I’m thinking about making 3 flavors for cupcake camp: Caramel Popcorn, French Toast and Drumstick. Caramel Popcorn is fairly easy. The French toast cupcake is fairly easy. The icing can be made a couple of days ahead. Drumstick has a few steps, but I’ve had some practice, so hopefully it will be pretty quick. Most importantly, I will have a couple of volunteers to help with decorating and garnishing.
Mr Shuck is refusing to taste this one.
It started with an avocado cornmeal cake that I found at Be Well at Stanford. (Actually as I made that link, I realized that it is a MUFFIN. This might explain why there’s only 1/4 cup of sugar….hmmm.) Since I made minis, I baked for only 16 minutes.
Avocado batter: click to enlarge
So what to ice them with?…..
Originally, I planned to make an Italian meringue using jalapeno jelly and lime. As I melted the jalapeno jelly, I realized that it would eventually revert back to a JELLY from the melted syrup and I didn’t know how well that would do in the meringue. I pictured lots of separation and running of egg whites when I woke up in the morning. So…off to Thriftway at 8pm for some cream cheese.
I mixed a box of cream cheese with half a jar of jalapeno jelly (and a drop or two of green food coloring) and whipped the heck out of it. It tastes okay, but might be more suited to a Ritz cracker than a cupcake, even a savory one. I toasted some small triangles of corn tortillas and used them as a garnish. We’ll find out tomorrow how they taste since neither Mr Shuck nor I are willing to take the first bite.
A leprechaun and cupcakes: click to enlarge
Finished Guacamole cupcake: click to enlarge
Guac Cupcakes: boxed up and ready to go
G is going to be for Guacamole.
Want to promote your favorite cupcake addict’s blog? Wear a “thecupcakeaddict.com” T-shirt.
I couldn’t figure out how to get the photo on here, but here’s the link….
If you don’t like my shirt, there are 1000’s of other cupcakes to choose from.
I really want to like Cupcake Royale. I really do! They use sustainable ingredients, corn based plastics, and soy ink. The owner is very charitable, according to a Pacific Northwest magazine article. Apparently, they even hired a pastry consultant to make the cupcakes moister. I’m just not very fond of Cupcake Royale’s cupcakes….
Royale with Cheese from Cupcake Royale: Click to enlarge
The chocolate flavor of this cupcake was nice, but the cake was dry. I ate it immediately after purchase, so Cupcake Royale can’t blame the dryness on my waiting to eat it. The cream cheese icing was a little light on cream cheese tang. Rating: ♥♥. I might eat it again if it were free, but I’d have to be really hungry. I would not buy again.
I am attempting an Italian Meringue Butter cream! It’s a bit scary. There is 240 degree sugar syrup AND whipped egg whites involved. I’ve never successfully made a meringue before. Probably doesn’t matter too much since I don’t like meringue, but I digress.
Fortunately, I found a couple of websites willing to tutor the public on how to make an IMBC: Allrecipes blog and JoePastry.
I used the recipe on the Allrecipes blog and started with 1/4 cup water, 1/4 cup brown sugar, 1/4 cup white sugar & 1/2 cup maple syrup (which, incidentally, has had a cinnamon stick floating in it since Christmas). I brought all this to a boil.
Boiling syrup: Click to enlarge
While the syrup came to temperature (240 degrees), I started beating the egg whites, a bit of cream of tartar, and a pinch of salt until they reached what I believe was medium stiff peaks.
With the mixer on high, I drizzled in the just-off-the-stove syrup. After the syrup was incorporated, I checked the temperature of the whites to make sure they were over 140 degrees, then turned the mixer on high and whipped until cooled.
Pouring and whipping: click to enlarge
Syrup + egg whites = meringue: click to enlarge
So far, so good! It tastes fluffy and maple-sweet.
Then I attempted to add the butter….. That’s the part I’ve never understood about a meringue butter cream. You start with a nice fluffy meringue, then you add clods of coldish butter….Hmmmm…..how’s that supposed to work? Well, it didn’t! I ended up with this:
Broken icing: click to enlarge.
Thanks to some expert googling on my part, which led to some people out there who have been to pastry school, I learned that I could melt part of the icing and add it back to the mixer bowl and whip the hell out of it and it would come back together. Guess what? It did! The butter cream turned out smooth and buttery with a light maple flavor. Just what I was hoping for! (Thanks to baking911.com.)
For the actual cupcake, I wanted more of a French toast experience than just cinnamon, maple, and vanilla flavors. What’s similar to French toast that goes into the oven? Bread pudding.
Cinnamon Swirl bread cubes: click to enlarge
I cut up about 8 slices of Franz Cinnamon Swirl bread (roughly 7 cups), then soaked it for a bit in a mixture of 1 1/2 cups milk and 1/2 cup heavy cream. In another bowl, I mixed 4 beaten eggs, 2 teaspoons of vanilla, 1/3 cup brown sugar and 1/3 cup white sugar and 6 tablespoons butter which had been melted and cooled. In a third bowl, I mixed 2 teaspoons baking powder, 1/3 cup flour and a healthy sprinkle of cinnamon (and maybe some salt….did I add salt?). I added the liquid mixture to the bread mixture and mixed, then added the flour mixture and mixed. I scooped the mixture into buttered mini muffin tins and baked for 20 minutes at 350 degrees. (If I had this to do over again, I probably would use mini cupcake liners as these were hard to get out of the pans in one piece.)
Batter before baking: click to enlarge
It would have been nice to have put a “pat” of icing on top of each cupcake, but my skills are not that advanced. (See above near fiasco.) Instead, I put a scoop of icing on top in the style of IHOP.
IHOP pancakes: click to enlarge
Buttered cakes: click to enlarge
I sprinkled the cakes with powdered sugar, then made a caramel of maple syrup and heavy cream, let it cool and drizzled it over the top.
French Toast Cupcakes: Click to enlarge
Thanks to Mr Shuck for moral support, help with scooping icing, photography, tasting, and (most importantly) cleaning up the kitchen.
Lots of stuff to look at at Trophy over the weekend. I don’t think I’d eat these, but I’m sure kids would love them. I don’t really like the idea of biting into Johnny Depp’s face…probably tastes like smoke. I would like to know how they get the tops so nice and flat. I will be making some “Bite Me” cupcakes in the near future, so I need to work on my decorating skills.
Alic in Wonderland Cupcakes from Trophy: Click to enlarge
A little sign indicates that the below cupcakes are special order only. I LOVE the colors.
Vibrant Cupcakes at Trophy: cick to enlarge.
In the wedding display, I spotted this cake topper. Very Cute! (I like my flying pigs better, but I would have considered this.)
Small Objects Cake Topper @ Trophy: click to enlarge
First of all, the weather was AMAZING in Seattle today. Sunny. High 50’s. Perfect day for cupcakes, right? (Okay, so almost any day is a good day for cupcakes….)
After the lunch buffet at Chutney’s, Mr Shuck and I wandered upstairs to Trophy for a peek at their offerings. Specials today were Stroop Waffle, Chocolate Guiness Stout, and Chocolate Hazelnut. I chose the Stroop Waffle, which I thought was going to be waffle flavored, so I was expecting some maple syrup or something. What I got was a vanilla cupcake topped with caramel buttercream, caramel drizzle and a bit of waffle cone. After I got home and Googled “Stroop Waffle” and discovered that it is a waffle shapped cookie filled with caramel, the flavorings made more sense. I also recalled eating almost a whole bag of these delicious cookies which someone from work had given me.
Photo stolen from Daelman's Stroopwafel: click to enlarge.
I digress….back to Trophy….
Stroop Waffle from Trophy: Click to enlarge
The vanilla cake of this cupcake was delicious. Normally, I’m not that crazy about Trophy’s cake, but this was wonderful. It had an especially big “muffin top”, so the edges were really crispy where it touched the baking pan. Delightful.
Then there was the icing… Trophy’s icing is typically too sweet for me. When you add CARAMEL to their already too sweet butter cream, it becomes deadly. Mr Shuck only had a tiny taste and stated that it reminded him of eating a sugar cube. If there is any doubt how I felt about the icing, the below photo is of my plate before I put it into the bus pan.
Trophy's Caramel Buttercream: click to enlarge if you dare!
My rating: Cake ♥♥♥♥(the best cake I’ve ever had at Trophy). Icing: ♥. Overall Rating: ♥♥. I probably wouldn’t purchase this again. I’d eat it if it were free, but I’d leave the icing on the plate again.
I’m open to suggestion for some of my letters for the rest of the year. I’d like it to be another food or drink that I can convert to a cupcake rather than just a flavor. I may settle for anything depending on the letter. This is what I’ve got so far:
F= French Toast….coming this weekend
G= Guacamole, I think. Obviously this would be a savory cupcake. I’m open to better suggestions. Like Green Tea or Ginger Lemon (which I did awhile ago…an oldie but a goodie) Guiness something….since it’s close to St Patty’s
H= Hostess cupcake. Half Baked
I= Irish Coffee Irish Car Bomb
J= no clue. Options that I think are doable are: jalebi (an Indian pastry with cardamom and rosewater….I won’t know if I’ve got it right since I’ve never had one), Junior Mints, Jaffa Cake
K= Kahlua, Key Lime, Kamikaze, KitKat
L= Linzer Torte, Lamingtons, Lemon Chalet creams (Girl Scout Cookies), Lemon Drop. Lollipop Lemon Meringue Pie
M= Mudslide, Maple Brown Sugar Oatmeal, Mississippi Mud Pie, Moon Pie, Macaroon, Moosetracks (Vanilla with PNB cups and Fudge)
N= Nainamo Bar, Nutter Butter, New York Super Fudge Chunk
O= Oatmeal Creme Pie, Oreo Ovaltine
P= Pesto (savory), Profiterole, Pretzel (chocolate covered), Phish Food (Chocolate Ben and Jerry’s with Marshmallow and Caramel swirl with Fudge Phish) Pumpkin Pie
Q= Queen Anne Cherries, Queso (savory), Quaalude (the drink, not the drug)
R= Rocky Road, Reeses, Rum and Coke, Raspberry Cheesecake
S= Sticky Toffee Pudding, Sundae
T= Thin Mints, Tomato Soup, Tomato in general, Twix, Tiramisu
U= U-no bars, Ube, Union Square (cocktail)
V= Valomint, Velvet (not necessarily red), Vanilla Health Bar Crunch (Ben and Jerry’s), Vanilla Latte,
W= Whoopie Pie (if I don’t do Moon Pie), Whoppers, Waffles, White Russian, Waldorf Salad
X= xiāng jiāo (banana), xocoatl (mayan word for chocolate), XuXuBana (cocktail)
Y= Yam casserole, Yuzu
Z= Zombie, Zero, Zucchini, Zagnut
Green added on 3-6-2010, Pink added 3/14/10, Blue added on 3/17, Purple added on 3/23
The Cupcake Addict's Cupcake Collection 