Finally….

Martha has come through!  If you read my last Martha cupcake post you may recall that I was on the verge of breaking ties with Martha and her cupcake book but these pumpkin cupcakes with its browned butter glaze has put us back on solid ground.  Did you catch that?  Browned butter glaze?  Yes? It’s even better than it sounds but honestly, the pumpkin cupcakes were wonderful on their own.   They were moist and tender but not overly so.  Darn near perfect.

Monica and I have been baking from Martha’s book for a few months now but this go round Babygirl actually whipped these up Friday night pretty much all by herself.  We made four mini bundts and six cupcakes which we left until the morning to glaze. 

No lie. I glazed (Ha, if you can call it that.) them Saturday morning and by that night they were gone.  All gone.  We’re still wondering  were they all.

Looking for the recipe?  Click here.  Double bonus you not only get the recipe but you get to drool over Monica’s stellar photos. 

Oh, yeah, my comment about the “glazing”?  Martha’s “glaze” was more like frosting and even when I added more cream to thin it out it was still thick.  Check out my bundts.  I seriously stink at glazes.  I either make them too thin  or too thick which wouldn’t be so bad if I didn’t figure it out until after I poured it on.

Technorati Tags: browned butter,cupcakes,glaze,pumpkin

Tres Leche

As many of you know Monica and I are baking our way through Martha Stewart’s Cupcake book. This month’s cupcake choice fell to me and I chose the Tres Leche cupcakes. (Go check out Monica’s little beauties!)

Hmmm, where do I start. I’m trying really hard to be objective but the truth is I wasn’t totally thrilled with these. Martha, me and you can’t be friends if your recipes aren’t working for me!

I wound up making these twice. The first time I halved the recipe and my cupcakes came out hard and rubbery. Okay, no problem perhaps my calculations and measurements were off. I gave Monica a call to see how hers turned and after finding out they were fine I decided to give the recipe another go.

With my second try I decided to make the whole recipe but only bake 6 cupcakes and use the rest of the batter to bake an 8 inch cake. This time around I made certain to beat my egg whites until they were almost stiff (Hi, Donna !!) and they held up when I added the rest of the ingredients. I gave Monica another call and after exchanging notes and photos it appeared that everything went well this time.

Except for making a cake along with the cupcakes my only change to the recipe was to slowly pour the milk mixture over the cupcakes and cake instead of brushing it on. I stored the unfrosted cupcakes and cake in the fridge over night so they could hopefully soaking up the last of the milk mixture. I frosted them the following evening with cinnamon whipped cream (I followed Monica’s suggestion and added the cinnamon to the whipped cream. YUM!!) though they never completely soaked up the tres leche mixture.

We ate the cupcakes the night after I baked them and they were surprisingly good. The boys even liked them so much they asked if there would be more for tomorrow. I told them yes as I still had the cake. The cake; now the cake is a whole other story. It was a disappointment. The bottom of the cake never really soaked in the tres leche mixture and the top, it soaked in too much and was soggy. If you’ll take a good look you can see in the bottom photo a line on the top edge (which is actually the bottom as I flipped out the cake to frost and serve it.) which was a rubbery hard eggy “crust”.

Would I make this again? Yes, just probably not this recipe and at this point I’m not even sure Martha and me can continue our friendship. I’ve made 5 recipes out of Martha’s cupcake book and three out of the five have been a disappointment. Could it be me? Possibly but I’d like to think not as it seem to only have trouble with her (cupcake) recipes. If your looking for the recipe you better mosey on over to Monica's and I’m not even going to suggest buying the book. The majority of the recipes can be found online.

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Check out this post and be sure to tell me what’s your favorite fall recipe and kitchen gadget to win one of my favorite gadgets.

Technorati Tags: cake,cinnamon,cupcakes,tres leche,whipped cream

A Failure and A Success

I know I’ve been MIA lately.  The kids, their homework, and extracurricular activities have kept me super busy.  They’ve adjusted well to going back to school but I’m still struggling to balance everything.  (I think it’s been a week since I last baked anything. :(() I’m hoping to get back into the groove of things soon!

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A few months ago I had my first giveaway.  One of the items which I gave away was Martha Stewart’s Cupcake cookbook which I preordered for the winner.   At the same time I preordered the winner’s(Noodlegirl) cookbook I preordered one for myself.  When I received the cookbook I excitedly flipped through looking for a cupcake recipe  to try.  It didn’t take long for me to settle on  the snickerdoodle ones.

  I decided instead of baking up 28 cupcakes I’d bake a two layer six inch square cake (I had also recently bought two Fat Daddio pans) and with the rest of the batter a few cupcakes.   Everything went smoothly.  The cake batter was delish and the yummy cinnamon-y aroma filling my kitchen was driving me crazy! My cake layers which I baked up first looked great and my six cupcakes were the most perfect looking cupcakes to ever come out  of my oven.  To say that I was excited was an understatement! 

As I waited for my layers and cupcakes to cool I got busy making my frosting.  Instead of making Martha’s seven minute frosting I decided to make the cinnamon brown sugar buttercream I had  recently seen on the blog, Lick the Bowl Good.  Monica’s buttercream is the success part of this post.  The buttercream is actually an Italian Meringue and I’m happy to say it came together without a hitch.  It also piped like a dream. 

Now for the failure part.  The snickerdoodle cake and cupcakes that looked so wonderful coming out of the oven?  While cooling they had shrunk in on themselves and when I tried one of the cupcakes it was bone dry!  How can that be?  When I did the toothpick test it came out with a crumb or two stuck to it and that was five minutes prior to when the recipe said they should be done!  Talk about disappointed!    The worse part?  A few days after I tossing (with force) the cake  into the garbage disposal (I should have made cakeballs, duh!  Throw in enough frosting, dip into chocolate, and just about anything will taste good.) I came across several blogs that raved about the cupcake recipe.  (Here’s one of them.) Maybe it was me?  I’d like to give it another try but I’m scared.  So, I think I’ll just stick to this snickerdoodle cake recipe or this snickerdoodle bundt cake one. 

 

I’m sorry that the photos are crappy but once I realized how awful this was I really couldn’t muster up any enthusiasm for the the photos.  The only reason I took any to begin with is that Babygirl frosted and decorated the cake. 

Technorati Tags: snickerdoodle,cake,brown sugar,cinnamon,cupcakes,frosting

Black Forest Cupcakes

Monica and I are at it again and have baked up another “cupcake” from Martha Stewart’s Cupcake cookbook.  Our first cupcake though in Martha’s cookbook was one we found off on Bake or Break and baked together.  For Monica’s birthday I sent her Martha’s cupcake cookbook and hinted that perhaps we could bake some of the cupcakes from it together.  These black forest cupcakes are our first official ones and my choice.

I’d like to tell you that I loved these cupcakes but the truth is they’re chocolate and as you know I’m not a fan.  With that said though Miss Karolyn, our “resident” chocolate lover loved them and thought they were perfect!  Truthfully except for the chocolate the cupcake itself  was perfect.  It was moist and not too dense. Tender but not crumbly.  They stayed fresh for a few days. I baked them on Friday night and I just put together another one for us to share. The cupcake tasted just like it did the first night.  While the cupcake part was stellar the pastry cream was so-so and the ganache was well, ganache, only as good as the chocolate you use. The one thing I did like about the ganache was the addition of corn syrup which kept it from hardening.

Some of you who know me may be wondering why in the world I chose these cupcakes (I wondered that myself a few times) but cherry filled desserts are making the rounds with cherry and chocolate seeming  to be the favorite.  I’d never tried the two together and thought to give it a try.  I also wanted to try making pastry cream.  With this cupcake I’d get to kill two birds with one stone so to speak.  Funny enough but neither one of those things stood out in this recipe.

I only made a third of the cupcake batter and baked mine in a bigger version of this mini cheesecake pan. Monica graciously cut the recipes into thirds for us so we wouldn’t have 30 cupcakes hanging around.  I made six king size ones.  If any of you are interested in the 1/2 and 1/3 recipes of ganache and pastry cream I’d be happy to forward them to you.

Okay, if you haven’t already go check out Monica’s Black Forest Cupcakes as her photos are sure to be even better than mine.

Technorati Tags: cherries,chocolate,cupcakes,ganache,pastry cream

Red Velvet Cake "Baked" with Charity

On a previous post I mentioned that Charity from Sweet Charity  Pie and I collaborated on a Double Chocolate Layer Cake well, this week we've "Baked" up a Red Velvet Cake.  Charity picked last week's cake so this week was my turn.  I've been wanting to make a red velvet cake for a long time but being the scaredy cake baker that I am I needed a push.  When Charity inquired about what cake I was interested in I knew with out a doubt it was red velvet.  I crossed my fingers that she didn't hate red velvet and sent her an email.  She didn't and sent along links to various red velvet recipes but there was one red velvet post that I just couldn't shake and knew now was the time.  Finalizing our plans I emailed Charity the link to Cassie's post about the red velvet cupcakes she had made along with a boiled frosting.  Yay, Charity agreed it was the perfect recipe. 

I've got to tell you that this cake started out well but in the middle became a small disaster that I thought would end as a HUGE disappointment. 

The red velvet cake we made was from the popular cookbook Baked by Matt Lewis & Renato Poliafito.  If this cake is anything to go by then the rest of the recipes are going to be as awesome everyone else has raved. 

My only change to the cake recipe was to use two smaller 6 inch pans. With the balance of batter I made  twelve cupcakes.  As usual I over filled them and only two were presentable.  Half of the cupcakes went to work as a birthday to treat to one of our vendors, half stayed home, and the two layers went in to the freezer to be frosted at a later date (Tuesday night after baseball practice).  For the cupcakes I made a cream cheese frosting from Simply Recipes.  Let me tell you that frosting was darn good, best cream cheese I've had yet! (I did halve the recipe.) With regards to the frosting recipe for the cake I used the one that went with it in the cookbook, Baked.  I followed Cassie and only added two out of the three sticks of butter the was called for in the recipe.  The frosting which is a boiled frosting, tasted, oh my goodness good! Unfortunately for me it did not really firm up. I eventually did after an overnight stay in the fridge but not without  slipping a bit.  The other thing I noticed about the frosting was it looked sort of like over whipped whipped cream.  You can see it in the photos of the cake.  (I don't think the book's instructions for making the frosting were detailed enough.)  After going back today to look over Cassie's post I noticed in her final photo of the cooked flour/sugar mixture that hers looked thicker than mine so perhaps that was the culprit for the slippery soft frosting. 

I'm sure you're wondering what about the cake and small disaster.  Well, the both the cake and cupcakes were soft, fluffy, moist and tender.  They were worth all the trouble I went through.  I'm almost sure I'd make this again it someone I LOVED was to request it again.  LOL!  It will probably be along the lines of childbirth for right now the pain is fresh but in the end it will be fade and even be forgotten enough that I'll give another go!

Now the story of my disaster.  I'm not sure about you guys but I have the very bad habit of cleaning as I go and maybe I get a little distracted by the cleaning.  On this occasion it bit me in the butt because as my butter, egg, and buttermilk was slowly mixing in my KitchenAid I started to wipe the surrounding area.  I noticed a spot behind the mixer and brilliant me reached behind with my sponge.  As I pull my arm back it hits the lever and increases the speed to THE MAX sending pink eggy, sliming, stinky batter sans flour EVERYWHERE.  All over my new white t-shirt (why the heck didn't I wear my apron, my consolation was it really wouldn't have helped), all over my clean dishes sitting near by, my glasses, my hair, over my containers of utensils, on the walls, and floors.  I mean everywhere three days later I'm still find small dots of red. (I actually have photos which I intended to post but everything looked so gross I just couldn't.)  Now mind you its 1o o'clock at night when this happens.  I've lost part of my batter and it's going to take me a while to clean up (Thanks, honey, for helping and not laughing too much!).  I cleaned up enough to forge on despite my worry that I've lost too much of the liquid part of my batter.  All's well that ends well because my cake tasted wonderful and (I think) the cupcakes even better.  I wish I learned my lesson but the following night as I was making frosting I found myself doing the same thing again.  The dummy just won't learn!

Please take a moment to read about Charity's take on this cake.  I won't give it away, so go on now and check!  (Charity, sorry about posting this soo last minute!)

*The lovely cake photos are courtesy of Miss Karolyn & the cupcake ones are me.

** Sorry I haven't been around as much to read and comment on your blogs. I've been struggling with the time change and am just so behind. I have three other posts to add photos to and publish and another three to add photos and links!  Hope to be all caught up soon!

Technorati Tags: red velvet,cake,cupcakes,cream cheese,frosting boiled frosting

Going Bananas!

Before I start on my actually post I wanna say how excited I am today! While I have posted some over the past two months I feel as if this is my first. Hopefully, I don't bore you and I while I now have photos I know they are not what most of you have been accustomed to but hopefully I'll get better over time.

Bananas are a staple at my house so you can usually find a few hanging from my banana holder (is that what's it's called?). With Devon in SC playing baseball (Go Sting) our smoothie making has dwindled and so I have more bananas than normal browning. Which means something yummy with bananas will be coming from the oven. With sooooooooo many yummy banana recipes out there it took me a few days just to decide on one but finally I went with this recipe from the blog, The Crepes of Wrath and I used Joy the Baker's Brown Sugar Cream Cheese frosting. For the most part I followed their directions with a few exceptions unfortunately those exceptions may have played a role in my going bananas! It seems every time I bake with bananas I can't seem to get the timing right, either it's undercooked or overcooked. I just can not seem to get it right. Does any body else have this problem? What do you think I'm doing wrong? Feel free to jump in at this point with helpful hints. My first batch came out....undercooked. They had a nice crust but were a bit undercooked and they sank in the middle.

Here's a photo of my sunken banana cupcakes....

You can see that they are browned nicely but after cooling a moment they slowly sank and were still a bit mushy in the middle at the top. The cake recipe called for a 375degree oven and a bake time of 20 minutes. Maybe I should have lowered it?

The cupcakes while good were in my opinion more of a frosted muffin than cupcake. Again they were quite good and received thumbs up from my critics (My kids will flat out say when they think I've stunk it up!) but I thought the banana flavor was over shadowed by another. Here's where it might have gone wrong. I used freshly ground nutmeg instead of the kind out of the jar and perhaps my dash of ground cloves was too big a dash? I really couldn't tell which spice was dominating. (I don't have that refined a palate.) I'm hoping someone with a bit more knowledge will take pity on me and give me their opinion on the various place I might have gone wrong.

Now for the frosting. It was finger licking, bowl licking good! At first I thought it was a bit gritty and thought it might have been from not using the full amount of butter called for in the recipe. I used 1 1/4 cup instead of 1 1/2 cups In thinking about it for a few days I'm pretty certain it was because I put the frosting in the freezer to firm up so that I could pipe a pretty swirl on my cupcake. DUH! I never let the frosting come to room temp before gobbling down the cupcake nor the ones I ate over the next couple of days as I kept the cupcakes in the refrigerator. Once realizing my mistake and being more patient the grittiness was no more! The finished product!