Posts with Recipes - Page 7 of 8 - Cupcakes by Amélie

November 29, 2011

Salty Caramel Chocolate Cupcakes

Martha Stewart included a recipe for Salted Caramel Chocolate Cupcakes in her 2009 cupcake cookbook, and there are countless posts web-wide about trying it out. I’ve had it requested a few times, and with a house guest as a captive taste-tester, it was time to try my hand.

Round #1

I followed the recipe for the Salted Caramel Filling from the cookbook, but I used full-sized chocolate cupcakes from a different one (not as dense as Martha’s, see below).

I made my first caramel a year or so ago and had absolutely no problem and a beautiful, delicious result. This time, however, I burned the first batch of caramel. It seemed to be taking awhile to get up to 360°, so I started coring the cupcakes. Mistake! It might take awhile to get started, but that molten sugar’s temperature can spike suddenly.

The second batch did not burn, but my choice to use milk instead of cream was a poor one. I had milk on hand and thought “Why not avoid a trip to the store and make it healthier to boot?” Not sure what got into me!

The filling tasted right but was quite thin. It soaked right in when I spooned it into the prepared cupcakes. I added more but stopped when I felt I might be overdoing it.

Salted caramel filling cupcakes

I filled the extra space with icing, vanilla buttercream with a hint of the caramel.

Frosted Caramel Cupcakes

One friend, tasting the cupcakes, kept commenting about how wet they were. Not in a bad way, so she said, though “wet” is not an appetizing description of a cupcake in my book. (Note that she happily ate more than one!) Perhaps I should have called this batch chocolate bread pudding with salted caramel sauce.

Round #2

I found a slightly different recipe on MarthaStewart.com (Caramel with Salt from Baked in NYC), which adds sour cream, more corn syrup, and has more precise instructions, and decided I’d like to try it out.

This time I followed Martha’s recipe for the mini chocolate cupcakes. The batter was some of the densest, darkest chocolate I’ve made in awhile. It’s probably what the salted caramel really needs to balance out its flavor. They fell in the middle when cooling, so I did not core them, just filled in the space.

Caramel in Mini Chocolate Cupcakes Success! Round #2 turned out as intended. I also think the small cupcakes work better for this rich, complex combination of flavors.

Cupcakes on table

These cupcakes appeared on my Thanksgiving table. While baking them, I also made a pumpkin pie using Alton Brown’s version with a gingersnap crust. I recommend it, see the recipe here! I served it with heavy cream whipped with a little sugar and maple syrup brandy.

October 14, 2011

Pumpkin-Cranberry Cupcakes

pumpkin cupcakes

I’ll be hosting a Thanksgiving dinner this year. Since this will be a first, a practice round was in order. I gathered some willing participants for this Thanksgiving-in-October over Columbus Day weekend. They made sides, my boyfriend and I did the turkey, dressing, and, of course, cupcakes.

I ran a poll on my Facebook Page to decide what to bake: What is your favorite fall ingredient? The top response was pumpkin (not surprised!), so I knew I had to include this classic fall ingredient in my Thanksgiving cupcakes.

I made the Pumpkin Cupcakes from Smitten Kitchen, though I gave them my own twist, adding cranberries to the batter. I love muffins with fresh, whole cranberries that burst as you bite through, but I couldn’t find any fresh cranberries. I used a dried version, so no bursting, but they did give a little something to the cupcakes.

Smitten Kitchen’s version uses maple icing, but I was set on doing cinnamon. I’d wanted to keep it subtle, so I used half a teaspoon of ground cinnamon in what was probably about a batch and a half of vanilla buttercream. Well, I can’t quite imagine it being more cinnamon-y. Subtle, it was not!

piping cinnamon icing — Piping the cinnamon icing with a 1M tip

Because I’d skipped the maple-cream cheese frosting in favor of the cinnamon buttercream, I considered drizzling maple syrup over the top. However, I decided that would be too sweet. When I tasted the plain cupcake, I knew what I needed—more of the tangy cranberry taste!

I let a handful of dried cranberries soak in hot water (just enough to cover) for about 30 minutes, then took my hand blender to them. I added this to 1/2 cup of sugar, a tablespoon of cornstarch, and some lemon juice, cooking until it thickened. I let it cool, then put it through a strainer.

I imagined drizzling the syrup artfully over the cupcakes, but it was a little thicker than I’d anticipated. Perhaps I should have skipped the cornstarch for this purpose, or used less. I first tried pouring the cranberry syrup from a pitcher, but it was just too thick. Spooning was worse. I finally settled on pushing through a small funnel.

At any rate, I managed to get the syrup/sauce on my iced cupcakes. And I have a nice amount of cranberry syrup leftover, ready to go on pancakes or ice cream! Or more cupcakes…

I worried there would be too many components, but the sweet spiciness of the icing and cake melded well with the tangy sweet cranberry. I recommend giving these cupcakes a try, if you want an alternative to pumpkin pie at your Thanksgiving meal!

pumpkin cupcake with cranberry syrup

The day for “Fakesgiving” turned out to be unseasonably warm, I believe it hit the mid-80s. Not out of the ordinary in my home state of Louisiana, where I sometimes wore shorts to pick out my Christmas tree, this is unusual for New York. Hopefully the real Thanksgiving will be more seasonable.

Happy fall!

September 29, 2011

Vanilla Cupcakes for Webgrrls

One of the other hats I wear is that of Membership Coordinator for the NYC Chapter of Webgrrls International. Webgrrls members have been hearing about my cupcakes and my blog at networking meetings for months, so I decided to treat them to a batch at the most recent event*!

I made regular ol’ vanilla cupcakes, frosting some with vanilla butter cream, the rest with chocolate. I wanted to make the vanilla icing a “fun” color, but I came out with a possibly misleading minty green. (Note to self, your food coloring supplies are running low.)

I used Butter Lane’s vanilla cupcake recipe (download their recipes from their Facebook page under Docs once you “Like” them!), baking 48 minis and 12 regular cupcakes. Though the results tasted great in both forms, I found this recipe harder to adjust for the minis’ baking time. This is perhaps because it calls for a lower temperature than I am used to (300° rather than 350°). I usually bake mini cupcakes about half the time called for in the recipe–if it is written for regular cupcakes–but these required a little more. I filled each equally, but the first tray I baked did not rise as much. I made up for this by adding chocolate chips around the edges.

It seems they were well-accepted, as I made it back home with only one mini leftover! Now I just hope Webgrrls aren’t disappointed if I don’t make some every time.

*If you are interested in Webgrrls, a networking organization for women in internet and technology-related professions, read the event recap!

September 6, 2011

Ginger-Lemon Mini Cupcakes

The citrus zing of lemon and the spicy sweetness of ginger truly complement each other, and it’s a combination I love.

crystallized ginger and lemon

In the cooler months, I like to make a dark, spiced gingerbread that I serve warm with a generous dollop of lemon sauce. It’s my maternal grandmother’s recipe, one of my favorites since childhood. It is a warming, comforting dessert for fall and winter.

Warming, however, isn’t right for summer. Luckily, ginger and lemon can also be a refreshing combination! I attended a wedding reception over the weekend with miniature cupcakes and was inspired to bake some of my own featuring ginger and lemon. Tiny bursts of these flavors seems fitting as a late summer treat.

lemon ginger mini cupcakes For the cake, I used the Ginger Cupcake recipe from Julie Hasson‘s 125 Best Cupcake Recipes (recipe reprinted online here), which uses both ground and crystallized ginger. I picked up some crystallized ginger from Malko Karkanni Brothers, a Middle Eastern grocery in my neighborhood. I chopped it to bake into my cupcakes and cut strips to use as garnish.

I whipped up some lemon frosting based on the standard cream cheese buttercream I make. It went something like this:

Lemon Frosting for Ginger Cupcakes

3 ounces cream cheese
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
l lb. powdered sugar
zest from 1 small lemon
1-2 tablespoons lemon juice

Beat cream cheese and butter until smooth. Slowly add sugar, then lemon zest. Add lemon juice a little at a time until you reach desired consistency.

ginger lemon cupcake

Interested in how these cupcakes were shot? Click here for info on the photography.

July 27, 2011

Louisiana Peach Cupcakes

When peaches come to mind, many of you probably think “Georgia,” but a peach in summer always says “Louisiana” to me. I grew up on Ruston peaches, and no peach tastes quite the same. I recently spent a week with family in the Bayou State, and what other special ingredient could I chose to include in a batch of cupcakes?

I chose two ripe–but not overripe–peaches for this recipe from Cupcake Project, one I’d not tried before. (I used a different frosting recipe than the one included there, see below.) I peeled the peaches and cut them in slices that I then chopped in thirds. I’d read that cutting the peaches up into smaller pieces decreased the flavor, and I wanted to avoid that! It turned out well, chunks of flavorful peaches and cake that was not at all heavy.

adding peaches

I used my stepmom’s KitchenAid Professional Bowl-Lift Stand Mixer to make these, and I have to say I like my KitchenAid Artisan Tilt-Head Stand Mixer better. I am ok with being no professional, if that is what that means! I really like having a tilting head, and I found it difficult to add ingredients without one. Though perhaps I would get used to it, I disliked having to lower and raise the bowl–or remove it entirely. I also missed the pouring shield I often use at home. That said, it is still a great mixer, and it certainly got the job done!

kitchen aid

Another change, I used an ice cream scoop this time. It’s a pretty standard method, but I don’t own this type of scoop myself. I still like my soup spoon method–I’m just so used to it!–but this works nicely, too. I tried a larger scoop, then switched to a smaller one.

icecream scooper cupcaking

For the frosting, I used a brown sugar recipe also found on the Cupcake Project website. It was simple to make. I melted butter and mixed in brown sugar, bringing to a boil, adding milk (I used 2%) and boiling for a few minutes. Once the mixture cooled to a lukewarm temperature, I whipped in powdered sugar. The frosting tasted like a sweet caramel with molasses, which is really exactly what it was.

brown sugar icing

This brown sugar topping was very sweet, as you might expect, but the peach cake was less so, and it was a successful mix.

“Is this the best cupcake you’ve ever made?” asked one satisfied taste-tester. I don’t know about that, but they certainly were good!

While all adults agreed, the kids–my nephews, 2 1/2 and 4–weren’t so pleased. They licked the frosting, then abandoned my cupcakes for M&M cookies. I think the molasses taste was a bit sophisticated for them, I’ll try again in a few years!

peach cupcakes

More photos from this post can be found in the Photo Gallery!

Recipes

Salty Caramel Chocolate Cupcakes

Round #1

Round #2

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Pumpkin-Cranberry Cupcakes

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Vanilla Cupcakes for Webgrrls

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Ginger-Lemon Mini Cupcakes

Lemon Frosting for Ginger Cupcakes

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Louisiana Peach Cupcakes

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