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!

Cupcakes Review in Denver

So, yesterday I took a little tour of a few cupcakeries in Denver that I had been meaning to check out. Here's my thoughts:

First up was Big Fat Cupcake, on Adams St in the Cherry Creek area.
Nice location, corner store, altho parking was difficult. At first I was shocked that the cupcakes cost over $4, but then I saw them. They are ginormous! True to the name of the shop, these are huge, muffin sized cupcakes. I chose black and white, a classic.
This cupcake was hard to bite into, it's so big! The frosting was good, but it tastes like it's made with shortening, not butter. Nothing wrong with that, but I prefer butter. The cake itself was ok, not too flavorful, but not dry either. I could easily share this with 3 or 4 people.

Next was The Shoppe, a cupcake and cereal eatery. It's on Colfax and Steele.
There's a couple of cute shops next to it too worth checking out. There was ample seating, with people playing some games and hanging out. I ordered 2: Red velvet and Dark chocolate orange (my fave!). These were normal sized cupcakes.
The red velvet was very red, not much flavor in the cake, but the cream cheese frosting tasted like pure cream cheese, no sugar or vanilla added. I don't really like cream cheese to start with, too tangy, and this was overwhelmingly so.
The dark chocolate orange I was excited about, since I love that flavor combo. The frosting was chocolatey and rich, with lots of orange flavor. The cake was super dry and I didn't taste any orange, but maybe that's cuz the frosting was so overpowering.


Last was Happy Cakes, across the highway off 32nd St. Small little shop, very cute.
No place to sit, but there's a bench outside. They are moving soon to a bigger location nearby. There's not even a kitchen in the shop! I chose Snickerdoodle, like the cookie.
This cupcake was heaven. The frosting was the most buttery delight I've ever had. Usually, buttercream tends to be too sweet, but this was so rich and buttery tasting. The cake was very tasty, with a good cinnamon flavor, and not too sweet. My favorite of them all!

So, next time I am exploring around Denver, I'll be sure to stop by Happy Cakes. Great name, great vibe, great cupcakes!

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.

New Year, New possibilities

So, I have been seriously slacking. I blame it on 2 jobs plus school. However, now it's down to only 1 job and school, so I have no more excuses. My plan for the New Year:
*Find a kitchen
*Prep to sell at farmer's markets in the spring
*Marketing!
In other words, steps required to catapult me to success. When school is finished in one year, I plan to be ready to go pro. Along the way, there will be lots of baking. I will resume the Tania/Martha challenge, and fine tune my own recipes as well.
Until I get going again in a few days, here's some pics of my holiday baking: cupcake cookies!

Martha Cupcake Challenge #18- Pumpkin-Brown butter cupcakes

Spooky!!! These are pumpkin-brown butter cupcakes with cinnamon cream cheese frosting. Since it's so close to Halloween, I wanted to start making festive cupcakes with my holiday liners and sprinkles. These make my place smell amazing!
The batter starts with browned butter, which is just melted on the stove until golden and delicious. It has a nutty smell, very warm and fall-like. No mixer required either! The ingredients come together easily, since the butter is melted.

Here they are right out of the oven. The tops seemed a bit spongy still, but I knew after cooling for a few minutes they'd firm up, and they did. One thing I found odd, this recipe did not call for vanilla, which I love, so I added it. I think it gives a great flavor to any recipe, and always add a little bit no matter what.
I frosted these with a cinnamon cream cheese frosting, even though the recipe book calls for a brown butter glaze. I tried to use stencils to make designs with the sugar, but I think the frosting is too sticky, because they didn't really come out well. The stencils will work better on an unfrosted cupcake with powdered sugar, or on a harder frosting, like a ganache.
So I just ended up using pretty colored sugars all over.
This recipe made exactly 15, as it said it would. just enough to share with a few friends :)

Martha Cupcake Challenge #17- Applesauce spice cupcakes

So, I only have photos of this one unfrosted, they got eaten up too quickly! These are applesauce spice cupcakes, with pecans inside.
They were eventually topped with cream cheese frosting. These are made with unsweetened applesauce, and lots of fun spices, like cinnamon, cloves, ginger and nutmeg (which I omitted since I hate nutmeg). They made the whole apartment smell so good! I have used applesauce in recipes before, when trying out some vegan alternatives to eggs. It certainly makes any baked good super moist and delicious! A great recipe all around.

Martha Cupcake Challenge #16- Mocha cupcakes

In honor of National Chocolate Cupcake Day, I endeavored to make Martha's mocha cupcakes, since mocha = chocolate + coffee. I upped the amount of coffee in the cupcakes, using not only 3/4 cup of brewed espresso, but also a packet of Starbucks VIA Columbia roast instant coffee, and also A tablespoon of instant espresso powder. These don't have that much chocolate in them, only 2 tbsp, but it's enough to get that great mocha flavor.

Here they are fresh out of the oven, smelling soooo delicious! The recipe says it makes 24, but I only got 20. The batter was quite liquidy, and these cupcakes are moist and delicate. Chocolate has a tendency to be dryer than others, but these will not have that problem.

Now, on to the frosting. It's a 7 minute frosting, flavored with coffee. It calls for coffee extract, but I couldn't find that, so I just used the instant espresso powder to make a very strong 1/4 cup of coffee. I have made this frosting once before, for the coconut cupcakes (Cupcake Challenge #4). I ran into the same problems as last time. Although I did have a working candy thermometer, it seemed like the sugar mixture took a very long time to come up to temp. Also, I had to beat the frosting on high for 25-30 minutes, not on medium for 7 minutes, to get the glossy peaks I needed. I did some searching on the internet and found lots of other recipes that use a double boiler. I may try that next time, this is too time consuming.

This is how much frosting I had left over. Could have used another dozen cupcakes! And unfortunately, you can't save this for later, it must be used immediately, so it was either eat all that frosting myself or throw it out. (I threw it out)
So, cupcakes A+, frosting C. I am also going to submit this recipe on Starbucks.com, since they are having a contest to use the new VIA coffee. Since I don't drink coffee, this is how I use it.