s Food Cake Recipe.

Praline Frosting Recipe

1/4 cup butter

1 cup brown sugar, firmly packed

1/3 cup whipping cream

1 cup confectioners’ sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup unsalted butter –at room temperature

4-5 cups confectioners’ sugar

¾ cup finely chopped pecans

Combine the butter, brown sugar and whipping cream in a 2 quart saucepan; bring it to a boil, stirring often. Let mixture boil for 1 minute then remove it from the heat and whisk in 1 cup of the confectioners’ sugar and vanilla extract.

Transfer brown sugar mixture into a mixer bowl with 1 cup of butter and beat until mixture is smooth and creamy. Start adding in the remaining confectioners’ sugar ¼ cup at a time until desired texture and consistency is acquired.

Ice cupcakes as desired and then top with the pecans. YUM!

This will make a metric ton of icing, so please feel free to cut the recipe in half!

Pineapple Upside Down Cake

2012-03-14T19:30:00.000-05:00

For Christmas I received two of the best cookbooks ever written, and I’m not kidding about that. Heirloom Cooking and Heirloom Baking by the Brass Sisters (please see the link at the bottom of this page). These ladies are hands down some of the best cooks and bakers out there and they’ve been collecting recipes, antique cookbooks and handwritten recipes for twenty years. The recipes date back as far as the 1800’s but some are very modern. They’ve updated all of them for today’s kitchen and kitchen stock items and many of the recipes are accompanied by stories about where they found them and the lives of the families who originally made them. Not to mention that these two ladies are absolutely hilarious! I highly suggest that you have their cookbooks in your kitchen too, and I hope you’ll try their version of Pineapple Upside Down Cake that I’ve personally tested. IT’S DELICIOUS!!! And Beautiful! But mostly delicious!

Pineapple Upside Down Cake

½ cup butter, melted
1 cup dark brown sugar, packed
7 slices/rings of canned pineapple from 20 oz can, and 5 Tablespoons reserved juice
1 cup cake flour (not self rising)
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
3 eggs, separated
1 cup white granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 350. Rack should be in middle position.

Sift together cake flour, baking powder and salt into a medium bowl and set aside.

In 9 inch cake pan, swirl butter to coat the bottom and sides of pan. (Do it over the sink in case of drips) Most will settle to the bottom. Sprinkle brown sugar over the bottom of the pan.

Using a paper towel pat pineapple slices dry on both sides and arrange in a decorative pattern on the bottom of the pan.

In a large bowl stir egg yolks just to break them up and add sugar, vanilla and 5 Tablespoons of reserved pineapple juice. Mix well and stir in flour mixture until combined. Set aside.

Place egg whites in bowl of electric mixer fitted with whisk attachment and beat until just stiff but not dry. Fold egg whites into the batter already in the large bowl until fully combined.

Pour batter into cake pan. Bake 45-55 minutes until tester inserted into middle comes out clean.

Cool pan on rack 2-3 minutes then invert onto another cooling rack. It will still be quite warm and very moist. Scrape any remaining bits of sugar or fruit from pan onto top of cake.

Serve warm or at room temperature. Yield: 8 delicious slices.

From Heirloom Baking with the Brass Sisters, Marilyn Brass & Sheila Brass, 2006

Corn and Asparagus Salad

2012-03-10T19:39:00.000-06:00

I know this isn’t a cupcake, hey, it’s not even a sweet, but it was simply too good not to share! Since we’re headed into spring soon it’s the perfect spring salad for a picnic. You know, for that picnic you’re going to have with the Peaches-N-Cream Cupcakes I featured a couple of weeks ago!

Try it. I promise you’ll like it. Unless of course you don’t like corn, asparagus, red onion or basil, then you should still try it because it’s a damn good salad!

Corn & Asparagus Salad

6 ears yellow corn, shucked

2 bunches asparagus, trimmed

1 small red onion, diced small

1/4 cup fresh basil leaves, chiffonade

1/2 cup sugar

1 cup rice wine vinegar

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Fill a large stock pot with water, salt and bring it to a boil. Place shucked corn in boiling water and blanch the corn for 3 minutes until bright yellow. Then toss the corn into an ice bath. In the same water used for blanching the corn, blanch the asparagus for 1 minute and toss into the ice bath. For the corn, once cooled, remove the kernels off the cob with a sharp knife and cut the asparagus into 1-inch angled sections. Place both the corn and then asparagus into a medium size bowl with the diced red onion and basil leaves.

In another medium size bowl, mix together sugar, vinegar, salt, and pepper. Drizzle over corn and asparagus. Mix together well and chill or serve at room temperature.

Recipe by Paula Deen and found on Food Network.com

Death by Mint Oreo Cupcakes

2012-03-07T19:06:00.000-06:00

Remember the Death by Oreo cupcakes that started this whole crazy cupcake adventure? Yeah, well, this is a different take on those this time using Mint Oreos and making the cake from scratch instead of a cake mix. Yum!

Death by Mint Oreo Cupcakes

1 package Oreos

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder

1 ½ tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

2 cup granulated sugar

2/3 cup vegetable oil

2 egg

2 tsp vanilla

1 ½ cup buttermilk

Preheat oven to 350F. Line 2 cupcake pans with paper liners and place one whole Oreo into the bottom of each one. Set aside.

Set aside ten of the Oreos remaining in the package for use later in the icing; take all remaining Oreos and crush them until coarsely ground.

In a medium bowl whisk together flour, crushed up Oreos, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

In a large mixer bowl whisk together the sugar, oil, eggs and vanilla until smooth. Add the flour into the egg mixture in 3 batches alternating with the buttermilk, starting and ending with the flour (so 3 additions of flour mixture and 2 of the buttermilk).

Pour the batter into paper liners until they’re ¾ full, making sure that the Oreo is completely covered. Bake for 16-19 minutes or until a toothpick inserted half way in comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs.

Cool cupcakes completely and then ice with the Oreo icing.

Oreo Icing

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened to room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

4 cups powdered sugar

10 reserved Oreos from the cupcakes, finely ground

2-3 tablespoons heavy cream

Green food coloring (optional)

Crush Oreos up until finely ground (I use my food processor to get them to a powdered consistency), and mix with butter and vanilla in a stand mixer until well mixed.

Add in the confectioners’ sugar a ¼ cupful at a time mixing well with each addition. Add the heavy cream as needed to get to the desired consistency. If desired, add green food coloring to the icing to get them to that nice Mint Oreo filling color. Ice your cupcakes and enjoy!

Peaches N Cream Cupcakes

2012-03-03T10:11:00.000-06:00

The perfect spring time cupcake. Light, moist and delicious, this would be perfect for a Saturday picnic.

Peach Cupcakes

1 1/3 cups all purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup sugar

4 tbsp butter, at room temperature

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 cup peach puree

3/4 cup buttermilk

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Fill a standard cupcake pan with paper liners.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside

In a large bowl, beat the sugar and butter together until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg, vanilla extract and peach puree until the mixture is smooth.

Add half of the flour mixture to the butter mixture and stir until almost combined. Add the buttermilk and peach puree and stir again until almost combined. Add the rest of the flour and beat until well mixed.

Scoop the batter into the paper liners, filling each about ¾ full (or about ¼ cup in each). Bake for 18 to 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs. Cool completely and core out the center in preparation for the filling.

Peach Filling

1 cups fresh or frozen peaches, diced

1 cups fresh or frozen peaches, pureed

1 tbsp sugar

1 tsp cornstarch

1 tbsp water

Place small saucepan over medium heat on the stovetop. Put the peaches and sugar in the pot and bring them to a low bowl. In a separate small bowl, mix the cornstarch and water until lump free. Add the cornstarch mixture to the pan and keep on medium-low heat for 1 minute. Cool completely before use. Yield: about 1 1/2 cups.

Mascarpone Frosting

1 pound mascarpone cheese

1 1/4 cups heavy cream

1/2 cup confectioners' sugar

Put the mascarpone, cream and confectioners' sugar in a stand mixer with the paddle attachment and beat on medium speed until thick, 4 to 5 minutes. Yield: about 2 cups.

Fill the cupcakes with the peach filling and then pipe on mascarpone frosting.

NOTE: the extra peaches and icing are delicious mixed together as a snack!

Mudslide Cupcakes

2012-02-29T18:30:00.000-06:00

And now we go from Mr. Drapers favorite cupcake to transferring one of my own favorite drinks into a cupcake! The mudslide! Need I say any more? Chocolate/Kahlua/Coffee cake with a swirl of Baileys and Kahula infusing icing on top! I want some now!!! Too bad I made these almost two months ago. Le sigh.

Mudslide Cupcakes

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

3/4 cup coffee, at room temperature

3/4 cup Kahlua

3 large eggs, separated and at room temperature

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 cup packed light brown sugar

Preheat oven to 350 F. Line 2 standard cupcake pans with paper liners.

In a medium sized bowl, whisk the flour, cocoa powder and baking soda together. Set aside.

Combine the Kahlua and coffee together in a measuring cup. Set aside.

In a large mixer bowl, whisk the egg whites until they’re foamy. Then while the mixer is still going, slowly add the granulated sugar. When all of the sugar has been incorporated turn up the speed on the mixer and beat the egg whites until stiff, glossy peaks form

In another bowl, and the paddle attachment of your mixer, cream the butter and brown sugar together until it’s light and fluffy. Add in the egg yolks one at a time. Once incorporated add in the flour and coffee mixtures alternating between the two, being sure to start and end with the flour mixture (flour, coffee, flour, coffee, flour).

With a rubber spatula fold the egg whites into the coffee mixture until both are blended.

Scoop the batter into the prepared cupcake pans, with about ¼ cup of batter in each liner. Bake 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean or with only a few moist crumbs. Let cupcakes cool completely and then ice as desired.

Kahlua Buttercream

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature

3 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted

3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted

4 tablespoons Kahlua

2 tablespoons coffee, at room temperature

In a medium sized bowl, mix together the confectioners’ sugar and cocoa powder.

Then in a large bowl with a mixer, beat the butter until light and fluffy. Add in the sugar mixture a half cup at a time until fully incorporated.

Add in the Kahlua and coffee and beat until icing is smooth and fluffy.

Bailey’s Buttercream

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature

3 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

4 tablespoons Bailey’s Irish Cream

In a large bowl with a mixer, beat the butter until light and fluffy. Add in the sugar a half cup at a time until fully incorporated. Add in the vanilla extract and Bailey's and beat until the icing is smooth and fluffy.

Pipe the icings onto the cupcakes and enjoy.

For the swirled frosting: When filling the piping bag I placed the Kahlua icing on one side and the Baileys Icing on the other, then they piped out as a swirl. Alternatively, with disposable icing bags, you can add the Kahlua buttercream to one bag and the Bailey's buttercream to another. Then snip the bottoms off of each of them and slide them into a third disposable bag that’s been fitted with the piping tip.

Hummingbird Cupcakes

2012-02-26T09:30:00.000-06:00

Or what I call Mr. Draper’s favorite cake – and no I don’t mean the Mr. Draper from Mad Men, although I’m sure he’d like them too.

What exactly is hummingbird cake? Well, it’s a southern thing and is typically a three layer cinnamon cake that’s made with bananas, pineapple and chopped pecans that has been topped with a luscious whipped cream cheese icing and more chopped pecans. Rumor has it that this recipe was actually introduced to the lower eastern states by way of Jamaica. The first ever published recipe (at least that I could find records of was from Mrs. L. H. Wiggins and printed in a February 1978 issue of Southern Living magazine. This particular recipe was adapted from the ever fabulous Ms. Paula Deen and was featured in her “It Ain’t All About the Cookin’” cookbook. And it might be the best version of hummingbird cake I’ve ever had. It even translates well into cupcake form!

Hummingbird Cupcakes

3 cups self-rising flour
2 cups granulated sugar
3/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup finely chopped pecans
2 very ripe large bananas, mashed
1 (8 oz) can crushed pineapple, with juice
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 tsp ground cinnamon
4 large eggs, beaten

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Line 2 standard cupcake tins with paper liners.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, sugar, oil, pecans, bananas, pineapple, vanilla, cinnamon and eggs. Stir well with a spoon until the batter is smooth.

Spoon the batter into the prepared liners, with approximately ¼ cup of batter per cupcake. Bake for 17-20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean or with only moist crumbs. Cool in the pans for about 10 minutes, then remove from pans and finish cooling on wire racks.

Cream Cheese Buttercream Icing

4 cups confectioners' sugar

1 (8 oz) package cream cheese, at room temperature
6 Tbsp (¾ stick) butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 Tbsp milk, or more, if needed
1/2 cup finely chopped pecans (for garnish)

Mix the sugar, cream cheese, butter, vanilla and 1 Tbs milk in a large mixing bowl with an electric mixer until the icing is smooth. If needed, add more milk, 1 tsp at a time, to achieve the proper spreading/piping consistency.

Adapted from It Ain't All About the Cookin' by Paula Deen

Grasshopper Cupcakes

2012-02-23T18:55:00.000-06:00

It has been brought to my attention that I might be a little bit behind in my posting of recipes. See, I bake something new and post worthy at least once a week, but have only been posting once a month, so I'm going to make a push in the next couple of weeks to catch up, so please excuse the lack of excessive commentary at the beginning of each post (or enjoy my silence) as I attempt to get all these recipes out there.

I thought I'd start out this recipe blast with a new take on an age old pie/drink recipe. Hope y'all enjoy.

Grasshopper Cupcakes

1 ¼ cups milk

4 ounces sweet baking chocolate, chopped

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

¾ tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

12 tbsp (¾ cup) butter – at room temperature

1 ½ cups sugar

3 eggs – at room temperature

3 tbsp green or white crème de menthe*

1 tsp vanilla

In a small saucepan combine milk and chocolate. Cook and stir over medium-low heat until chocolate is melted; cool.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line 2 cupcake pans with paper liners.

In a medium bowl stir together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl beat butter with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Gradually add sugar, about 1/4 cup at a time, beating on medium speed until combined. Scrape sides of bowl; beat for 2 minutes more or until light and fluffy.

Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in crème de menthe and vanilla. Alternately add flour mixture and chocolate mixture, beating on low speed after each addition until well combined.

Scoop batter into prepared muffin cups, filling each about three-fourths full (about a ¼ cup each). Bake 17-20 minutes until the tops spring back when lightly touched or a toothpick inserted comes out clean or with only moist crumbs.

Cool cupcakes completely and ice as desired.

Swiss Meringue Grasshopper Buttercream

5 large egg whites

1¼ cups granulated sugar

1/16 teaspoon salt

2 cups (4 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

¼ cup green crème de menthe

Place the egg whites, sugar and salt in a large bowl (preferably the one from a stand mixer) and place it over a pan of simmering water (only about 2” of water is needed in the pot below). With a wire whisk, whisk the egg whites constantly by hand until the mixture is hot, approximately 3-5 minutes or 130 degrees on a candy thermometer. The eggs would feel completely smooth when rubbed between your fingers (or all the salt and sugar should be dissolved.

Remove the bowl from the heat and whisk the eggs (either with a whisk attachment of a stand mixer or a hand mixer) on high speed for 5-7 minutes or until the mixture forms a thick fluffy meringue and is cool (the outside of the bowl should be cool to the touch too).

Remove the whisk attachment from the mixer and add the paddle attachment. With the mixer on medium speed, add in the butter, 1 tbsp at a time. Stop the mixer periodically to scrape the icing down the sides of the bowl. Once all the butter has been added, add the crème de menthe and continue beating until the buttercream is thick and smooth (about 2-3 minutes). Ice cupcakes and enjoy!

King Cake Cupcakes

2012-02-19T21:48:00.004-06:00

Fat Tuesday and Mardi Gras celebrations call for some extra special cupcake goodness. And what better way to celebrate than with a send up King Cake? Well, maybe a daiquiri or two, a hand grenades, a midnight fortune telling and some boob flashing, but I’m not in New Orleans right now, so King Cake Cupcakes will have to do. They were fun to make, if not a bit time consuming. I’d say plan on a good 8 hours of prep time for these before you have a ready to eat cake. But they’re definitely worth that 8 hours.

King Cake Cupcakes

2 packages dry active yeast

1/2 cup sugar

8 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

5 egg yolks

1 cup warm milk (110 degrees F)

4 to 5 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 teaspoon grated lemon zest

Vegetable oil

Filling

8 ounces cream cheese – at room temperature

1/2 cup powdered sugar

Sugar Glaze

2 cups confectioners sugar

Juice of one lemon

2 tablespoons milk

Purple, green and gold sugar sprinkles

Plastic baby toy*

Combine the yeast, sugar, butter, and egg yolks in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a dough hook. Add the milk. With the mixer on low speed, beat the mixture for about 4 minutes to dissolve the yeast. If the yeast mixture doesn't begin to foam after a few minutes, it means it's not active and will have to be replaced.

In a separate large mixing bowl, combine the flour, salt, nutmeg, and lemon zest. Add this mixture to the yeast mixture. Mix on low speed until it lightly comes together, then increase the speed to medium and beat until the mixture pulls away from the sides of the bowl, forms a ball, and climbs slightly up the dough hook. Remove the dough from the bowl.

Coat the dough with vegetable oil. Return the dough to the bowl and turn it to oil all sides. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap, set in a warm, draft-free place, and let rise until doubled in size, about 2 hours.

Once the dough has doubled in size, make the filling by mixing the cream cheese and powdered sugar together.

Line two standard cupcake pans with paper liners.

Turn the dough out onto a floured surface. Roll the dough out until it’s about ½” thick and then cut circles out of the dough with either a biscuit cutter or an upturned glass.

Spoon approximately 1 tsp of filling onto each circle and then stretch the dough around the filling sealing it on the bottom (much like one would a dumpling). Place each dough ball with the seam side down in a paper liner.

Do NOT put the plastic baby in a cupcake yet (see note below). Cover the cupcake pans with a towel and place in a warm, draft free place. Let the dough rise for about 45 minutes or until the dough doubles in size.

Preheat the oven 350 degrees F. In another small bowl, combine the remaining powdered sugar, lemon juice and milk. Mix well and set aside.

With a sharp knife, make a couple slits in the top of each cupcake. Place in the oven and bake for 15-17 minutes, or until tops are golden brown. Allow cupcakes to cool completely. Once cooled pick one cupcake and remove from the paper wrapper, cut a small hole in the bottom and place the baby inside. Replace removed cake piece and put the cupcake back in the wrapper.

Sugar Glaze:

In a small bowl, combine the remaining powdered sugar, lemon juice and milk.

Drizzle the each cake with about 1 tablespoon of the sugar glaze and then sprinkle the cupcakes with sprinkles, alternating colors.

*NOTE ABOUT THE BABIES:

I was unable to find any plastic babies that I could actually safely bake inside the cake which is why I inserted the baby in the bottom of the cupcake after I was done with the baking. If you’re able to actually find an oven safe baby, feel free to bake it right inside the cake.

Made with slight alterations from Emeril Lagasse's King Cake.

Lemon Cupcakes with Blueberry Icing

2012-01-29T19:30:00.005-06:00

It's a lazy Sunday afternoon and a beautiful day, so I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time writing a whole bunch of nonsense. But I did make some pretty fabulous cupcakes this morning. Lemon Cake filled with Lemon Curd and topped with fresh blueberry icing. The sweetness of the icing balances out the tartness of the lemon curd kind of perfectly. These would be great for a summer picnic!

Lemon Cupcakes

2 ½ cups all-purpose flour

2 cups granulated sugar

½ tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

3 large eggs at room temperature

lemon zest from two lemons (finely grated)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon pure lemon extract

¾ cup vegetable oil

1 cup buttermilk at room temperature

1/4 cup Sprite or other Lemon Lime Soda

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a standard cupcake tin with paper liners. This recipe makes 2 dozen cupcakes.

Whisk the flour, ½ of the sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt until thoroughly mixed.

In a large bowl with an electric mixer, beat the eggs together with the lemon zest, lemon and vanilla extracts until well blended.

Add in the remaining cup of sugar and mix until blended. With the mixer running at a slow speed slowly add in the oil, followed by the buttermilk until mixed.

With the mixer still on a low speed, add in the flour mixture followed by the sprite and mix just until blended.

Spoon the batter into the paper liners until they’re ½ full, approximately ¼ cup batter each. Bake for 18-23 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean and the tops bounce back when touched. Let cool on a wire rack.

Once cupcakes have cooled, hollow out a small circle in the center of each cupcake and fill with approximately 1 teaspoon of Lemon Curd.

Lemon Curd

1/3 cup white sugar
1egg
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice (about 2 lemons)
zest of 1 lemon
1/3 cup unsalted butter, melted

In a large microwave-safe bowl, whisk together the sugar and eggs until smooth and thoroughly combined. Whisk in lemon juice, lemon zest and butter.

Cook in the microwave on full power for one minute intervals, stirring after each minute. This process will take about 3-5 minutes depending on the strength of your microwave. You will know the lemon curd is done cooking when it coats the back of a metal spoon.

Remove from the microwave, and allow to cool completely before filling cupcakes. Pipe or spoon the lemon curd into each hollowed cupcake and top with buttercream.

Lemon Blueberry Buttercream

2 sticks unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
4 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted
pinch of fine grain sea salt
1 teaspoons vanilla extract
zest of one lemon (finely grated)
½ cup fresh blueberries, pureed with 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1-3 tablespoons very cold milk (add until you reach desired consistency)

In a large mixing bowl, cream butter until fluffy. Slowly add in confectioner’s sugar, and continue beating until well blended.

Add salt, vanilla, lemon zest and blueberry puree and mix until well combined. If buttercream is too thick, slowly drizzle in milk until you reach the desired consistency. Beat at high speed until frosting is smooth and fluffy.

Dark Chocolate Chile Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Icing

2012-01-15T19:54:00.002-06:00

So yeah. I haven’t been posting much lately. Life’s been kinda crazy, what with big projects, the holidays, huge shows at work, travel, well - you get the idea. Interesting thing is that I’ve kept baking, which really is the more time consuming part of this blog, so I have lots of recipes to share. But today I baked a cupcake that’s just too good not to share. I’m not just talking a top ten favorite here, or even a top five cupcake. I’m talking a vying for the number one spot of favorite cakes cupcake. It’s soooooo good. Dark Chocolate and spices give this cupcake a nice kick that will stay with you for a bit after eating it and the cream cheese icing will ease the pain of the heat from the spice. Have I mentioned yet that this is a good one?

Dark Chocolate Chile Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Icing

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

2 cups sugar

3/4 cups Hershey’s Special Dark cocoa powder

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 tbsp cinnamon

1 tbsp cayenne pepper

1 cup buttermilk, shaken

1/2 cup vegetable oil

2 extra-large eggs, at room temperature

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 cup freshly brewed hot coffee

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a standard cupcake tin with paper liners.

Sift the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and cayenne pepper into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment and mix on low speed until combined.

In another bowl, mix the buttermilk, oil, eggs, and vanilla. With the mixer on low speed, slowly add the wet ingredients to the dry. With mixer still on low, add the coffee and stir just to combine, scraping the bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula. The batter will be fairly thin.

Spoon the batter into the prepared liners, with approximately ¼ cup of batter per cupcake. Bake for 15-18 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean or with only moist crumbs. I suggest to start testing at 15 minutes to avoid over-baking.

Cream Cheese Icing

1 - 8oz block of Cream Cheese - at room temperature

8 tablespoons of unsalted butter - at room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2-3 tablespoons heavy cream

4 cups confectioners’ sugar

Beat the Cream cheese and butter together until light and fluffy. Mix in the vanilla extract until blended. Slowly add in the confectioners’ sugar 1/3 cup at a time until well mixed. Add in the heavy cream a tablespoon at a time only if needed. Turn the mixer on high and beat the icing thoroughly for 2-3 minutes to obtain a nice creamy consistency.

Dust the tops with a little bit of Chili Powder if desired.

Pumpkin Pie Cupcakes

2011-11-24T12:23:00.001-06:00

It’s Thanksgiving and I have food to make, friends and family to be thankful for (and eat yummy food with) and football to watch, so I’m going keep this one short. It was requested that I make a pumpkin pie cupcake for today’s festivities and of course I had to comply. I’ve made some Pumpkin Pie Cupcakes with a praline “crust” and a light whipped cream like cream cheese icing.

Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving. Now – off to watch some football! Go Packers!

Pumpkin Pie Cupcakes

¼ cup butter or margarine

1/8 cup whipping cream

½ cup packed brown sugar

½ cup coarsely chopped pecans

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 cups sugar

1 cup vegetable oil

4 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 cups pumpkin puree or cooked mashed pumpkin

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line 2 cupcake tins with aluminum foil liners. Set aside.

In 1-quart heavy saucepan, stir together butter, whipping cream and brown sugar. Cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, just until butter is melted. Spoon 1 teaspoon each of the brown sugar mixture and pecans into each liner. Set aside.

In a medium sized bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger and salt. Set aside

In a large bowl beat the sugar, oil, eggs and vanilla extract until well combined. Add the pumpkin puree and beat until incorporated. Add the flour mixture to the pumpkin batter and beat just until incorporated.

Fill each cupcake liner with ¼ cup of batter and bake for 17-19 minutes or until the tops bounce back when touched

lightly, or a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean or with only moist crumbs.

Cool on a wire rack for 5-10 minutes before removing from the tin. Ice as desired

Light Whipped Cream like Cream Cheese Icing
6 oz Cream Cheese at room temperature
6 tbsp unsalted butter at room temperature
1 ½ tsp vanilla
3 cups confectioners’ sugar
3-4 tbsp Sprite or other Lemon Lime type soda

In a large bowl beat the cream cheese and butter together until light and fluffy. Mix in vanilla extract.

Add the confectioners’ sugar in a ¼ cup at a time, incorporating fully each time. Once all the sugar is in, add in the Sprite a tablespoon at a time while whipping the icing. Only add in as much as the icing will handle without becoming soupy. Beat for an additional 2-3 minutes to whip in as much air as possible into the icing.

Ice cooled cupcakes and enjoy!