Happy (Belated) Birthday, Dad!

Whew, this post just barely made it in before it's no longer even my dad's birth MONTH. As it is, it's 3 weeks since it passed and I made this cake, but better late than never, right?

One of my favorite things about baking is being able to create something special for the people I love - my friends and family. My parents are hands-down my biggest fans, and my dad lately has been known to start telling complete strangers about how his daughter is attending the French Culinary Institute. When it came time for his birthday, I was excited to make something extra special and new just for him. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of asking him what kind of cake he'd like, to which he replied he had been hoping for red velvet. I'm sort of sick of red velvet, and I had wanted to make something just for him.


Chef Cynthia had given our class the most awesome chocolate cake recipe that our class devoured the scraps of when they were set out. I knew I wanted to use this as my base, and decided to also use chocolate ganache and fresh raspberries as filling and chocolate Swiss buttercream to cover the cake. In short, this cake was awesome. My dad really liked it too, hopefully even more than the red velvet.


I haven't really shared a recipe in a while, but you MUST make this chocolate cake. I'm not a huge chocolate fan (although my classmates who have seen me eat pounds of chocolate might disagree), and this has become one of my absolute favorite cakes. It's so moist, so delicious, and so easy to make.

Chocolate Cake Recipe

Ingredients:
2 1/4 c cake flour
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 c butter (1 stick), room temperature
2 1/4 c light brown sugar
3 large eggs, room temperature
3 oz unsweetened chocolate, finely chopped
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 c sour cream
1/2 c hot brewed coffee
1/2 c hot water

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour two 8" cake pans and line the bottom with a round of parchment paper.
2. Sift together flour, baking soda, and salt.
3. Beat butter at medium speed until creamy. Gradually add brown sugar, better well until pale and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add vanilla and mix well.
4. Add eggs one at a time, beating at low speed until blended after each addition.
5. Pour hot coffee and water over chocolate. Stir until all chocolate is melted. Whisk in sour cream until smooth.
6. Alternate adding the dry ingredients (3 additions) with the wet (2 additions), starting and ending with the dry mixture.
7. Pour in prepared pans. Bake at 350 until cake tests done (Cake should start to come away from sides of the pan and a skewer inserted should come out dry).

Airmail Cosmopolitan Cupcakes

Last weekend, I baked some cosmopolitan cupcakes in jars to mail out to my aunt's coworker. During her training process, this woman had been particularly helpful and my aunt wanted to send her something to thank her.

Dozen cupcakes boxed up and ready to ship

After discussing a few flavor options, we settled on my cosmopolitan cupcakes, the very first cupcake I ever posted on this blog. They are raspberry cake with lime frosting and hot pink sanding sugar sprinkled on top.

Before the lid went on

It's been really hard to find time/energy to bake anything outside of class, so I was happy for this opportunity. These went out on Monday and were received in Pennsylvania on Tuesday. Hopefully they were enjoyed!

Chocolate Raspberry Macarons

I've been wanting to make macarons for a while now. They always seemed so tricky and like they'd be a sure failure. Wikipedia says it itself, "Making macarons requires a great deal of discipline and is a process that is highly dependent on exactitude, technique, and proper equipment. For this reason it is a notoriously difficult recipe to master and a frustrating endeavor for the amateur baker." I read up on them before taking the plunge last weekend. When I told people what I was making, most people immediately thought of macaroons, the coconut cookie. The French macaron is a sandwich cookie. The tops and bottoms are a meringue cookie that is supposed to be crisp on the outside and chewy and moist on the inside.


My first attempt was surprisingly successful. The filling I used was a chocolate raspberry ganache. I think there were several key steps here. The first was bringing the egg whites to room temperature. Several recipes recommended leaving the egg whites out for 24 hours. That seemed to go against everything I ever thought about eggs...like that they needed to be refrigerated. I consulted with Chef Cynthia, and she said that while there's no harm in leaving them out, they probably only need to be out for an hour or so. The second step was after piping out the meringues was to let them dry out a little bit before putting them in the oven. I'm anxious to try these again in a variety of flavors.

My Aunt's Wedding Party - Part 2

When I woke up the Saturday morning (at the crack of dawn because the kids were running around), I discovered my aunt had left the window open in the kitchen, and the freezing cold night/morning air had dried out the cupcakes a bit (initially I thought they might be frozen). This was a little disappointing, but they weren't too bad. I mixed some cream cheese frosting, covered the cake in it, and then rolled out white fondant to cover the cake with. The fondant amused my cousins to no end; I gave them each a small piece to play with. I think I may have inspired some future bakers. I really need practice when it comes to covering cakes in fondant. There was a pretty large crease in the back of the cake. Given that this was only my 3rd attempt at a fondant-covered cake though, I'd say it wasn't too bad.

After the cake was covered, I set it aside and piped the frosting onto the cupcakes. On each cupcake, I placed one of the flowers I had made the night before. Then, I painted the cake with sparkly white luster dust and "glued" on the flowers and S with royal icing. Overall, the cake did not come out looking too bad. As long as you were looking at it from the right angle (the back was sort of a mess).

One thing I would do over would be to pipe a ring of buttercream around the edge of the cake layers before filling it with the mousse, which was way too soft and got squeezed out of the cake with each additional layer that was put on top. I should have thought to do this in the first place. I also can't wait to take a class to improve my fondant capabilities. I'd love to do more cakes in addition to cupcakes.

My Aunt's Wedding Party - Part 1

This past weekend, my aunt threw a party to celebrate her recent marriage. She and her husband had a tiny ceremony in North Carolina with just the two of them and my aunt's two kids, so she wanted to have a larger party to celebrate with her friends and family. I immediately offered to bake the cake and cupcakes. After work on Friday, I made the very long, traffic-ridden journey out to Effort, PA where she lives. If you've never been there, it's really quite an experience. When she asked where I was en route, my response was "Well I just passed a fireworks store and an ammo supply shop."

My painting workstation

My aunt is not a baker and her kitchen is virtually devoid of any baking equipment or ingredients. Earlier in the week, I had given her a grocery list of things I would need, and I brought a few things of my own like a mixer and fondant. Unfortunately, shortly after I began baking, my mixer spazzed out and broke. I was pleasantly surprised when my aunt pulled out her own hand mixer. I don't know what I would have done if she didn't have one. Mix things by hand? How did people bake before the introduction of motors for mixers?

Close-up of the flowers

The first thing to go into the oven was a 6 inch round vanilla cake. I set aside the leftover vanilla batter, mixed some chocolate, and prepared the marble cupcakes. Once the cake was cooling and the marble cupcakes were in the oven, I began mixing one of my favorites - red velvet. I've talked here before about my love of red velvet; to me it's such a classic, awesome flavor. In the event that I one day get married myself, I want a red velvet cake or cupcakes (baked by me of course). My younger cousins were shocked to see the bright red batter though. After declaring it looked like something off a horror movie set, I don't think I would have been able to bribe them to eat it.

Unfrosted cake - the filling spilling out

After everything was baked and set aside, I rolled out some fondant and cut the flowers that would adorn the cake and cupcakes. To expedite the process, my aunt painted them with a sapphire-colored luster dust while I "glued" on the edible pearl centers. Her new last name begins with 'S' (as did her former last name), and she requested a monogram on the cake. I formed the S out of a rolled snake of fondant, set it aside to dry, and painted that with the luster dust as well. After filling the cake with chocolate mousse I had prepared earlier and fresh raspberries, I covered it with plastic wrap and stored it for the night in the refrigerator.

This post is pretty long, so I'm going to split it into two and post the rest tomorrow. To be continued...

Cupcake Obsessed's Male Readers

One of the biggest surprises for me since starting this blog is the discovery that boys enjoy this blog almost as much as the girls do. I'm constantly surprised when guys admit their secret (or not-so-secret) obsession with my blog.


One of these awesome guys is my friend's roommate Howard frequently checks out my blog and always has the nicest things to say about my latest cupcakes. His girlfriend's birthday was last week and he wanted to take cupcakes with him up to Boston when he visited for her birthday weekend.


After some discussion about what kind I should make, we decided on chocolate with raspberry filling and chocolate ganache. I absolutely love the combination of chocolate and raspberry together. I had these great new pink cupcake liners from NY Cake that I used as well. Because they were greaseproof, I figured they would lock in the moisture and keep the cupcakes fresher for the weekend trip.

Raspberry-Filled Vanilla Cupcakes

I really love the unexpected surprise of biting into a cupcake and finding some sort of filling. When my sister asked me to bake her cupcakes and bring them with me to her college on Saturday, I knew I would be doing a filled cupcake. She initially asked for raspberry frosting, but older sisters know best, and I went with a vanilla cupcake filled with raspberry with vanilla frosting. Plus I knew she'd be psyched to get whatever I baked her. I also made some mint chocolate chip ones that I will post about later this week.

I enlisted Morgan to watch me bake these. What a crazy and exciting Friday night for both of us, especially for Morgan. Being as I'm bad at delegating tasks, she was forced to just sit there and watch me. I don't trust anyone to help me with cupcakes, unless it's cleaning, and no one ever wants to do that. If I did pick a baking assistant though, it would be Morgan being as she was a chemistry major in college, and I always liken baking to chemistry. Plus, she was my high school lab partner, and I was usually the one dragging her down in labs.

I used the vanilla recipe from Sweet Revenge that was featured on Martha Stewart. The recipe can be found here. After trying every single vanilla recipe I could find (literally) and attempting to create my own, this recipe was a godsend. Most vanilla recipes produce cupcakes that are dry and bland, but this is way above the rest.

There are two methods of filling cupcakes. The first is marginally easier; you just inject the filling directly into the cake using a pastry bag or injector set. I think this is good when filling mini cupcakes. I prefer to cut a cone shape out of the cupcake with a paring knife, cut the bottom triangle off the cone, fill and then recover and frost. This allows more filling into the cake.


After I've cut the cone out of all the cupcakes, I usually eat all the extra cupcake scraps. This isn't a crucial step in the process, but I'd recommend it. Then I fill a ziploc baggie with the filling (in the case, Polaner seedless red raspberry preserves), cut the tip off the end, and squeeze the filling into the cupcakes. After that's done, I place the tops back on, and they're ready to be frosted.

Cupcake filled with raspberry

Frosted Cupcake

I had some vanilla frosting frozen from the last time I baked my sister cupcakes for her birthday, so I just thawed that out, snipped the end off the ziploc bag, and piped it onto the cupcake in a swirl. This is a good technique to make cupcakes look more professional with minimal effort. I still had some extra raspberry left over, so I piped that on top of the frosting in the grooves of the swirl. I really liked the way these looked and tasted, and I'm hoping my sister shared the 30 cupcakes I brought her with her friends, rather than her usual pattern of eating them all by herself (I brought her about 75 mini cupcakes for her birthday, and I think she ate them all on her own. Being as I know her friends are reading this blog, I guess I'll just have to wait and see what they say.

Cosmo Cupcakes - Take 1

For my first baking post, I decided to recreate the Crumbs cupcakes I was sad to miss when Sex and the City premiered. As anyone who has seen SATC can attest, the most prominent drink in the show is the Cosmopolitan, and the bakery made a non-alcoholic cupcake rendition. Their creation was a hot pink raspberry cake with pale lime frosting and a rim of pink sugar. Unable to find a raspberry cake recipe I trusted, I adapted the Sprinkles' strawberry cupcake recipe from Martha Stewart Living. By accident, I used double the raspberry puree than the recipe called for, but it turned out better than when I made the strawberry ones for my birthday this year.

Straining the puree into the milk

Cupcake Ingredients:
2/3 cup raspberry puree (either fresh or frozen-thawed- works)
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup whole milk, room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, room temperature

Cupcake Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Line a 12-cup cupcake tin with paper liners
3. Puree raspberries in blender or food processor
4. Strain puree to remove seeds and combine with milk and vanilla
5. Cream butter on medium-high speed in mixer until pale and creamy. Add sugar and beat on high until well-combined and fluffy (about 5-7 minutes). Add eggs one at a time and beat well
6. Whisk dry ingredients together to combine
7. Slowly add dry ingredients to mixer on low. Alternate with with puree/milk mixture. Do not overmix!!
8. Divide batter evenly among cups. Bake until cupcake tops spring back when touched- Approximately 20-24 minutes. Let cupcakes cool completely before icing

Frosting Ingredients
1 stick butter
3 oz. cream cheese
1/2 pound sifted confectioner's sugar (1/2 a standard bag)
3 Tbsp fresh lime juice
2 drops green food coloring

Frosting Directions
1. Cream together butter and cream
2. Slowly add sugar, mixing well
3. Add lime juice and food coloring

My friend Lauren was entirely skeptical when I called her this morning to let her know what kind of cupcakes she could expect to find when she came over tonight for the Oscars. She wanted more vanilla (which is my favorite, but I just made them last week), and claimed that because she doesn't like red velvet (for the record, my red velvet are the best), she wasn't going to like these. The only similarity between the two is the color family, and the batter even turned out to be more purple than pink.

My purple raspberry cake batter

Next time I make this cake, I would like for it to be more bright pink and less purple. The only way I could think to achieve this would be substitute the raspberry puree with raspberry extract and a lot of pink dye. Even if I keep the raspberry puree next time, I think I'm going to add at least 1 tsp raspberry extract for a more pronounced raspberry flavor.

Slightly blurry, but fully cooked

The frosting was perfect. What made a big difference, I believe, was that I sifted the powdered sugar before adding it to the butter/cream cheese. It had a less granulated feel than a lot of frostings usually have. Lauren and I both agreed it tasted like lime sherbet. After frosting the cupcakes, I rolled the edges in pink sugar to replicate the sugar that rims a martini glass.

This was actually one of the easiest baking experiences I've had in a while, probably because I wasn't attempting to make 120 mini cupcakes in a 4 hour period before 20 guests arrive like I usually am. Additionally, I was very conscious of keeping my kitchen clean during the baking process so everyone didn't have to know what state of disaster my kitchen is usually in during my baking experiences. I'm trying not to embarass my mom here and lead her friends to believe she taught me poor housecleaning skills.

The finished product

I even won Lauren over with the cupcakes; she took three home with her. She probably would have still preferred vanilla, but these were pretty good considering it was my first attempt at this recipe and flavor combination.