Jason Walker-Yung Archives - Page 4 of 8

November 12, 2012

Classic Carrot Cake Cupcakes

Carrot cake is my most requested cupcake, and I’ve had fun experimenting with the classic ingredients (see Carrot Zucchini Chocolate Chip Cupcakes and Carrot and Crystallized Ginger Cupcakes). This time, however, I’m not messing with the original. These are straight up carrot with raisins. Add nuts, if you must.

Note: When I first started baking carrot cupcakes (pre-blog), I used Ina Garten’s Food Network recipe. The recipe below is loosely based on that recipe. Key differences are that I use butter instead of vegetable oil and cook a shorter time.

Read the Story of this Batch!

Recipe: Carrot Cupcakes

Makes 2 dozen cupcakes

2 1/2 sticks butter
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 large eggs
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 pound grated carrots
1 cup golden raisins

Preheat oven to 350° F and line muffin pans with 24 paper liners.

Using an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar. Add the vanilla, then mix in the eggs, one at a time.

In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Add half of this flour mixture to the mixing bowl, reserving half, and mix completely.

Add the grated carrots and raisins to the remaining flour and mix well, then add to your batter in the mixture. Mix until just combined, do not over mix.

Fill cups with batter about 3/4 full. Bake at 400° F for 10 minutes, then reduce temperature to 350° F and cook for about 20 minutes more. Cooking time varies, so start checking after 10-15 minutes. The cupcakes are ready when a toothpick comes out clean. Remove from the oven, let cool 5 minutes in pans, then remove and cool completely on racks.

Variations: I've made these replacing the raisins with crystallized ginger or even chocolate chips. I've also used other fruits and vegetables such as zucchini or apple, reducing the amount of carrot. Lots of possibilities!

Frosting Recipe

October 23, 2012

Tasting Tour NYC: Prohibition Bakery

Lower East Side, Manhattan

Prohibition Bakery
9 Clinton Street
www.prohibitionbakery.com

On the Lower East Side, you will find this small cupcakery baking with booze. Oh, you read that right, these sweets are all liquored up!

Brooke Siem, a classically trained chef who has worked at restaurants such as wd~50, and Leslie Feinberg, a bartender and self-taught baker, met last year and put their skills together to form the concept for these grown-up treats.

The day I visited the bakery, I watched as Leslie perfectly piped icing onto some of the 600 tiny cupcakes Prohibition Bakery was preparing for Wine Riot that evening. She had the knack for baking from the beginning, she told me, but needed a little help with piping technique. “I had to go through piping boot camp at the beginning, Brooke said I wasn’t going to cut it.”

Prohibition’s cupcakes feature alcohol in the frosting and fillings, so it is not just a flavor, they really are alcoholic. Yes, they do card, so no boozy cupcakes if you are under 21! Can these minis intoxicate you? There are maybe 2 teaspoons of liquor in each cupcake. By my calculation, eating three of their cupcakes is like drinking half a mixed drink.

While most of these cupcakes are not kid-friendly, the pair does bake a “virgin” flavor each day, providing one option—six are featured daily—that doesn’t require ID. When I stopped by it was a cupcake called “For the Love of Bacon,” so I skipped it. (I’m sure it is lovely, I just don’t eat bacon.)

My favorite of the day was the Sangria, filled with wine and topped with an apple chip. To me, it tasted most like the drink. Brooke commented that she thinks the Margarita is the most accurate compared to the real thing. It certainly was tasty.

My boyfriend was a fan of the Pretzels & Beer, which contains pale ale, Nutella and pretzels. The White Russian, coffee-flavored cake with vodka and Kahlúa frosting, and the Car Bomb, whiskey, Bailey’s and chocolate, were also superb.

Will I be returning soon for another Happy Hour?

…for sure!

Prohibition Bakery’s Kickstarter backers have been signing the door. Want to know more about their (successful) Kickstarter campaign? That’s a story I’ll let Leslie and Brooke tell themselves. Click here for the video and more info.

September 3, 2012

Rhubarb Cupcakes with Candied Rhubarb Knots

A friend requested I “get crazy with some rhubarb” for his birthday. I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to find rhubarb in August in NYC, as a local availability website said the season was May-July. However, I found some the second place I went, a fruit and veg store down the block. The grocer who stands outside to tempt passersby with fresh fruit samples led me right to a small pile, which I quickly depleted.

rhubarb

I made a rhubarb purée by cooking cut rhubarb with some water and a little lemon. I simmered until it was soft then used my hand blender. The purée went into both the cupcake batter and the icing.

I candied some rhubarb to top the cupcakes. I made a sugar solution over the stove, dipping julienned rhubarb to coat, then arranged on a foil-covered pan. I baked these sticky strips in the oven at 200° for about 45 minutes. After removing the rhubarb from the oven, I shaped them into knots while they were still pliable, then left them out to harden overnight.

candied rhubarb

The cupcakes came out a little denser than your average cupcake, tasting almost like pound cake. The rhubarb flavor came through, which was the most important thing.

For the icing, I used powdered sugar, rhubarb purée, and butter, plus a little cream cheese to give it extra punch. I hadn’t completely factored in the fact, though, that the purée and cream cheese might be too much moisture to get an icing consistency that would be easy to pipe. I prefer to pipe my icing because it is faster and usually looks nicer, but something I may have to face is that all types of icing are not meant to be piped! I did my best this time, though, adding some more butter and lots of powdered sugar to get what I wanted. I stopped my additions before they overpowered the rhubarb taste, doing my best to pipe a good amount on each cupcake, topping with a rhubarb knot.

rhubarb cupcakes

July 16, 2012

Carrot Zucchini Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

What better to do with extra carrots from my CSA (Local Roots NYC) than bake carrot cake? I had about 1/2 pound, though, which wasn’t quite enough to make a full batch. I could have bought more carrots to make up the other 1/2 pound, but I decided to use zucchini instead. One big zucchini was enough to round it out. (The zucchini, I believe, brought in a little more moisture into the batter than just carrots would have.)

I worked from my usual carrot cake recipe (see my Carrot and Crystallized Ginger Cupcakes), but added chocolate chips instead of fruit or nuts. The chocolate chips sunk to the bottom, not necessarily a bad thing, but I had thought the grated vegetables would help suspend them in the batter.

I made cream cheese icing to top these, the traditional choice for carrot cake. I served them at a BBQ in 90° weather, and the icing was a melty mess. Everyone was very nice about that, even when they had to lick most of the icing off their fingers. One guest did run in to put his in the freezer for a few minutes before eating.

My boyfriend was coaching cupcake eaters. “Lift it very carefully. The icing won’t drip if you keep the cupcake level. Keep it steady… Eat it, quick!”

The chocolate chips were also a little melted, but the comment was that gave the cupcakes a just-out-of-the-oven taste. I didn’t intend to “cook” them with the icing on, though! Maybe my hot-day strategy should be to come with un-iced cupcakes, bring icing in a cooler, and finish on demand.

Recipe: Carrot Zucchini Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

Makes 2 dozen cupcakes

2 1/2 sticks butter
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 large eggs
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 pound grated carrots
1/2 pund grated zucchini
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350° F and line muffin pans with 24 paper liners.

Using an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar. Add the vanilla, then mix in the eggs, one at a time.

In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Add half of this flour mixture to the mixing bowl, reserving half, and mix completely.

Add the grated carrots and zucchini and chocolate chips to the remaining flour and mix well, then add to your batter. Mix until just combined, do not over mix.

Remove from the oven, let cool 5 minutes in pans, then remove and cool completely on racks. Top with cream cheese frosting.

Frosting Recipe

July 9, 2012

Turkey Meatloaf Cupcakes with Mashed Idaho Potatoes

Never thought you’d be reading about meat and potatoes on a cupcake blog, huh?

meatloaf cupcakes

I attended TechMunch, a conference for food bloggers, here in New York. One of the sponsors was the Idaho Potato Commission. They held a drawing, and I was one of the lucky winners. What did I get?

20 pounds of potatoes…

I live alone. I sometimes cook with my boyfriend or for other friends, but really, what was I going to do with 20 pounds of potatoes?!

I made potato salad, baked potatoes, and mashed potatoes. I made three kinds of soup including potatoes (with radishes, with radish tops, regular potato). I made hash browns and fries. However, I knew that I’d have to do something cupcake-y for this blog.

I’m not a red meat eater, so I looked for a turkey meatloaf to make my meatcakes. I went with Ina Garten’s recipe, which has gotten a lot of good feedback online. Ground turkey can get dried out when using it in recipes meant for beef or other meats with higher fat content, so reading that this recipe resulted in a juicy loaf was appealing. I made 1/3 of this recipe, which gave me 9 “cupcakes.” The only change was to use about 3 tablespoons of ketchup instead of the 1/2 teaspoon of tomato paste it called for, but I did not put any on top. (I used Heinz’s organic ketchup, which is made from organic ingredients including sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup.) Cooking time in muffin tins was about 35 minutes.

For the “icing” I made mashed potatoes. I peeled 4 of my winnings and boiled with a few peeled cloves of garlic for 25 minutes. I mashed and added butter and half & half and salt. I then puréed with my hand blender (usually to be avoided, I hear, to prevent rubbery mashed potatoes) to get smooth potato icing I could pipe. I topped with green “sprinkles” (chopped garlic scapes).

turkey meatloaf cupcakes

Thank you, Idaho!

Did You Know?

Potatoes, along with carbs in general, have gotten a bad rap in recent years. Yes, overindulgence can be a problem, but your body actually needs carbs. It is still a food group, even if it shouldn’t be your main food group (see the new food pyramid).

Also, potatoes have lots of Vitamin C, Potassium, and Vitamin B6, something I didn’t really realize before I looked it up. One potato has over 45% of your daily recommended value of each of these!

It is important, though, to eat the skins! That’s where you get a lot of the goodness. (I often leave the skins on when making mashed potatoes, but I removed them this time to get more of that icing look and feel. I never claimed my cupcakes were healthy, though, right?)

piping potato icing

Jason Walker-Yung

Classic Carrot Cake Cupcakes

Recipe: Carrot Cupcakes

Frosting Recipe

Get Updates from Amélie!

The Latest

This Time of Year

Discussion

Tasting Tour NYC: Prohibition Bakery

Lower East Side, Manhattan

Get Updates from Amélie!

The Latest

This Time of Year

Discussion

Rhubarb Cupcakes with Candied Rhubarb Knots

Get Updates from Amélie!

The Latest

This Time of Year

Discussion

Carrot Zucchini Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

Recipe: Carrot Zucchini Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

Frosting Recipe

Get Updates from Amélie!

The Latest

This Time of Year

Discussion

Turkey Meatloaf Cupcakes with Mashed Idaho Potatoes

Did You Know?

Get Updates from Amélie!

The Latest

This Time of Year

Discussion