The Cupcake Addict's Cupcake Collection

Tag: chocolate

• Cake Truffles

  Posted at 8:42 pm by MLea

  Feb 9th

  I so enjoyed making the football shaped cake truffles for the SuperBowl that I went a little truffle crazy… I did this over a couple of days.  I took no photos except for the end result.  My apologies.  Next time…

  On the first day, I used the same cake recipe from PCC as last time, but I had to make MORE substitutions since I didn’t want to buy more stout.  My revised ingredients are below:

  • 1 cup club soda
  • 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
  • 3/4 cup Dutch process cocoa powder
  • 2 Starbucks via Italian roast packets (unsweetened)
  • 1 & 3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
  • 1/4 cup cornstarch
  • 1 cup evaporated cane juice (or white sugar)
  • 3/4 tsp salt
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • 1 & 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 2 eggs
  • 2/3 cup plain Greek yogurt
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 4 ounces chocolate chips

  Oven temperature= 350 degrees.

  Revised directions:

  • Heat the club soda and butter over medium heat until butter is melted.  Add the cocoa powder and the instant coffee and whisk util smooth.  Remove from heat and let cool slightly.
  • Sift together flour, cornstarch, baking soda and salt.  Add the sugars and blend well.
  • In another bowl, beat eggs with yogurt and vanilla until smooth.  Add butter mixture and stir until combined, then add flour mixture in thirds.  Stir until just combined.  Stir in chocolate chips.

  Pour into 10×13 inch pan and bake approximately 30 minutes or until done.

  Note: This batter is extremely tasty when raw.  I know you aren’t supposed to eat raw batter because of the eggs, but I’m always afraid I forgot something so I ALWAYS taste…and this one I taste a little more…and lick the beaters and spatula the bowl CLEAN.

  Let the cake cool completely.

  Day 2:   I had some opened cream cheese and mascarpone left over from the football cupcakes, so I made some more of the whipped cream cheese icing using the following ingredients:

  • 4 ounces (ish) mascarpone cheese
  • 1/2 block cream cheese
  • 1/3 cup powdered evaporated cane juice (or white sugar)

  Whip cheeses together until smooth, then add powdered sugar and beat until smooth and fluffy.

  I wanted to make sure the truffles were truly truffles so I made a little more ganache, using a little less cream than usual since I was adding the cream cheese frosting.  I probably used 2 & 1/2 ounces of cream with 8 ounces of chocolate.  I combined this with the cream cheese icing while the ganache was a little over room temperature.  I mixed this into crumbled cake made yesterday.  I used a 1 ounce portion scoop to measure out uniformly sized quantities of cake mixture and rolled them into balls with gloved hands.  They went into the freezer on a Silpat covered cookie sheet until the next day…

  Day 3:  I had about 1/2 of a pack of Candiquik left over from last time.  (Clean up on this is really easy…put a lid on the bowl and put it in the cabinet.  It can be remelted later.)  I added some dark chocolate chips to this and melted it together.    I started off pulling out the leftover coconut from the pantry to dip these in.  I also had some toasted chopped pecans on hand.  Mr Shuck got into the fun and pulled out wasabi powder and a jar of PB2 (powdered peanut butter)

  

  I skewered each truffle ball, dipped it into the melted chocolate and then either dipped into the garnishes or sprinkled on the garnishes while the chocolate was still melted.  I had to work fairly quickly to get the balls coated while the candy was still wet.  I set the skewers in a glass until the chocolate was solid.  I only have 4 skewers, so while each batch solidified, Mr Shuck and I would scour the cabinets for something different to try.   When solid, I put them onto a cooling rack.  When I ran out of chocolate, I melted down the rest of the bag of Vanilla Candy Melts.  When I ran out of that, I put the truffle balls back into the freezer for another day…

  The finished products:

  

  From left to right

  Top Row:  (all dipped in vanilla candy): Garnished with pecans, chipotle chili powder, espresso powder and chocolate jimmies

  2nd row: (all dipped in chocolate candy): Garnished with PB2, chipotle chili powder, Hawaiian salt, and vanilla candy splashes

  3rd row: Vanilla coconut, chocolate pecan, chocolate coconut and chocolate chipotle

  4th row: Chocolate espresso, chocolate wasabi, chocolate pecan, and vanilla with red sugar

  5th row: vanilla dipped in orange ginger powder, chocolate with PB2, chocolate with Hawaiian salt and chocolate coconut.

  These disappeared amazingly fast at work.  The only fairly negative comment I received was that the wasabi needed more wasabi.  The ones with chipotle were especially well received.

  For Valentines Day, Mr Shuck used the remainders in the freezer to make treats for his staff.  He used as toppings: crystallized ginger, espresso, crushed potato chips, crushed pretzels, crushed smoked almonds, and Oreo crumbs.

  I’m definitely going to make these again!  They are easier than cupcakes.  Everything doesn’t have to be done on the same day since it doesn’t matter if the cake dries out since it’s being mixed in with ganache.  These are easier to transport since I don’t have to worry about them tipping over in the car.

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  Posted in Mrs Shuck's Creations | Tagged chocolate, truffles

• Goooooooo Seahawks!

  Posted at 2:34 pm by MLea

  Feb 3rd

  Mr Shuck and I were invited to a Superbowl party and the host suggested that I bring “baked goods”.  I tried to go with a football theme…

  I started with a Chocolate Stout Cake recipe that just happened to be in the February issue of PCC Natural Markets’ Taste magazine.  I had to make a couple of substitutions. Instead of 1 cup butter, I used 1 stick of butter and 1/2 cup coconut oil (because I forgot to get butter when I went to the grocery store.)  I also didn’t have any instant coffee, so I used 2 Starbucks Via packets.  Also, lately I’ve been adding some cornstarch to my Bob’s Red Mill Whole Wheat Pastry flour to make it a little lighter.  I found the ratio at Joy the Baker.  Instead of 2 cups of all purpose flour, I used 1 & 3/4 cups whole wheat pastry flour and 1/4 cup cornstarch, sifted together.  This has got to be the best chocolate cake recipe I’ve used.  It’s light but has a very rich chocolate flavor.  You can’t taste the beer at all.  I made one rectangular cake (to turn into “footballs”) which baked for around 35 minutes, some regular sized cupcakes that baked for 20 minutes, and some mini’s, which baked for 13 minutes.

  For the icing, I used Aida Mollenkamp’s Whipped Cream Cheese frosting that I found at Chow.com.  I used 1/2 cream cheese and 1/2 mascarpone cheese to lighten the flavor up a bit.  I like this recipe because it does not have very much sugar in it.  I don’t normally use artificial coloring, but I needed some AstroTurf for my football, so I added a little green.

  

  I use Cacao Barry’s Extra Brute cocoa powder and it makes the cake very dark.

  For the grass effect, I colored some flaked coconut green…

  

  And dipped the cakes into it…

  

  I accidentally “fixed” the above photo and didn’t save the original.  It looks like it would glow with the lights out.

  To make the footballs, I made some ganache using 8 ounces of Callebaut 60/40 and 1/2 cup of heavy cream.  While this cooled, I crumbled up the previously cooked rectangular cake.  I added enough of the ganache to make the cake hold together and made football shaped cake balls.  To make them uniformly sized, I scooped the “dough” with a one ounce scoop.  They went into the freezer for a few hours to solidify.

  Once firm, I dipped them into melted chocolate flavored Candiquik

  

  and used Wilton Candy Melts to make the stitches

  

  Hopefully dipping the chocolate will get more attractive with practice.  I really like making the cake truffles.  They are delicious and very easy.  Although I made this all in a few hours, it would be easy to do each part on a different day when I have 20-30 minutes at a time.

  The end result:

  

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  Posted in Mrs Shuck's Creations | Tagged chocolate, coconut, cream cheese, football, ganache

• 1st Cupcake of the New Year

  Posted at 10:35 pm by MLea

  Jan 13th
  

  S’mores: Graham Cracker Cake filled with Marshmallow fluff and Topped with Smoked Chocolate Ganache

  More to come…

  Posted in Mrs Shuck's Creations | Tagged chocolate, graham cracker cake

• Happy New Year!

  Posted at 10:32 pm by MLea

  Jan 6th

  One of my resolutions for 2013 is to be more productive.   So far, I’ve attempted to bake and it’s only the 6th.  YAY, me!  A couple of months ago, I picked up a bag of smoked chocolate chips from Hot Cakes Molten Chocolate Cakery in Ballard.  I’ve had it in my mind to redo a S’mores Cupcake using the chips and finally got around to trying it today.

  I realize that a S’more isn’t smoked…The chocolate just reminded me of a campfire.  I also wanted to get the impression of a S’more without reproducing a Trophy Cupcake.  (I also need a new pastry torch…so I can’t toast the tops without holding them under the broiler.) My plan was to make a graham cracker cake, fill it with marshmallow fluff and top it with whipped chocolate ganache that I made from the smoked chocolate.  I thought that this would be the right order…graham cracker on the bottom, chocolate on the top, liquid-y marshmallow to squirt out from the middle to get your fingers all sticky…all with the faint hint of smoke in the back ground.

  I failed in my selection of a graham cracker cake recipe.  When I first looked at the recipe I chose, I thought that it would result in a light cake that would be easy to fill with the marshmallow fluff.  I was torn between this recipe and a recipe for graham cracker pound cake, which I thought would be more like a graham cracker…dense and heavy…

  When I try this again later in the week, I will go for the graham cracker pound cake…The cake ended up overly fluffy…a result of 1 tablespoonful of baking powder AND 3 stiffly beaten egg whites.  I should have known.

  Posted in Mrs Shuck's Creations | Tagged chocolate, graham cracker, graham cracker cake, marshmallow, marshmallow fluff, S'mores

• Whidbey Cupcakes, Langley, WA

  Posted at 3:01 pm by MLea

  May 22nd

  My friend Mrs Smith was in town from the South last week.  On her list of “things to do in Seattle” was “take a ferry somewhere”, so we went to Whidbey Island.    The day was absolutely beautiful: sunny and hot for Seattle (mid 70’s).  We wandered around Langley for a bit and had lunch at Useless Bay Coffee Company, which turned out to be very vegetarian friendly (for me) and gluten free friendly (for Mrs Smith).  At the Whidbey Island visitor’s center, we picked up a flyer for Whidbey Cupcakes, so with high hopes of gluten free goodness, we went there for dessert.

  Unfortunately for Mrs Smith, the cupcake cafe had run out of their Choochokam cupcake, a gluten free Ghiardelli chocolate cake topped with Madagascar vanilla and organic chocolate butter cream, so she ate some M&M’s while I had my cupcake.

  

  Unfortunately for me, I might have chosen the wrong cupcake.  I decided on the Double Bluff: a Ghiardelli chocolate butter cake topped with a caramel butter cream frosting and garnished with black Hawaiian sea salt, caramel drizzle, and a Dove caramel candy.  The frosting was quite delicious.  It had the silky texture of a meringue butter cream and the sea salt added  a nice salty contrast and a little crunch.  The cake, however, was not so delicious: it was very dry and crumbly.  I was disappointed.   I’ll try a different flavor if I’m ever in the area again…

  Posted in Miscellaneous Bakeries | Tagged caramel, chocolate, sea salt, Whidbey Cupcakes

• Xiang Jiao Xocolatl Cake Pop

  Posted at 8:04 pm by MLea

  Jul 25th

  After finally deciding on a flavor, I was pretty excited to start on X.  I was originally going to do a regular cupcake, but then thought of frozen chocolate covered bananas.  (I’d insert a stolen photo here, but they all looked very phallic…)

  I started off by making a banana cake using my standard cake but substituting pureed banana for some liquid.

  • 2 cups flour (I used probably 1/3 all purpose and 2/3 Bob’s Red Mill Whole Wheat pastry flour)
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt

  Combine the above and set aside.  In another bowl, beat together:

  • 1 and 1/4 cup pureed bannaa
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/2 cup oil
  • 1 and 1/2 cups sugar
  • 3/4 cup chopped nuts (I used pecans that I had toasted in the oven for about 7 minutes)

  After the banana mixture is combined, gradually fold in the flour mixture.  Pour into 2 greased round cake pans or a 13 x 9 inch greased rectangular pan.  Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes or until done.  Allow cake to cool in pan for 10-15 minutes, then remove.  I used a Springform pan, so removing the cake from the pan was really easy.  One of the advantages to making cake pops is that it doesn’t matter what condition the cake is in when it comes out of the pan!  I dumped the cake into a huge bowl, then chopped it up a bit with a spatula and allowed it to cool completely.

  While the cake was cooling, I made a cream cheese frosting.  The recipe I normally use calls for 1 stick of butter, 2 blocks of cream cheese (16 ounces total) and 1 and 1/2 cups powdered sugar.  I had a tub of mascarpone cheese left over from Waldorf Salad, so I used this for half of the cream cheese.    To make the icing, I allowed the ingredients to warm to room temperature, then creamed the butter until smooth.  I added the cream cheese and beat it until smooth, then added the sugar a little at a time.

  After the cake was completely cooled, I dumped in about half of the icing and mixed well with my hands.  I added more icing a little at a time until the mixture was moist enough to hold it’s shape in a ball without being overly wet.  I had about 1/4 of the frosting left over, which I popped into the freezer to use later on.

  

  I molded the mixture into balls about 1 and 1/2 inches in diameter and added a stick.  I placed them on a cookie sheet lined with parchment and let them sit in the freezer until solid.   After solid, I put them into a zip lock until I had the chance a few days later to coat them in chocolate.  My freezer is pretty small, so I had to do this in a couple of batches.  I let the remaining balls rest in the refrigerator.

  

  Cake balls waiting for room in the freezer. Looks like they are waiting on spaghetti...

  Since Mayan chocolate was typically made with chili and spices, I wanted to include a little chili in the chocolate coating.   I purchased the chocolate at Target since I was going there anyway and my options were a little limited.  I used Dove dark chocolate squares…

  

  and a couple of Lindt Chili chocolate bars

  I melted the chocolate together in a metal bowl set over simmering water and used one square of the chili bar to each square of Dove chocolate.  When it was smooth, I spooned it over the frozen pops.  I leaned the sticks into a cooling rack set over parchment paper to let them drain and harden.

  

  Finished Chocolate Banana Cake Pops

  I thought these turned out really tasty.  The interior was moist enough to stick together without being overly wet.  There was a little crunch from the toasted pecans.  The cake and icing were a nice compliment to the dark chocolate and the chili added just enough heat to make the back of my throat tingle.  My dog walker stated that these are her favorite so far.

  Posted in Mrs Shuck's Creations | Tagged banana, chocolate

• X is …. a stretch

  Posted at 7:05 pm by MLea

  Jul 25th

  Finding a food that starts with X was very difficult.   There is Xanthan Gum…useful for gluten free cupcakes, but definitely not a main ingredient.   Xavier Steak: which has asparagus and Swiss cheese.  Those two might be an interesting cupcake combination, but adding meat is a bit…gross?   X-treme AirHeads, also gross, but for a different reason.    I gave up on finding anything English starting with X and went global.

  While researching for this post (after baking), I discovered an Indian curry called Xacuti which would have been very interesting.  It contains white poppy seeds, coconut, chilies and various other curry spices.

  There are a multitude of Chinese (Mandarin, I think) foods that start with X: xia (shrimp), xiang chang (a sausage), xiang fun (a mushroom), xian rou (bacon), xiaodianxin (cookies).  Xiang cao jing is vanilla, but that’s kind of boring.   Xigua, I just discovered, is watermelon.   I’ve seen unsuccessful results on Cupcake Wars with watermelon.

  I finally decided on Xiang Jiao (banana).  Banana is a little boring, but I hoped that I could do something to spice it up a bit.

  While in Portland one day, we stopped in a chocolate store and I saw a chocolate bar by Xocolatl de David.   After a little googling, I discovered that Xocolatl is the Aztec word for chocolate.  Chocolate and banana are a great combination.

  Stay posted for the end result

  Xocolatl Xiang Jiao cake pops!

  Posted in Mrs Shuck's Creations | Tagged banana, chocolate

• JaCiva’s Portland

  Posted at 8:55 pm by MLea

  Feb 24th

  On our recent Portland trip, we made a stop at JaCiva’s Bakery.  We tried the first of their cupcakes when we stumbled upon them at a Portland grocery store last year.

  We made it to the bakery just seconds before a bus from an assisted living center unloaded into the building, so I didn’t get to spend as much time inside as I would have liked.  It got very crowded very quickly.   They had some amazing looking chocolates I wish I had been able to photograph: a chocolate toothbrush, a big chocolate cupcake that you could fill with cookies, and chocolate tennis rackets.

  There were only 2 cupcakes available: The 7th Heaven cupcake, which we tried before, and a peanut butter chocolate cupcake.

  

  Peanut Butter cupcake posing on faux fur blanket at our hotel.

  

  Cupcake posing by the pillows

  I apologize to the Hotel Modera for dropping chocolate bits all over the floor when I unpeeled this monstrous cupcake.  It was very similar to the 7th Heaven cupcake: chocolate cake topped with peanut butter mousse then dipped into melted chocolate.   The mousse was wonderful: fluffy and nutty.  The cake was a little dry, but it had a nice texture otherwise.  The cupcake was WAY too big and I grazed on it for the rest of the evening.  The hard chocolate coating was very messy since it came down over the edge of the liner.  (No, I did not get any chocolate on the white comforter on the bed….just all over the floor… and on the bottom of my socks… and on my jeans…)

  I would love to try some chocolates from JaCiva’s.  Hopefully we will have better timing the next time we’re in Portland.

   

  Posted in Miscellaneous Bakeries | Tagged chocolate, Jacivas, peanut butter

• S’mores from Pinkabella

  Posted at 8:37 pm by MLea

  Jan 23rd

  So… we were over at the Container Store at Lincoln Square in Bellevue when I remembered that Pinkabella had opened up a store at Bellevue Square, right across the street.  It seems so simple, but really we had to go upstairs and over the skybridge then detour through Crate and Barrel for a minute, then walk through Macys, find a directory and figure out what 3CC meant.  3CC means 3rd floor, Center Court.  The only other things I was aware of on the 3rd floor were the kid’s play area and Gymboree.  That’s probably a good place for a cupcake stand!  We found our way there and I picked out a S’mores cupcake.  We found a place to downstairs away from all the children.  The older couple near us were amused by my photographing a cupcake before I ate it.  The woman said that I should take a photo to make it last longer since I probably paid “a pretty penny” for it.

  

  S'mores Cupcake from Pinkabella

  Trophy still has the best S’mores (aka Chocolate Graham Cracker) cupcake.  The chocolate cake on this was good.  It had very rich chocolate flavor but was a little crumbly.  As I sat on the bench, I seriously wished I had a plate and fork so I didn’t make a HUGE mess of myself.  There was a tiny bit of graham cracker crumb sprinkled across the top of the cake under the icing, which was over-the-top sweet.  I didn’t really get “marshmallow”, but what does marshmallow really taste like besides “sweet”.   I was hoping that when I tasted the cake and the frosting together, the darkness of the chocolate would balance out the sweet of the frosting.  It wasn’t the case.  When I tasted them both, all I got was SWEET.  The frosting was so overpoweringly sweet that I no longer tasted the cake.  It was so sweet, I felt a burning in the back of my throat.   I wouldn’t have this one again unless I had some insulin nearby.

  I would like to know how to make the huge ball of icing on top….Maybe I need a bigger tip??

  Posted in Miscellaneous Bakeries | Tagged chocolate, graham cracker, PinkaBella

• O is for Ovaltine

  Posted at 10:39 am by MLea

  Nov 9th

  So, it was a couple of months between N & O.  I felt a little out of sorts with baking.  I didn’t have any mishaps, though, so I’m thankful for that.

  I was torn between Ovaltine and Orange Creamsicle.  Mr Shuck handed me a jar of Ovaltine that he had picked up, so it was decided.  (Apologies to Ms Green).

  

  My original thought was a malted milk cake with chocolate buttercream.  The Ovaltine that Mr Shuck brought was Chocolate Malt, so the cake ended up being a chocolate malt flavor.  I used a standard chocolate cake recipe, except I omitted the cocoa and reduced the sugar since Ovaltine contains both.    (It also contains a healthy dose of vitamins and minerals, which I hoped weren’t going to interfere with the baking soda.)

  I ended up combining 2 cups Ovaltine, 2 cups flour, 3/4 tsp baking soda and a little salt in a bowl.  In the mixer bowl, I mixed 3 eggs with 2/3 cup vegetable oil, a splash of vanilla and 1 cup sugar.  I alternated adding the flour with 1 1/3 cups warm milk and mixed until combined.  After mixing, I filled mini cupcake cups almost all the way full, hoping they wouldn’t overflow as they baked.  As a test,  I put the first pan of cupcakes in the oven while I filled the second pan.  After 7 minutes, I rotated the first pan and put in the second pan.  I removed the first pan after 8 minutes and moved the other pan to the center.  I took out the second pan 7 minutes later.  Both pans baked at 350 for 15 minutes.  I think I like this method.  Both pans got some time in the oven solo and spent some time on both sides of the oven.   Also, I figured if the first pan turned out overcooked or raw, I could adjust the time the second pan spent in the oven and hopefully end up with at least one pan that was good.

  For the icing, I made my usual chocolate Italian Meringue Butter cream, using Warren Brown’s recipe.  I had a bowl of it in the  freezer from the last time I made it.  I tasted it after it defrosted and it was still delicious after a couple of months in the freezer.  It needed to be whipped up a little, so I added it to the new batch while I added the butter.   This time, I used only  3/4 of a pound butter instead of the full pound and I think it turned out fine.   I like using chocolate as flavoring in the butter cream best.  Normally the icing starts to look a little curdled after adding the butter.  Mixing in the melted chocolate raises the temperature just enough to smooth out the icing and bring it back to fluffy goodness.   If I was using a different flavor, I’d have to take out a little icing and heat it up, then beat it back into the rest.

  

  Finished Ovaltine cupcake

  These cupcakes turned out quite good.  There isn’t much malt flavor in the cake, but overall, I think it’s a good chocolate cake.  It’s moist and flavorful and apparently an excellent source of vitamins A, C & D and a good source of iron.

  Posted in Mrs Shuck's Creations | Tagged chocolate, malt, ovaltine

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