Chocolate Stout and Baileys Cupcakes and Pops

Happy St Paddy's Day! As usual, I made my world famous chocolate Guinness and Baileys cupcakes. However, I also make them into cupcake pops! It was very time consuming, and I messed up a few things, but they turned out great, and delicious too!

For anyone who doesn't know what a cake pop is, it's crumbled up cake mixed with frosting, then dipped in chocolate and decorated. On a pop! I think this is a great use for leftover cake or cupcakes, since the frosting moistens them up again. The possibilities are endless for decorating, but this time I just kept it simple.
So, the challenges I had: I first bought green candy melts, melted them, all was good, but then I tried to be creative and add Jameson whiskey to them to add flavor. The entire mixture seized up, and no mount of re-melting would get it back to liquid state. So I had to go out to the store to get chocolate bark, except they didn't have any! Apparently, it's a seasonal item. So I tried a few different chocolate products, and they ended up working ok. So half the pops were white chocolate and half were milk chocolate.
I also need to improve my rolling technique. Most of the pops weren't perfect circles, but kind of lopsided ovals. I will definitely try these again.
Oh, and the cupcakes turned out great too :)

Martha Cupcake Challenge #28- S'mores cupcakes

So, I've been dying to make S'mores cupcakes, and I finally got it together to make them. These were a multi-step cupcake. Since they're topped with marshmallow frosting, they must be served immediately after they're made. So I made the cupcakes the day before, and did the frosting in the morning.
The cake part turned out well. The recipe called for graham flour, which Whole Foods didn't have. So instead I bought organic honey graham crackers, and ground them up in my food processor. It gave a really nice graham-y flavor to the cupcakes.
Then I made the ganache, a chocolate glaze on top. The ganache recipe in the book always makes way more than I need, so I'll have to figure out something else to do with the rest. I dipped the tops in the ganache, which also seals in the moisture. All this I did in one day.
The next day I made the frosting. This did not work at all. It's a marshmallow frosting, made with gelatin and a sugar syrup. I guess I did it wrong, cuz there was a big goop of gelatin in the mixing bowl that never got mixed in properly. And, the pictures showed a huge dome of piped marshmallow on top of the cupcakes, but I didn't have nearly enough. I could barely manage a tiny dollop on each one. And it was not pipe-able at all. Not good.

Also, my kitchen torch didn't work! You're supposed to brulee the marshmallow, but I couldn't figure out how to work the torch, and I lost the box with the instructions. sad :(
So I delivered the cupcakes, and when I took the lids off the containers, all the marshmallow came off, because it was attached to the lid! But this was a good learning experience. Next time, I will put mini marshmallows on top of the ganache while it's still wet, so they stick. Then I will torch them, to get them all nice and brown on top. (ps- I love the way Craig Ferguson says "marshmallow". Check it out)
Next week, a foolproof recipe... Irish Car Bomb!

Martha Cupcake Challenge #27- Maple (with a twist)

So, due to requests from Jason's coworkers, I decided the next challenge would be Maple cupcakes, but with a little twist: bacon! Bacon cupcakes are the trend now, but I made them years ago. I used Martha's Maple cupcakes as the base, then adjusted them for my purposes. These came out great!

First, I made candied bacon, which is just bacon, baked with brown sugar until caramelized and crispy. However, I used maple sugar, to intensify the maple flavor in the cupcakes. These smelled amazing! I did sample a bite or two, and they were sweet and salty and crunchy and yum! The important thing is to save some of the bacon fat to use in the cupcakes.


So, making the cupcakes, I added the bacon fat, and used half brown sugar and half maple syrup, instead of all maple syrup as the sweetener. Then I folded in the bacon crumbles, so each cupcake is filled with crunchy morsels.
They baked up great, smelled amazing! Then I used a maple buttercream, which was a bit too thick, I should have thinned it a bit, but it was the perfect amount for 24 cupcakes. I topped each cupcake with a piece of candied bacon, for that added crunch, and to identify what's inside.


I get the craze with bacon, and paired with maple, it's really good, but I don't personally care for the combo. However, what the crowd demands, they get!

Martha Cupcake Challenge #26- Snickerdoodle cupcakes!

This is actually a continuation of the Mardi Gras cupcakes. I had made the base for these, the cinnamon sugar cupcakes, so I decided to finish them off. The cake recipe I made exactly, and these came out big and domed, just how I like them! They smelled so good while baking.


I used a different frosting than Martha recommended. She uses a 7-minute frosting, but it takes me more like 20 minutes to make, and I didn't have the time. So instead I used another frosting in her book, Honey-cinnamon frosting. This is a traditional buttercream, but with honey and cinnamon. It was super tasty.


I piped the frosting on, sprinkled it with cinnamon-sugar mix, then added another dollop on top. At first it didn't look like I'd have enough, but I had enough for at least one more cupcake.

ps- Snickerdoodle comes from a mispronunciation of the German word schneckennudeln, which means crinkly noodles. Weird!

Mardi Gras cupcakes

So, in a bit of a variation on the Martha challenge, I made cupcakes for my friend's Mardi Gras party. These were meant to resemble King Cake, the traditional cake of Mardi Gras. Even tho it's not really a cake, it's more like cinnamon roll dough.
The cupcakes were adapted from Martha's Snickerdoodle recipe. I made the cupcakes per her recipe, but switched up the frosting. King Cakes have a glaze on them, so I made a lemon glaze, and topped it with yellow, green and purple sprinkles, the official colors of Mardi Gras.


They turned out great, I even put a plastic baby into one! The tradition is, if you find the baby, you have to bring the cake next year. Not sure why it's a baby, but it's cute :) I just love any occasion to try something new.

Martha Challenge #25- Marble Cupcakes

In an effort to use up leftover dark chocolate frosting, I wanted to make something that would go well together, so marble cupcakes were the winner! These were fairly straightforward, first you mix the vanilla batter, then make some of it chocolate.


The swirling part was fun, messing up the cupcakes randomly to get a marbleized pattern. As Martha says, it doesn't have to be perfect. Really, Martha? I find it hard to believe that anything she does isn't perfect :)
The cupcakes baked up nice and tall, with big domed tops. After cooling for a while, I topped them with a thin layer of dark chocolate frosting, left over from last week's chocolate salted caramel cupcakes. Since it didn't hold its shape too well when piped, I just used a spatula to spread some on.
This was a good recipe, not complicated, and they smelled so good I almost ate one, and I never eat my own cupcakes! But I have been assured they are "nom nom nom".

Martha Challenge #24- Chocolate Salted Caramel Cupcakes

Ok, next challenge, and I do mean challenge. Chocolate salted caramel cupcakes. Martha made these in mini, but I made regular sized. 50 minis apparently equals 24 regulars.
This was one of the hardest recipes yet. Three steps, and each step was difficult. The cupcakes were very spongy, and the batter was liquidy. They baked for 17 minutes. It almost seemed like they weren't done, because they were so delicate and wobbly, but they were. I let them rest overnight.
The next day, I made the frosting. I've made this frosting before, it's basically tons of butter and chocolate, with a tiny bit of sugar. It's super rich and shiny, not too sweet. But it's quite loose, not stiff at all. And, the recipe makes a ton! I had at least 2 cups left over.

Then I made the salted caramel to go inside. I've made caramel a few times before. Again, I slightly overcooked the sugar mixture, so it was a very dark caramel. At the end you stir in fleur de sel, which is a fancy french sea salt.
Finally, assembly. I cut holes in each cupcake, filled with warm salted caramel, and sprinkled more fleur de sel on top. Then I piped the chocolate frosting on top. It's really too loose of a frosting to pipe, it was running all over the place. But I was rather surprised that once piped, it held its shape on the cupcakes. Then I sprinkled more fleur de sel on top.


These were super hard to make, doubt I'll make these again. Although salty and sweet is a popular combo, I'll try to achieve it other ways.