(NOT SO AWKWARD) TURTLE BROWNIE CUPCAKES

Adapted from The Novice Chef
Makes 12 cupcakes


Cupcakes

Ingredients:


4 large eggs

1 cup sugar, sifted

1 cup brown sugar, sifted

8 ounces melted butter

1 1/4 cups cocoa, sifted

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/2 cup flour, sifted

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

Directions:Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F.

In a mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, beat the eggs at medium speed until fluffy and light yellow.

Add both sugars. Add remaining ingredients, and mix to combine. Pour the batter into foil cupcake tins until 3/4 full in a cupcake pan and bake for 15-20 minutes. Place on cooling rack and allow to cool completely. 

Caramel Sauce

Ingredients:


1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup water

4 tablespoons butter

1/2 cup heavy cream


Directions:

Put sugars and water in a heavy bottom saucepan over high heat. Stir with a wooden spoon to combine, once it starts boiling stop stirring and let it thicken. Watch it very carefully to make sure it doesn’t burn. Test a few times with your spoon to see if it has thickened by pulling the spoon up from the bottom of the pan. If it is stringy, it is thickening. Once this happens, immediately turn off the heat and stir in the butter. Then slowly add the cream continuing to stir. Transfer to a ceramic or glass container and let cool for 10 to 15 minutes. Caramel sauce will thicken as it cools. Pour into empy plastic squeeze bottle. 

Drizzle caramel sauce over each cupcake. Top with walnuts. Ta Da.

peace, love, and cupcakes

michy

ELLO, CUPCAKE LOVE

London, England

Even across the Atlantic Ocean, cupake mania is still very much prevalent. I had to make few cupcake stops in between my visits to Buckingham Palace, High Tea, and the London Eye.

 

Primrose Bakery-This adorable cupcake shop is located in the Covent Garden area of London. I had a white chocolate strawberry cupcake for £ 1.95 which was absolutely delicious. It was a vanilla cupcake with strawberry on the bottom and strawberry buttercream topped with white chocolate shavings. A sinful combination.

Cupcake Company-A small cupcakery in the Notting Hill section of London. I had a £2.50 vanilla buttercream cupcake. The cake, which seemed to include vanilla beans, was a little dry but the pink buttercream frosting was delicious. It was topped with a mini fondant cupcake-so cute!

Hummingbird Bakery-This is perhaps the most famous cupcakery in London-spawning cookbooks and tons of fanatic followers. It was packed but I was finally able to get the Black Bottom cupcake for £ 2.95. It was a bit too sweet and I must add, a bit overrated.

 
cheers, cupcakers
michy

Vanilla Peanut Butter Cupcakes in a Chocolate Shell

Vanilla Cupcakes

Adapted from Love and Olive Oil
Makes 12 cupcakes

Ingredients:

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup almond meal (if you don't have almond meal you can also put whole almonds in a blender until finely chopped)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup oil
1 vanilla bean (seeds only)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Combine milk and vinegar and stir to combine. Set aside for 5 minutes. Mixture will eventually curdle.

In a large bowl, sift together flour, almond meal, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

Whisk sugar, oil, vanilla bean, and extract into curdled milk mixture. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the wet ingredients. Mix until relatively smooth. Fill silicone cupcake liners with 3 Tablespoons of batter (cups should be just under 2/3 of the way full). Bake for 20-22 minutes or until lightly golden, and toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Transfer to cooling rack and allow to cool completely.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Shells

Adapted from Sweetest Kitchen
Makes enough for 12 cupcakes

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups semisweet chocolate chips
4 tablespoons peanut butter

Directions:

Line a cupcake pan with 12 paper cupcake liners.

Melt chocolate chips in double boiler. Stir in the 2 tablespoons peanut butter until smooth and combined.

Drop 1-2 tablespoons of melted chocolate into one paper cupcake liner at a time and use a small spoon to entirely coat the paper liner with a thick layer of chocolate.

When finished coating all the liners, put the tray into the refrigerator until the chocolate is solid.

Place cupcake inside. 

Peanut Butter Frosting

Adapted from Bakers Royale
Makes enough for 12 cupcakes

Ingredients:

1 cup confectioners’ sugar
1 cup cup creamy peanut butter (or more depending on your preference)
1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
¾ teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ teaspoon kosher salt
1/3 cup heavy cream

Directions:

Beat heavy cream with whisk attachment until soft peaks form. Set aside.

Place remaining ingredients in a bowl fitted with a paddle attachment. Beat on medium-low speed until creamy.

Fold peanut butter mixture into whipped cream with a wooden spoon until combined.

Frost cupcakes as desired.

ALL-AMERICAN CUPCAKES

American Cupcake
1919 Union St, San Francisco

American Cupcake is unlike any other cupcakery I have seen. The décor is eclectic-an old school diner look with colorful lights everywhere. AC holds the be all/end all of cupcake/alcohol pairings.

Flights were $16 each and usually include 3 mini cupcakes and 3 glasses of beer or wine. Luckily for us, they were out of minis so we got 3 full-sized cupcakes for each of us! I had a wine pairing flight called the Walk of Shame and Amanda had a beer pairing flight called “Beer n’ Chocolate” (which of course I had to sample).  

The pairings:

Lemon/Red Velvet(they ran out of Butterscotch)/Coconut
Sauvignon Blanc/Chardonnay/Merlot
The Red Velvet was nothing spectacular and the lemon was yummy.  I’ve never been a huge fan of coconut but the coconut cupcake was definitely the winner of the wine flight.

Chocolate PB/Chococlate Mint/Chocolate Coconut
Bison Chocolate Stout/Hitachino Nest/ Heifeweizen
Again, not a huge fan of chocolate and mint together but surprisingly it worked fabulously in this cupcake.  The chocolate peanut butter and the chocolate coconut  cupcakes were good as well.  Too much chocolate though, wish there was more variety in this flight!

I wouldn’t say the alcohol necessarily accented the cupcakes’ flavors but I am not one to turn down wine or beer with my cupcakes :)

peace, love, and cupcakes
michy

CUPCAKES, THE SAN FRANCISCO TREAT

A few weeks ago I went to visit my friend Amanda in San Fran and she was kind enough to appease my crazy cupcake needs. We went to 4 cupcake shops, trying at least one cupcake from each place. I think the grand total over the course of the weekend was around 12 cupcake tastes! –rubs belly-

Love At First Bite: A cute hidden cupcake shop in the Gourmet Ghetto area of Berkeley. Instead of getting one large cupcake, I decided to try 3 mini cupcakes. At $1.25 each I have the lemon, strawberry, and red velvet. Strawberry was delicious, lemon was surprisingly good(I’m not usually a fan of lemon), and the red velvet was decent.

That Takes the Cake: The owner served us and she was really sweet.  I had the Hella Nutella cupcake for $2.95. Although it was tasty, it didn’t really taste like nutella.

Miette Bakery:  This was a sophisticated bakery located in the ferry building.  All the cupcakes were beautifully decorated.   A chocolate cupcake with raspberry buttercream for $3.25 caught my eye.  The cake was good but the frosting was not very raspberry at all.

Kara’s Cupcake: This is probably the most famous cupcakery in all of SF. We stopped in the Ghirardelli Square location. I wanted to get a caramel cupcake but the person right in front of me got the last one. I decided to get the carrot cake cupcake for $3.25, even though I’m not the biggest fan of carrot cake. Surprisingly, it was my favorite cupcake of the entire weekend! Very moist and had just the right amount of spice.

There is one more amazing cupcakery in SF, but it deserves a whole entry of its own.


Until next week cupcakers…


Peace, love, cupcakes
Michy

TO TU-LU'S WE GO

Tu-lu’s Bakery
338 East 11th Street, East Village

This is one of the newer cupcakeries in the East Village. I think this place went through a name change-from Tully's Bakery to Tu-Lu's Bakery.  I think the latter is much better!  I have to say I was nervous about this one. It’s another gluten-free bakery (I hadn't had good luck with a certain gluten free bakery in the past) but this time I was pleasantly surprised. I walked in and caught a glimpse of the lovely décor. There was a cupcake tree plastered along one wall. And they say cupcakes don't grow on trees!  After much thought, my friend and I made our final cupcake decisions. I tried the strawberry vanilla cupcake and the chocolate peanut butter cupcake for $1.25 a piece. 1 bite of these delicate mini cupcakes and I was hooked.  Smooth, delicious, and perfect cake/frosting proportion. See ya later Babycakes.

peace, love, and cupcakes
michy