Baking suggestions

So yesterday I was wondering, what should I bake this week? Without specific inspiration, sometimes it's hard to come up with something to try. So I asked my online friends for their suggestions. I got quite a few interesting ideas!

Apple Pie
Carrot cake
Cheesecake
Red Velvet
Black Forest
Orange Creamsicle Cake balls
Pecan Pie cupcakes
Banana Cream Pie Cupcakes
Strawberry cupcakes with coconut frosting
Cream cheese brownies
Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies
and
Meat Cake

Well, that's a lot of suggestions! My goal is to keep on baking new things, to expand my abilities. Most of those things I've made before, with the exception of banana cream pie cupcakes and the cranberry oatmeal cookies. Yes, I've even made meat cake, and cupcakes. And I'll never do it again, unless I'm paid very well. Meat is a lot more expensive than flour!



After all that, I decided to modify a few of my recipes to create a new one: peanut butter-chocolate chip-bacon cupcakes with chocolate frosting. Yum!

I used my go-to peanut butter cupcake recipe, added the candied maple bacon from the maple bacon cupcake recipe, threw in some chocolate chips, and topped it all off with a new chocolate frosting recipe.

The bacon gets roasted in the oven, with a sprinkling of maple sugar on each side to caramelize it. It's so sweet and crispy and salty! I also used some of the bacon drippings in the batter in place of butter.
The cupcakes turned out great, but the peanut butter kind of overpowers the bacon flavor. Even though there are chunks of bacon in the cupcakes, it's not a strong flavor.



I used a new frosting recipe as well. I'm never satisfied with my chocolate frostings, so I've been trolling the web for a new one. I found this recipe on many food blogs, so I don't feel bad about re-using it. It's pretty much the same as most chocolate buttercream frostings, but it's made in the food processor instead of a stand mixer.

Much quicker, but a bit messier to get it out of the bowl. It also makes a lot of frosting, I had enough left over for at least 3-4 more cupcakes.

All in all, these turned out pretty great. A quick dash of glittery sprinkles on top, and done!


So thanks to everyone for your suggestions, I'll save some of them for another time when I need inspiration.

Martha Cupcakes Challenge #20- Peanut butter filled chocolate cupcakes

Next up in the challenge: peanut butter filled chocolate cupcakes. I am going out of order from the book to better utilize the ingredients I have on hand.
The batter was more like brownies than cake, very thick and prepared the same way. The peanut butter filling was a little too thick, it needed more liquid. The recipe says to dollop 2 tbsp chocolate, then 1 tbsp peanut butter, then 1 tbsp chocolate and then 1 tsp pb. I just eyeballed it, and ended up not putting the pb on top. It worked out ok, cuz on some you can see the pb peeking thru anyways.
The recipe says to bake for 40 minutes, but that seemed like a really long time, so I checked after 20 and they were almost done. Even baking for 5 more minutes seemed like enough. I can't imagine what they'd be like if I baked them the whole time!

Here's the inside, yummy pb filling inside a dense chocolatey cake. Martha does not frost hers, so I won't either, altho a dark chocolate frosting or ganache would be good.
These are essentially peanut butter swirl brownies, but in cupcake form. yummy!

Martha Challenge #19- Peanut Butter and Jelly Cupcakes

Peanut Butter and Jelly Cupcakes from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes book.
This is a favorite combination of my husband, the original salty and sweet mix from our childhood. Altho I personally never had a pb&j sandwich, that doesn't mean I can't give the cupcake version a try!
I have made a version of this before, with a different recipe, with similar results. The one thing prefer about Martha's recipe, is after they are baked, the cupcakes aren't greasy. When I tried these before, the papers pulled away from the cupcakes, and after a while you could see the grease seeping through. Not too appetizing.

Here are the cupcakes right out of the oven. I like their color and feel, firm and not too crumbly. The recipe says it yields 22, but I got 24, and could have stretched it to 25. I also baked them for 18 minutes instead of the 22 minutes recommended. They'd be way too dry after that much time.

The peanut butter frosting was a bit unusual. It's cream cheese base, with only 1/3 cup powdered sugar. Also, it says to fold in whipped cream. Well, I folded and folded and it looked like a big goopy mess, so I ended up beating it together in the mixer for a minute, and it came out smoothing and light. I added more sugar, since it was very salty, to about 1/2 cup. It's a fairly loose frosting. It didn't seem like there'd be enough, but I just made it.
I piped the frosting on in a circle, leaving room for the jelly.

Here are the finished cupcakes, with strawberry jelly on top. I made these according to Martha's recipe, but next time I'll fill the cupcakes with jelly too. One dollop on top is not enough jelly. And maybe I'll even make my own from scratch! It was hard to find a natural jelly in the store.
All in all, a good recipe. I will definitely use the cupcakes again, but maybe not the frosting.

Peanut butter and jelly cupcakes

So, after reading a post on cupcakes take the cake, http://cupcakestakethecake.blogspot.com/2009/04/would-you-eat-peanut-butter-and-jelly.html, I decided to post about my own peanut butter and jelly cupcakes. I've tried this twice, with differing results. The second time was definitely better. These were the first try, a little messy looking. I put dollops of jelly on top to show what flavor was filled inside.





These are also peanut butter cupcakes, filled with jelly, topped with peanut butter frosting. I added purple sanding sugar to indicate the flavor of jelly inside. I just love cupcakes with a surprise! Both times the liners fell away from the baked cupcakes, not sure why. These are super rich and must be enjoyed with a cold glass of milk.