This week I had a friend over who nicely suggested strawberry-vanilla-caramel cupcakes when I asked her what flavours she wanted. So I nicely accepted. When friends come over to my appartement, I like asking them what flavours they like. It gives me an extra challenge to be restricted to certain flavours. I like figuring out how to combine them in an original way. The strawberry and vanilla part came to me almost instantly: mini marble cakes. Simple and fun. I figured I would put the caramel in the icing. Since I already cook sugar to 116 degrees celsius to make my italian buttercream icing, I though that I could keep cooking it until it reached 170 degrees at which point it would be caramel. What I forgot to take into my calculations though is that my thermometer was touching the bottom of my sauce pan. You should always take the temperature in the middle of the liquid without touching the pan since the pan is a lot hotter then what ever it contains. When I saw it was already climbing over 170, I panicked a bit and added it right away to the egg whites for fear of burning the sugar completely. As I was pouring it, I noticed that it hadn’t gotten really dark yet and that’s when it hit me. So my icing doesn’t really taste like caramel, it just tastes extra sweet. This is my second attempt at caramel that I’ve failed. This is starting to be a bit embarrassing. I must try again next week! I’m still posting my recipe the way I entended it with the caramel frosting, so if you give it a try please let me know! Here is the recipe for 16 cupcakes:

cake:
- 3/4 cup of butter
- 1 1/2 cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 2 cups of flour
- 1 1/2 tsp of baking powder
- 1/4 tsp of salt
- 1/2 cup of milk
- 1/2 cup of cream
- 1 tbs of vanilla extract
- 3/4 cup of strawberry puree

method:
- preheat the oven to 350
- start by beating the butter until it is light and fluffy
- add the sugar and beat thoroughly
- add the eggs one at a time and beat in between each addition, then beat on high for 30 seconds
- sift the flour, baking powder and salt together and combine with the butter/sugar mix
- divide the dough in two
- add the strawberry puree to one half and the vanilla to the other
- line a cupcake pan with paper cups
- scoop the vanilla dough in first, than add the strawberry dough
- with a small butter knife, lightly mix the two doughs together
- bake for 22 minutes

icing:
- 2 egg whites
- 1 cup of water
- 1 1/4 cup of sugar
- 1 cup of butter cut in 1 inch cubes

method:
- beat the egg whites up in snow adding 1 tbs of sugar midway
- put the rest of the sugar and the water together in a pot and bring to 170 degrees celsius (caramel)
- add the sugar caramel to the egg whites while still beating at slowest speed
- beat on high until cooled, touch the bottom of the bowl to make sure its at least body temperature
- add the butter one cube at a time while beating
- beat until you get a nice fluffy texture
- refrigerate for a minute to stiffen the icing before piping on the cupcake

Enjoy :)

Categories: Fruits, other sweet flavors | 2 Comments »

I feel like I’ve been baking a lot of chocolate flavoured things and eating a lot of chocolate for a couple of weeks. You must understand, I’m not complaining. I love chocolate! But I did feel the need to change it up a bit. I decided on honey-lemon cupcakes. The last time I did honey flavoured icing, I wasn’t completely satisfied with it. The taste of honey was overwhelmed by the butter. So I tackled it differently this time and instead of doing an American buttercream, I did an Italian buttercream. I think it turned out much better! The cake also turned out great, very light, fluffy and crumbly even though the unbaked dough was rather dense. I believe its something in the chemical reaction between the lemon juice, baking soda, and sour cream. A quick search on google lead me here which explains that baking soda reacts to acidic elements to create air bubbles and baking powder is basically baking soda with a dry acidic element already mixed in. Isn’t chemistry fascinating? Here is the recipe for 15 cupcakes:

cake:
- 1 cup of butter
- 1 1/2 cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 2 cups of flour
- 1 tsp of baking powder
- 1/2 tbs of baking soda
- 3 tbs of sour cream
- 3 tbs of lemon juice
- 2 tbs of lemon zest

method:
- preheat the oven to 350
- start by beating the butter until it is light and fluffy
- add the sugar and beat thoroughly
- add the eggs one at a time and beat in between each addition
- add the lemon juice and beat until combined
- sift the flour, baking powder and baking soda together and combine with the butter/sugar mix
- add the lemon zest
- line a cupcake pan with paper cups
- bake for 20 minutes

icing:
- 2 egg whites
- 10 tbs of sugar
- 8 tbs of water
- 1 1/4 cup of butter cut in 1 inch cubes
- 1/2 cup of honey

method:
- beat the egg white up in snow adding 1 tbs of sugar midway
- put the rest of the sugar and the water together in a pot and 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, touch the bottom of the bowl to make sure its at least body temperature
- add the butter one cube at a time while beating
- beat until you get a nice fluffy texture
- add the honey

Enjoy :)

Categories: Fruits, other sweet flavors | 2 Comments »