Chocolate Cupcakes with Vanilla Bean Buttercream

I did complete the DB challenge this month, but I have been too lazy to take it out of the freezer for photos. I will try to do it tomorrow.

Anyway, here are some cupcakes I made while my mom was here. I normally stick to my go-to recipe for chocolate cake, which is a doctored up version of Hershey’s “Perfectly Chocolate” Chocolate Cake. However, once I saw these cupcakes from Cook’s Illustrated on Gonna Want Seconds, I decided to try out another recipe.

This chocolate cake recipe is a bit more involved and more expensive because of the chopped chocolate, ganache, refrigeration time, and bread flour, if you don’t bake bread often (I suppose you could use AP flour instead, but I haven’t tried that). The flavor and texture were amazing, though. I can’t say that it was necessarily better than my go-to recipe; I can only say they are two fantastic variations of basically the same thing.

Not surprisingly, the Cook’s Illustrated recipe is a bit richer and more sophisticated than the go-to recipe. The go-to recipe is easier to do and is not as decadent. So, I would definitely use the go-to recipe for a “just-because” day, a child’s birthday, or around the time “Aunt Flo” comes by (if she ever stops by your place hehe). It tastes like the prototypical chocolate cake but better. The more sophisticated recipe, however, would be perfect for special occasions or whenever you want to indulge a bit more.

I rarely like chocolate on chocolate because it can be so rich, so instead of using chocolate frosting, I used vanilla bean frosting.The frosting was so good and flavorful. If you look closely, you can see a few specks of the vanilla bean. [Speaking of vanilla beans, I bought a 1/4th pound of the stuff over a year ago for only 4-7 dollars on eBay, and I still have a bunch left. I suggest searching on eBay for some good deals on vanilla beans.]

Chocolate Cupcakes with Ganache Filling
adapted from Gonna Want Seconds, which came from Cook’s Illustrated
Ganache Filling:
2 oz. bittersweet or semi-sweet chocolate, chopped fine
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 Tbsp confectioner’s or powdered sugar
Chocolate Cupcakes:
3 oz. bittersweet or semi-sweet chocolate, chopped fine
1/3 cup cocoa (regular or Dutch-processed)
3/4 cup hot coffee (I used espresso and boiling water)
3/4 cup bread flour
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 tsp table salt (I used kosher)
1/2 tsp baking soda
6 tbsp vegetable oil
2 large eggs, room temperature
2 tsp white vinegar
1 tsp vanilla extract
FOR GANACHE FILLING: 
Place chocolate, cream, and confectioners’ sugar in medium microwave-safe bowl. Heat in microwave on high power until mixture is warm to touch, 20 to 30 seconds. 
Whisk until smooth; transfer bowl to refrigerator and let stand until just chilled, no longer than 30 minutes. 
FOR CUPCAKES: 
Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Line standard-size muffin pan with baking-cup liners. 
Place chocolate and cocoa in medium bowl. Pour hot coffee over mixture and whisk until smooth. Set in refrigerator to cool completely, about 20 minutes. 
Whisk flour, sugar, salt, and baking soda together in medium bowl; set aside.
Whisk oil, eggs, vinegar, and vanilla into cooled chocolate-cocoa mixture until smooth. Add flour mixture and whisk until smooth. 
Divide batter evenly among muffin pan cups. Place one slightly rounded teaspoon ganache filling on top of each cupcake. Bake until cupcakes are set and just firm to touch, 17 to 19 minutes. 
Cool cupcakes in muffin pan on wire rack until cool enough to handle, about 10 minutes. Carefully lift each cupcake from muffin pan and set on wire rack. Cool to room temperature before frosting, about 1 hour.
Vanilla Bean Frosting

1 stick of unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup of shortening, room temperature (you could also use another stick of butter instead)
1 vanilla bean pod
4-6 cups of powdered sugar (based on how sweet you like your frosting)
2-5 Tbsp of whole milk or half-n-half (based on desired consistency)

Place the butter and shortening in the mixing bowl, and mix for 2-3 minutes. While the butter is mixing, remove the seeds from the vanilla bean pod. Add the seeds to the butter mixture. Next, add 4 cups of the sugar. If you feel it needs more sugar, add more 1/2 cup-1 cup at a time until you reach desired level of sweetness. Lastly, add the milk 1 Tbsp at a time until it reaches a creamy enough consistency to be piped or frosted.

Look! I saved one just for you!
Copyright – Memoria James – http://www.mangiodasola.com

Strawberry Cake

It was hard to make this cake. Not because of the recipe, but because of the color of the cake. You see, I’m not a fan of pink because it reminds me of gender stereotypes that are pinned on people from the time most parents know the gender of their child. Gender stereotypes can sometimes hinder people from being and doing whatever they want because of societal expectations, and that bothers me to no end. Yes, all of these feelings surged about because of the color of this cake. Yes, I have problems hahaha. Moving on…
Anyway, I was really craving strawberries and cake, and I kept seeing strawberry cakes popping up on the internet, but they were all made with cake mix as its base and/or looked too dry. I wanted a true, homemade, strawberry cake that was sure to be moist and soft. I decided to use this vanilla cake recipe as a base and go from there. It was fun to experiment with the ingredients, but I was afraid of how the cake would turn out.
Fortunately, it came out almost perfectly. I say almost because I think I put too much purée in the batter and frosting because the texture of both was sort of weird… I can’t explain it. The frosting was sort of gloppy yet smooth enough to place on the cake. Nevertheless, the cake was AMAZING.
I had meant to take a “fork-in-cake” photo so that you could see how moist and soft the cake was but I wanted to take a bite so badly and before you knew it, I had an empty plate with the lone, half-frozen strawberry on the side of the plate. A few hours later, I grabbed another slice. Yes, it was that good. I’m so sorry I couldn’t give you that shot, but this cake was too freaking good. It was exactly what I needed, wanted and craved.
Despite its amazing taste, I need to experiment with the amount of purée required in the batter and frosting. As is, however, it is more than fine. I didn’t get to decorate the cupcakes because I was too busy eating the regular cake. So, I will leave that job for the next man or woman to make :D…
In the frosting, I added lemon extract just to test it out. I loved how it gave a welcomed brightness to the strawberry. Oh, I want another slice right now….so, um, I better end this post now. Here’s the recipe!

Strawberry Cake
Vastly adapted from Bridget’s White Cake
PRINTABLE VERSION
YIELDS: 2 9 inch cakes PLUS 12 cupcakes or 3 8-inch cakes (halve recipe for less)

Baker’s Joy or Cooking Spray
2¼ cups cake flour (9 ounces), plus more for dusting the pans
1 pkg (3 oz) strawberry gelatin (about 1/3+ cups)
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon table salt (I use kosher)
12 tablespoons unsalted butter (1½ sticks), softened but still cool
6 large egg whites (¾ cup or 180 grams), at room temperature
1 cup tablespoons whole milk, at room temperature
2 teaspoons almond extract
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 – 1 1/2 cups strawberry purée (I used 2 cups in this cake, so I think 1 to 1 1/2 cups would be better) [1 1/2 cups strawberries with stems removed (fresh or thawed) + 1/4 – 1/3 granulated sugar (depends on how sweet the berries are) + Juice of 1 lemon]

Prepare the purée: Place the cut strawberries in a blender or food processor. Add sugar and lemon juice (without the seeds!). Purée the mixture until smooth.
The Cake: Set oven rack in middle position (If oven is too small to cook both layers on a single rack, set racks in upper-middle and lower-middle positions). Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Spray two 9-inch round cake pans with nonstick cooking spray; line the bottoms with parchment or waxed paper rounds. Spray the paper rounds, dust the pans with flour, and invert pans and rap sharply to remove excess flour (If you use the baker’s spray, you don’t need to do all of those steps. Just spray and proceed to the next step).

Pour milk, egg whites, and extracts into 2-cup glass measure, and mix with fork until blended.
Mix cake flour, gelatin, sugar, baking powder, and salt in bowl of electric mixer at slow speed. Add butter; continue beating at slow speed until mixture resembles moist crumbs, with no powdery streaks remaining.

Add all but ½ cup of milk mixture to crumbs and beat at medium speed (or high speed if using hand-held mixer) for 30 seconds. Add 1/2 cup of purée and beat for 30-45 seconds. Then, add remaining ½ cup of milk mixture, and beat 15 seconds more. Add another 1/2 cup of purée, and beat for 15 seconds more. Stop mixer and scrape sides of bowl. Return mixer to medium (or high) speed, and beat 20 seconds longer. (Tedious steps but necessary to avoid over-mixing)

Divide batter evenly between two prepared cake pans (I weighed them out on a scale); using rubber spatula, spread batter to pan walls and smooth tops. Arrange pans at least 3 inches from the oven walls and 3 inches apart. (If oven is small, place pans on separate racks in staggered fashion to allow for air circulation OR bake them individually like I did.)Bake until thin skewer or toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 22 to 24 minutes.

Let cakes rest in pans for 5 minutes. Loosen from sides of pans with a knife, if necessary, and invert onto wire racks. The two different types of cake pans yielded two different looking cakes.

Re-invert onto additional wire racks. Let cool completely, about 1- 1½ hours.

Strawberry Frosting
by Memoria
PRINTABLE VERSION

1/2 cup butter (1 stick), softened
1/2 cup shortening (can sub more butter for a less fluffy frosting)
3-4 cups powdered sugar (to taste)
1 tsp lemon extract (optional)
1/4 – 1/2 cup strawberry purée


Beat butter and shortening for 3 minutes. Slow down beater or mixer, and add powdered sugar one cup at a time. Once the mixture is well-integrated, add in the purée until desired consistency is reached.

I did a crumb coating but didn’t have time or space to refrigerate it. Anyway, I added the next batch of frosting and being the creative person I am, I plopped a frozen strawberry on top of the crooked, sliding cake! LOL!
The end!
Copyright – Memoria James – http://www.mangiodasola.com

Brownie Bites/Cupcakes?

My Blog Site: Sandie from Inn Cuisine (a lovely blog by the way) e-mailed me and told me that she was unable to leave comments on my blog when I had the other theme, so I am in the process of changing things around (She just e-mailed me again and told me she is still having trouble! 🙁 UF!). As you can see, there is still a lot to be done, so be patient with me. If you are unable to leave a comment on my blog, please send me an e-mail or something so that I can try to fix things. I’ve spent almost an entire day doing it, and I need to grade, gather data for my dissertation, and look for a summer job haha.
Now, the brownie bites. My adviser suggested that I thank the Spanish/Portuguese (and one Italian professor who is now my co-chair) linguistic faculty via e-mail for not kicking me out of the PhD program (all that said in my words of course haha). I told a colleague about her suggestion, and my colleague said that the protocol is to pass out “Thank You” cards! I didn’t know about this custom, so when I learned about how formal it was, I decided to go beyond what was expected by not only passing out cards, but also baking up something yummy for the faculty.
I debated on trying a dessert I’ve never posted before on this blog, but I wanted to make something easy and something I knew tasted really good. That is how I decided on making this King Arthur Flour Brownies again but in small bite form. After the bites were done, I poured on some leftover ganache I made for another chocolate mousse cheesecake I made for my friend.

I made some with cupcake liners and some without.

The bites were a hit. My now ex-committee chair (she is still on my committee, though. Short, boring story) expressed her love of the bite a lot more vocally than the other profs haha. I then decided to tell her about my food blog and gave her my website address. I hope she visits!
In bite form, these brownies didn’t form as crackly a top as they do in regular form. They were still very good. They tasted even better with homemade whipped cream on top. On eone of them, I put on ganache and then whipped cream! OMG! Amazing!! Too bad I had run out of ganache at that point. I plan to make these brownie bites/cupcakes again. Try them with both toppings for the full effect. Do I call these cupcakes? Brownie cakes? *scratches head in ‘confusement’* hehe.

Last but definitely not least, to all of my professors, I say,
THANK YOU! ¡GRACIAS! GRAZIE! OBRIGADA!

Brownie Bites
adapted by King Arthur Flour

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted
2 1/4 cups sugar
4 large eggs
1 1/4 cups Dutch-process cocoa (I used regular cocoa this time around)
1 tsp salt (I used Kosher)
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp espresso powder (optional, but recommended)
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups All-Purpose Flour
2 cups chocolate chips (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease a muffin pan if not using liners. [If using liners, spray them with Baker’s Joy or cooking spray because brownie batter sticks a lot more than cake batter.]

In a medium-sized microwave-safe bowl, or in a saucepan set over low heat, melt the butter, then add the sugar and stir to combine. Return the mixture to the heat (or microwave) briefly, just until it’s hot (about 110°F to 120°F), but not bubbling; it’ll become shiny looking as you stir it. Heating this mixture a second time will dissolve more of the sugar, which will yield a shiny top crust on your brownies.

The last photo of the bowl is after microwaving the butter/sugar mixture again. Notice the difference in texture from the previous photo.

While the sugar heats a second time, crack the 4 eggs into a bowl (or stand mixer), and beat them with the cocoa, salt, baking powder, espresso powder, and vanilla till smooth. Add the hot butter/sugar mixture, stirring until smooth.
Add the flour and chips (optional), again stirring until smooth. Note: If you want the chips to remain intact in the baked brownies, rather than melting in, let the batter cool in the bowl for about 20 minutes before stirring in the chips.
Spoon the batter into a lightly-greased muffin pan or greased cupcake liners. Bake the brownies for about 15 minutes (30 minutes if regular sized brownies), until a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean, or with just a few moist crumbs clinging to it. The brownies should feel set on the edges, and the center should look very moist, but not uncooked. Remove them from the oven and cool on a rack before cutting and serving.

Copyright – Memoria James – http://www.mangiodasola.com

Chocolate Cupcakes with Coffee Buttercream

You see the cupcake in the back and on the left? The ugly, blurred-out ones? Yeah…awful.

These cupcakes revived my craving for chocolate. Seriously. I’ve written about this chocolate cake recipe before; it is my go-to recipe. I used the leftover coffee buttercream from the macarons I made in October and also used it to practice my piping skills. I’m still not good at it, as you can see. One day I’ll get it.

These two are the best ones I frosted. These two give me hope haha.

Since this buttercream is prepared differently than the others I’ve made, it has a soft, silkier texture with a bolt of a coffee flavor. In a word, it is FANTASTIC.

Look how moist the cake is…

Look how silky the frosting is…

Please at least think about making this buttercream. Also, bump up the chocolate flavor in your cake by adding a bit of espresso and/or chocolate bits to the batter. I didn’t do that, but I thought about doing it after the fact.

I call this “The Life of a Moist, Chocolate Cupcake with Delicious Buttercream”. 😉

Hershey’s Perfectly Chocolate Cake
adapted by Hershey’s
(this recipe is also on the back of the Hershey’s cocoa canister)
Yields: 24 cupcakes when filled 3/4ths full. Can be halved easily.

2 cups sugar
1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup HERSHEY’S Cocoa
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
2 tsp instant coffee granules or 1 tsp espresso powder dissolved in 1 Tbsp water (my addition)
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk or milk (or whole milk + 1Tbsp lemon juice after it sits for 3-5 minutes)
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water (I microwaved the water for 5 minutes, and it worked fine. Could substitute hot coffee or espresso? I haven’t tried this, though.)

Optional add-in:
1/2 – 1 cup crushed chocolate bars or chocolate chips

1. Heat oven to 350°F. Line muffin cups (2-1/2 inches in diameter) with paper bake cups (I didn’t use bake cups because they stayed in the house and in my mouth haha).

2. Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of mixer 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin).

3. Fill cups 2/3 full with batter. Bake 22 to 25 minutes. Cool completely. Frost. About 30 cupcakes.

Coffee Buttercream
adapted from Tartelette
(I suggest halving the recipe because it yields a lot, or you could freeze theleftovers for up to 3 months)

1 cup sugar
1/3 cup water
2 large eggs
3 sticks (1 1/2 cups) unsalted butter, softened
3 tablespoons instant espresso powder dissolved in 1 tablespoon hot water

In a small heavy saucepan set over medium heat, dissolve the sugar in the water. While stirring bring the mixture to a boil, and continue to cook until it registers 240°F. on a candy thermometer.

In the bowl of a stand mixer with the whisk attachment or with a hand-held beater, beat the eggs until they are frothy. Add the sugar syrup in a thin stream, beating, and beat the mixture until it is cool. Change to the paddle attachment and add in the butter, 1 tablespoon at a time, the espresso mixture, and beat the buttercream until it is combined well.

Leave at room temperature so it will be easier to spread.

Copyright – Memoria James – http://www.mangiodasola.com

Homemade Oreos and Oreo Cupcakes!

A quick post to show the homemade Oreos I made…and Oreo Cupcakes!

The batter spilled over on some of the cupcakes so they look a bit deformed :). Fortunately, the taste was not affected. I still need to work on decorating. I had trouble making pretty, consistent spirals with my piping bag due to the chunks of Oreos in the buttercream icing.

To make the Oreos, I used the recipe on Smitten Kitchen. The cookie dough and filling were really easy to put together. Go to her site, and see her beautiful photos of these delicious cookies.

The cookies are softer than the crunchy ones you find in the store; however, the filling tastes exactly like the Oreo filling! In my opinion, the homemade versions taste better than the store versions, and I plan to make these again for my students during their final exams. They will be so surprised.

For the cupcakes, I used the Hershey’s “Perfectly Chocolate” Chocolate Cake recipe, and it will forever be my go-to chocolate cake recipe. The cupcakes are so moist!! I substituted 1/2 of the milk with buttermilk and added Oreos to the batter and the icing. The idea to make these cupcakes, the addition of Oreos to the batter, and the icing recipe came from Heather Drive. Thanks, Heather!

I have over a dozen cupcakes in the freezer now for future consumption. I also plan to give some away to my colleague/neighbor. For some reason, he never complains about my tendency to give him all of my leftover treats! 😛

Copyright – Memoria James – http://www.mangiodasola.com