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Monthly Archives: May 2010

May 30 2010

Black forest

by Virginie

While grocery shopping this week, I saw big bags of beautiful cherries and I couldn’t resist making black forest cupcakes! I varied the recipe for the cake a bit and it has more of a brownie texture. I had a hard time resisting eating one when they came out of the oven! Here is the recipe for 12 cupcakes.

filling:

- 2 cups of cherries pited

- 1 1/2 tbs of sugar

method:

- put the cherries in a bowl with 1 1/2 tbs of sugar

- a couple of hours later, put the cherries and the juice in a pot and cook for 10 minutes stirring once in a while

- put a third of the cherries in a blender and add the resulting puree in with the rest of the juice and cherries

- let cool

- once the cupcakes are cool, cut a cone shape out of the top of the cupcakes and put a spoonfull of the cherry filling

- put the cone back on top, you can always cut the tip of the cone to make it fit better

cake:

- 3/4 stick of butter ( 1/4 cup + 2 tbs of butter)

- 1 cup of sugar

- 2 eggs

- 80g of dark chocolate

- 1 tbs of olive oil

- 1 1/3 cup of flour

- 1 tsp of baking powder

method:

- preheat oven to 350 (325 for convection ovens)

- beat butter until light and fluffy

- add sugar and beat until mixed

- add eggs one at a time and mix in between each addition

- melt the chocolate in a bain-marie with the olive oil

- in a separate bowl mix the flour, baking powder

- add the flour and mix

- put cupcake cups in muffin pan and scoop the cupcake batter in the cups

- bake for 22 minutes

- let cool completely before icing

italian buttercream:

- 1 egg white

- 4 tsp of water

- 6 tbs of sugar

- 10 tbs of butter

- 2 tsp of vanilla paste or extract

method:

- beat egg white up in snow adding 1 tbs of sugar midway

- put the rest of the sugar and the water together in a pot on bring to 116 degrees celsius (soft ball state)

- add the sugar syrup to the egg whites while still beating at slowest speed

- beat until cooled, touched the bottom of the bowl to make sure its at least body temperature

- add the butter a little bit at a time and beat a little bit in between each addition

- beat until you get a nice fluffy texture

- add the vanilla

I added chocolate shavings and Maraschino cherries on top as decoration.

Enjoy :)

Categories: Chocolate, Fruits | 2 Comments »

May 24 2010

Expresso and Raspberries

by Virginie

This week’s flavour is expresso and raspberries. I’ve been doing chocolate flavoured cupcakes for a couple of weeks now and wanted to change it up a bit.

Saturday, I had my first of three cake decorating class. It was so much fun and I cannot wait till next week for class 2! We learned how to make real Italian buttercream icing and how to make roses out of that icing. My roses need work, but I’m still happy with them :)

Here is the recipe for 12 cupcakes:

cake:

- 3/4 stick of butter ( 1/4 cup + 2 tbs of butter)

- 1 cup of sugar

- 2 eggs

- 1 tsp of vanilla paste or extract

- 1 1/3 cup of flour

- 1 tsp of baking powder

- 2 tbs of expresso powder

- 2 tbs of milk

method:

- preheat oven to 350 (325 for convection ovens)

- beat butter until light and fluffy

- add sugar and beat until mixed

- add eggs one at a time and mix in between each addition

- add the vanilla and mix

- in a separate bowl mix the flour, baking powder and expresso powder

- alternate adding the flour and milk to the butter mix starting with the dry ingredients

- put cupcake cups in muffin pan and scoop the cupcake batter in the cups

- bake for 20 minutes

- let cool completely before icing

italian buttercream:

- 1 egg white

- 4 tsp of water

- 6 tbs of sugar

- 10 tbs of butter

- 1/4 cup of raspberry puree sifted

method:

- beat egg white up in snow adding 1 tbs of sugar midway

- put the rest of the sugar and the water together in a pot on bring to 116 degrees celsius (soft ball state)

- add the sugar syrup to the egg whites while still beating at slowest speed

- beat until cooled, touched the bottom of the bowl to make sure its at least body temperature

- add the butter a little bit at a time and beat in between each addition

- beat until you get a nice fluffy texture

- add the raspberry puree

Enjoy!

Categories: Fruits, other sweet flavors | 3 Comments »

May 16 2010

Chocolate chip

by Virginie

In honor of yesterday being Chocolate Chip Day, I decided to make chocolate chip cupcakes with chocolate ganache icing! I find there is something almost nostalgic about the taste of chocolate chip. When I eat something with chocolate chips, wether it’s cookies, cupcakes or any other dessert, I feel like a kid again eating my mom’s chocolate chip cookies or her Congo Bars. So to me, making something with chocolate chip is making something extra good! Here is the recipe:

cake:

- 3/4 stick of butter ( 1/4 cup + 2 tbs of butter)

- 1 cup of sugar

- 2 eggs

- 1 1/3 cup of flour

- 2 tbs of milk

- 1 tsp of baking powder

- 1 cup of chocolate chips

ganache icing:

- about 5 ounces (a bit less than a cup) of chopped semi-sweet chocolate

- 1/2 cup of heavy cream

- 1 tbs of butter

- 1 tsp of vanilla

- 1 cup of powered sugar

For the ganache:

- chop the chocolate in small pieces (it will melt faster) and set aside in a bowl

- heat up the cream until it just begins too boil

- pour the cream on the chocolate pieces

- let sit for a minute

- stir until the cream and chocolate are combined

- add the butter and vanilla and stir again

- let sit four about 10 minutes until it cools off

- sift 1 1/2 cup of powered sugar and beat

- if it’s still liquid and soft, let sit a while longer, it will harden a bit

Enjoy :)

Categories: Chocolate | 4 Comments »

May 9 2010

Chocolate-orange

by Virginie

This week I made chocolate-orange cupcakes. I tried doing orange custard using the same recipe as last week’s lemon custard, but it turned out really runny. I either didn’t cook it long enough or put to much orange juice in it. I tried piping it in the cupcakes with didn’t turn out so great either. So next time, I’ll stick with what I did last week!

I changed up my basic recipe this week to have less butter in the cake. I replaced 2 tablespoons of butter for milk and instead of putting a 1/4 tsp of baking soda and a 1/4 tsp of baking powder I only put 1/2 a tsp of baking powder. The cupcakes turned out great. I think I like them better this way too. They didn’t rise as much, but that just means its easier to take a bite out of. Here is the ingredients for 12 cupcakes:

cake:

- 3/4 stick of butter ( 1/4 cup + 2 tbs of butter)

- 1 cup of sugar

- 2 eggs

- 1 cup of flour

- 1/3 cup of cocoa powder

- 2 tbs of milk

- 1/2 tsp of baking powder

icing:

- 1 1/4 stick of butter (1/2 cup + 2 tbs of butter)

- 1 1/3 cup of icing sugar (or until you get the texture you love)

- 1/2 tsp of pure orange extract

- a bit of yellow and red food colouring

Enjoy :)

Categories: Chocolate, Fruits | 2 Comments »

May 2 2010

Lemon and chocolate

by Virginie

This week, I tried something I had never done before: lemon curd! It turned out pretty good. I used it as filling for this week’s cupcakes. The cake is simple vanilla to let the lemon curd shine and the frosting is chocolate. Thanks to my mom for the idea of pairing lemon with chocolate :) Here are the ingredients for 12 cupcakes:

lemon curd (got the recipe in Cooking From Above – Baking, but I’m sure there are some good ones online too):

- 4 egg yolks

- 1/2 cup of sugar

- juice from 2 lemons

- zest of half a lemon

- 1/4 cup of butter (1/2 a stick)

cake:

- 1/2 cup of butter (1 stick)

- 1 cup of sugar

- 2 eggs

- 1/2 vanilla bean (or 1/2 tbs of vanilla extract)

- 1 cup of flour

- 1/4 tsp of baking powder

- 1/4 tsp of baking soda

icing:

- 3/4 cup of butter (1 1/2 stick)

- 1/3 cup of cocoa powder

- 2/3 cup of icing sugar (or until you get the texture you like)

To fill the cupcakes I simply cut a cone out of the top, spooned some lemon curd in and put the cone back. They don’t hold very well, so they are messy cupcakes. Maybe if I had put more flour they would have held together better.

Enjoy :)

Categories: Chocolate, Fruits | 3 Comments »