Caramel Cupcakes!

Ladies and gentlemen, this was to DIE for! A light yet moist cake, mellow frosting, and sweet caramel drizzle. I had a hankering to make a batch of my Italian Meringue Buttercream, which is odd because normally one would crave the cupcake and have to find a frosting to match. But since I am a little backwards, this fits me fine.

So a cupcake to shine with the light and not-too-sweet frosting was needed, and it had to be one that I had all the ingredients for already since I decided to bake at dinnertime.

Ahh, aren't cravings wonderful?


The cake:

1 cup butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup white sugar
3 eggs
1 Tbsp molasses
1 cup buttermilk (or soured milk, which is 1 cup milk with 1 tsp of lemon juice or vinegar added and let sit for a bit... and is what I used.)
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup whole milk
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3 cups flour

Cream together the butter and the sugars. As in the orange dreamsicle cupcakes, be sure to cream thoroughly, at least 2-3 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating at least 30 seconds after each addition.

Here's where the recipe is different from what I usually do, but that's because we are adding oil. Mix in your molasses, buttermilk, oil and whole milk. Beat until combined. Mine looked rather curdly and seperated at this point but I tried not to worry too much.

In a seperate bowl, combine your dry ingredients. Dump that into your wet stuff and mix until it looks all creamy and cupcake-batter-y! Don't over beat, it comes together just fine.

Fill your cupcake papers between 1/2 to 2/3's full of batter and bake at 3http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif50 for about 20 minutes. Or until they look and smell done and a toothpick, or large skewer like I use, comes out clean.

To fill my cupcakes, I use a melon baller scooper thing from Pampered Chef. The medium size that works great for even round cookies. Two scoops seems to be about perfect for filling cupcakes or muffin tins. So long as I don't make them heaping scoops.

The Icing:

I just used the meringue buttercream from this post, minus the orange soda and sherbet.

The Drizzle:

A jar of caramel hot sauce from my fridge! I warmed it up and drizzled it over, but you could also use caramel sauce from a squeeze bottle or something so it doesn't melt the buttercream like mine did.

Then, if desired, finish it off with a VERY small sprinkling of sea salt. Just a little! It dissolves into the caramel and gives it a little bit of depth of flavor. Totally optional though, I just happen to be one of those people that have this in their cupboards. :-)

Orange Dreamsicle Cupcakes

I was in a cupcake-ey mood this morning, and asked my friends what they'd like to see me make. There were so many good ideas that it was hard to pick just one! But this one sounded like the perfect summertime cupcake, fresh and flavorful.

The Cake

1 stick butter, softened
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 small can mandarin oranges, drained
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder*
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 cup melted orange sherbet
1/2 cup orange soda

Beat the butter until creamy and fluffy. Add the sugar and cream for a good 5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition. Do not cheat on time! Dump in the oranges, mix them in. The beaters will chop them for you and the longer you mix, the tinier the pieces will be. I wanted them tiny.

In a small bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, mix your melted sherbet and the orange soda. Add both mixtures alternately into to egg/sugar stuff while beating. Don't over beat this part.

Scoop into cupcake liners, about 2/3's full. Don't be tempted to squeeze the last bit into a cup or two, they'll overflow and you'll feel silly. Stick it in a baggy in the fridge and bake it later! This recipe makes just over 24 beautiful cupcakes. :-)

Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let them cool completely, and if you want you can cover them and let them sit for a few hours. That sometimes helps the texture of a cake or cupcake. Sort of like when you let a roast sit before carving.



The frosting

This is fun. This frosting is a good old-fashioned Italian Meringue Buttercream. Not the powdered sugar stuff that has a tendency towards being gritty. I assure you, this is one you want to try! And don't panic, it will come together.

1 cup corn syrup
1 cup egg whites (about 8 large eggs)
1 tsp cream of tartar
1/4 cup sugar
1 lb butter, room temperature

Place corn syrup in a pan, heavy bottomed is prefferable, but if not then just keep a close eye on it. Turn it onto about medium.

Dump the egg whites into your mixing bowl. Beat on medium until frothy. Add the cream of tartar. Increase the speed to high and add the sugar. Beat on high until stiff peaks form. In my kitchenaid it only took a minute or two.

By this time your corn syrup may or not have bubbles, turn it up higher and let it come to a boil. Once it's got good, steady and decent sized bubbles, let it boil for about 1 minute. If your pan doesn't have a pouring spout, transfer the syrup to a glass measuring cup.

With the mixer running, pour the syrup in a thin, steady stream into the meringue. Try not to get it on the beaters or you'll have little whispies flying around. Keep beating until the mixture has cooled, body temperature is fine.

Once it's cooled, add your butter, 1 tbsp at a time. It may lose volume, that's fine. It may even curdle. That's fine too. Just keep beating and it will magically turn into frosting, right when you aren't looking! I promise. It may take a few minutes. :-)

At this point, you can use it as is, which is delicious. Or what I did: Scrape off about 1/4 cup of frozen sherbet, add it a little at a time. Then I added about 2 tbsp of orange soda and beat that in. I didn't want really strong flavor, just a hint of orange cream.

After frosting the cupcakes, I topped them with a piece of mandarin orange. Nice little POW to the final mix of flavor!

**To quickly bring eggs and even butter to room temperature, place in a bowl of warm water for about 10 minutes. Not too warm though, or you'll melt the butter.

Snickers Cake!

I did this cake for my son's birthday, and it went over really well! Of course, who doesn't love chocolate and caramel together?


White Cake

makes a non-skimpy 9x13 pan

1 cup butter, softened
2 cups white sugar
4 eggs
1 tbsp +1 tsp vanilla
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tbsp +1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/4 cup milk

Cream butter and sugar, beating for at least 3 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating at least 30 seconds each time. (Do NOT shortchange beating time. You need it so the cake doesn't have the texture of cornbread. Air is a good thing!)

Mix together the flour and baking powder. Alternate adding flour mixture and milk, beating until combined with each addition. (You don't want to overmix this part, or you'll start the flour developing gluten. That's good for bread, bad for cake. Any air you incorporate has been done with the eggs and sugar.)

Grease your pan. Cut a piece of parchment paper to fit the bottom of the pan. This helps the cake release easily and helps with crumbs. Scoop batter into pan, level it out. Bake at 350 for 35-40 minutes, or until cake is pulling away from the side and a toothpick stuck in the middle comes out clean. Let cool about 10 minutes, then turn out onto cooling rack to cool another 30 mintues - ish.

This is the fun part. Put the cake back before it is completely cool, cover with tin foil, and let it sit for several hours. That's right, you can't make this right before dinner! I make my cakes the night before and let them sit in the pan overnight. They stay really moist, and they settle so they are less likely to crack when doing layers. And don't crumble as easily when cutting. For the layers you'll be doing, it's important to NOT skip this step, or the cake will absorb too much of the filling and get soggy.

While the cake is sitting in it's pan...

Whipped Chocolate Ganache

9 ounces chocolate chips. (I used milk chocolate, but semi sweet would work too. Use a good guality, like Guittard. Nothing with hydrogenated oils or it won't work! Cocoa, sugar, cream, and lecithin... that's all. You can use a bar of baking chocolate too, just break it up.)

1 cup heavy cream

Pour chips or chocolate bar pieces in a glass bowl. Heat cream just to boiling, watch it because it boils over REALLY quickly after it comes to a boil.

Pour cream over chocolate. The heat of the cream will melt the chocolate. Stir until everything is melted and well combined. Let it sit for several hours to cool, or put in the fridge for a while if you're in a hurry.

At this point, before it's chilled, you can pour it over stuff as a chocolate glaze. But after it's cool, you can whip it! Just like you would when making whipped cream. Make sure your mixer bowl and beaters have no water on them, or the chocolate will seize and be ruined. It may look a little grainy while beating, and that's okay. Nobody will care what it looks like. It does take a while to beat, but should be like fluffy chocolate frosting stuff, in between frosting and whipped cream. Set aside.

Putting the cake together

1 recipe white cake
1 recipe whipped ganache
1 bag fun size snickers, chopped up
1 jar smuckers hot caramel topping (You need stuff that is thicker, hence the hot caramel. The normal caramel topping is too thin and won't spread well. Smuckers is what I used and works really well.)
Cut your cake in half so you have to thicker rectangles. Cut each of those rectangles in half, so you have a top have and bottom half. This cut is called "torting", and results in thin layers. All together you should have 4 layers, all about the same size.

Put the first layer on your cake plate or whatever surface you'll be serving on. Spread 1/2 the ganache on this layer, and sprinkle on 1/2 the snickers. Lay on the second piece of cake. Spread this one with a layer of caramel. Another piece of cake and repeat the ganache and snickers. Lastly is the last piece of cake.

My frosting recipe is just whatever basic buttercream I feel like using, and mix in some of the caramel sauce. Canned frosting would be fine, I've done that. I add the caramel sauce when beating my butter soft, and since that adds a little moisture you may need to add some extra powdered sugar. Just taste the frosting until you like it. :-) Spread a thin coat of frosting on the cake. This is a crumb coat and seals the cake. Let that sit for a while, or stick it in the freezer for 20 minutes to let the frosting harden. Then frost with the rest of your frosting.

(Okay, I'm really just being selfish with my particular frosting recipe. But it's sort of a trade secret, like when you buy a sauce and they list tomatoes, peppers and spices. What spices? They aren't going to tell you! But really, any frosting is going to work, for this recipe it's the caramel you are adding that makes it yummy.)

Vanilla Bean Cupcakes

In my search for the perfect cake batter recipes: moist and dense enough to hold shape without being a solid rock- I found my new vanilla cake!

Makes 18 cupcakes

1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 large eggs, room temperature
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
1 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 vanilla bean

Beat butter on high until soft, about 30 seconds. Add sugar. Beat on medium until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Don't scimp on the beating time. This is where you add air and start dissolving the sugar. Add the eggs one at a time, beating at least 30 seconds with each addition. Again, don't scimp on beating time. Here we are adding more air and finishing dissolving the sugar so you don't get gritty batter. Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. Measure out milk and vanilla and mix together. Add the seeds scraped out of 1/2 of a vanilla bean. (Slit them in half, open up, and use your knife to scrape out the seeds. The bean is moist in the inside, and the seeds will stick to the knife. They are VERY tiny.

Alternate adding the dry and wet ingredients, beating just until combined. you don't want to overbeat at this stage or you will take the air out as well as start the flour developing those glutens that will make your cake tough.

Scoop into cupcake papers, about 1/2 full. Don't overfill! Bake at 350 for 22-25 minutes. My oven runs hot, so mine were done at about 20.


Vanilla Bean Cream Cheese Frosting

12 ounces cream cheese, softened
1/2 stick butter, softened
4-5 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
seeds of 1/2 of a vanilla bean

Beat butter and cheese until creamy. Add 4 cups of sugar and beat until combined. Add the vanilla extract and the vanilla seeds and beat until combined. Add more sugar until it's the consistency and sweetness you like. I ended up with the full 5 cups plus a little more, because I wanted it stiff enough for piping on the cupcakes.

Coconut Shrimp

Mark absolutely loves coconut shrimp. Specifically Red Lobster's coconut shrimp. But in looking for a recipe for it online, I discovered that they use pina colada mix, and rum. Neither of which I stock in my kitchen. So I combined a couple different recipes and added my own touches. Voila!

1 lb shrimp, deveined and tails on

1 egg
1/2 cup flour
about 1 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp white or black pepper
2 T vegetable oil, I used canola
Enough milk to make it a thinnish batter
A couple splashes tobasco
bag of coconut

lots of oil - heated to 375 on a candy thermometer, or really really hot.

Butterfly the shrimp. Take a sharp paring knife, and cut through the shrimp along the curve, almost all the way through. Open it up and kind of push it against the counter to help it stay flatter.

Mix dry ingredients except coconut. Add egg, milk, and tobasco sauce. Beat well, and let sit for a few minutes. Spread about 1 cup of coconut on a sheet. Dip the shrimp in the batter and then roll it around in the coconut.

Drop it into the oil. It will fry to a deep golden brown in 3-4 minutes. No more than 8 shrimp at a time, but I did 3 or 4 shrimp because it was a smaller pan. Drain on either paper towels, or a rack over a baking sheet. After each bigger batch, or every couple smaller batches, scoop out the coconut that falls off so it doesn't burn and smoke.

I found that after a little while the batter drippings clumped up the coconut. So I only put out about 1 cup at a time, and replaced as needed. A couple times I had to through out the clumpy coconut because it was far too clumpy and wet to stick to the shrimp. But it didn't waste that much coconut because there was only a little on the sheet at once.

Dipping Sauce:

We like sweet and hot, and wanted that coconut taste that Red Lobster has. So I used what I had.

A random can of Cream of Coconut - from the hispanic section I believe.
Peach jam from my mom last year
Dijon Country Style mustard
Tobasco sauce

Sounds wierd, but was sooooo yummy!

I dropped about 1/4 cup jam in a small saucepan. 1/4 cup -ish cream of coconut, about 1 heaping tbsp mustard, and generous splashes of tobasco sauce. Bring to boil, wisking occasionally, and let simmer for a while to reduce to about 1/2 of what it was. Gets a little thicker and concentrates the flavors.

Let cool to desired temperature, serve to husband, and watch his eyes get all big when you tell him you made it up yourself. Smile when he says he'll just eat yours instead of going out next time. And make sure to get your half of the plate!