Cuppycakes for Tuesday

3/6/12:  Yellow Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting

Haven't shared much of my cooking with you all lately, but I'm still here! I've been cooking and baking almost every day each week and trying out some new recipes every now and then. Two of the "newbie" recipes I gave a go as of late were Yellow Cupcakes from Cook's Illustrated and Peanut Butter Frosting from the Bake-Off Flunkie blog. Boy, that sounds like a yummy duo, eh?

It may sound strange to some, but I like to bake a dessert and have that as the sole dish for evening supper every once in awhile. My family always has lunch as the main meal of the day, so we can get by with dessert-for-supper with no problem. So for yesterday's supper, I made these cupcakes on the spur of the moment. Yeah, I would have liked to plan supper in advance but the days got away from me!

Here's how they turned out yesterday:

For Christmas I received the Cook's Illustrated Cookbook (which I think weighs more than two bibles put together!), and this cupcake recipe is one of many I've tried so far from the book. 

So what do I think of the "cake" part of this cupcake? 

I don't know if I baked them for too long or what, but they were a bit dry. The batter was a thick one so it was difficult to evenly fill the cupcake liners, which led to some baking faster than others. So right now I am on the fence about them. 

So what do I think of the frosting?

I wanted to have the family's opinion on this one because I wanted to give feedback to the recipe creator. Here's the feedback:

Papa: OK. Isn't a peanut butter fan.

Sibling 1: Very good.

Sibling 2: Very good.

Sibling 3: YUMMY!

Sibling 4: OK.

Me: Good, but a bit too sweet for me. Would add more butter. 

All and all, it looks like it is a keeper, even though I may not be a huge fan. I'm a frosting fuss budget, especially as of late. I've been making more cooked frostings than buttercreams (like this one), and it is hard to go back. 

Thanks, Tiffany, for sharing the recipe on your blog! Frostings are one of my favorite things to make so I'm glad to add another one to my file.

Sweet Cakes for a Sweet Gal + Thoughts on the Sweet Chic Cookbook

What I think is harder than being a daily blogger is writing up a post after a long (and in my case, very long), duration of blog silence. And that is where I'm at today. It is harvesting time at the farm and there are lots of fruits and veggies to pick, but that little ol' thing called "Time" is hard to come by these days. 

Cooking for me over the past couple of months has been sort of on-the-fly, usually coming up with a meal plan the day before. Very much unlike my Winter and Spring meal calendars where I was all set a month in advance. But I'm making it work, anyway! 

What is the real disappointment I've found with all the craziness of the harvesting season is not finding time to bake. Baking takes a little extra time and so I haven't been breaking out the baking powder and measuring spoons much. 

Now enters Sunday. Sunday, August 14 to be exact. Ah, yes, that's when I found some time to bake using a new cookbook I just received a couple weeks ago. It is called Sweet Chic and this is what I made:

That is a chocolate cupcake. But wait.

Now it is a cupcake with chocolate frosting. Now that's better. :) And oh look, there's more:

The Sunday I made these was my sister Catherine's birthday and so I made 3 dozen worth and had milkshakes, too:

I was one proud baker after making these cupcakes. They were extremely moist (probably because the recipe uses solely vegetable oil instead of butter), and the frosting was chocolatel-y and not too sweet. Catherine loved them (yay!) and my Papa, a cake and frosting connoisseur, thought they were excellent. Sigh. What reviews! I'm blushing.

The Sweet Chic--Stylish Treats to Dress Up for Any Occasion cookbook, written by Rachel Schifter Thebault, has a very interesting approach to baking. The book is divided into three sections: cookies, cakes/icings, and confections, like truffles and bark. A good portion of the recipes provided are basic in nature, such as CCC (Chocolate Chip Cookies), chocolate brownies, sugar cookies, chocolate cake, vanilla cake, buttercream frosting, chocolate truffles, etc. Complete with clear photos for most of the recipes! I'm a sucker for the photography.

What the author did to give her own twist to the book was to supply you with ideas to create special variations of the basic recipes; allowing you to dress your desserts up or down. Dress up or down? Hmm, sounds like fashion, right? That is the exact metaphor the author is using for this book. Each subsection is given a fun fashion nickname like the Scoop Cookies are the Basic T. Fun! So now I can take the basic recipe, Devil's Food Cake, and make mini S'mores Cupcakes, Rocky Road Cupcakes, and even Individual Mud Pies.

When I first glanced through the book I thought, "Oh, another cookbook with lots of basic recipes. I probably could easily find all of these with a quick google search." But after getting comfortable in bed and reading it thoroughly, I knew I found something special. I have the habit of deciding to bake something out of the blue, so I don't give myself much preparation time. You can usually find me running around for a peanut butter cookie or a fudgy brownie recipe just minutes before I get into the kitchen. And once I find it (usually off the internet), I need to alter it a bit because of pan size, yield, and then I cross my fingers that I got the recipe from a good source.

Sweet Chic helps so much in this recipe-finding turmoil I usually find myself in. I just go to one of the book's basic recipes, find the variation I want, maybe change the yield, and then simply execute. The book has all the usual desserts I make on a weekly basis so it is all in one place.

So this is how it panned out last Sunday. First, I knew I wanted to make cupcakes. Looked in the cake section of the book. Found chocolate mini cupcakes. Hmm, no mini cupcake liners on hand. So just doubled the recipe. Simple. Next, frosting. Found chocolate frosting made with a melted chocolate base and sour cream. Sounded good so I chose that one. DONE!

If I had to do it my old way I would be going through my huge recipe binder for 10 minutes at the least. It is so helpful to have a cookbook at the ready!

Sloppy Joe's : The Super Hero of the Culinary World

3/21/10: Super Sloppy Joes with Homemade Hamburger Rolls and Life By Chocolate Cupcakes

Meal details: Annemarie made some crusty hamburger rolls on Saturday for my Super Sloppy Joe's. The Sloppy Joe recipe includes onions, tomato sauce and paste, bell peppers, Worcestershire sauce, red wine vinegar, and of course, ground beef. For dessert, I made chocolate cupcakes, each with a Hershey Kiss in the middle. :)

Defining moments: First time using a Ree Drummond (Pioneer Woman) recipe and making ganache!

Recipe sources: The Sloppy Joe recipe is from Rachael Ray and I actually made this before. See my original posts here and here. The chocolate cupcake recipe is from the Pioneer Woman's Tasty Kitchen. I just noticed that the Sloppy Joe recipe link on the Food Network website is obsolete. Ugh. How can they delete this recipe from their archive? Oh well, I'll write it out here for you all:

Rachael Ray's Super Sloppy Joe's --

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, 1 turn of the pan
• 1 1/4 lbs ground sirloin
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 2-3 teaspoons steak seasoning, such as McCormick brand Montreal seasoning
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 small red bell pepper, chopped
• 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• 2 cups tomato sauce
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 4 crusty rolls, split, toasted, and lightly buttered

Garnish

• sliced ripe tomato
• pickle

Instructions:

1. Heat a large skillet over medium high heat.
2. Add oil and meat to the pan.
3. Spread the meat around the pan and begin to break it up.
4. Combine brown sugar and steak seasoning.
5. Add sugar and spice mixture to the skillet and combine.
6. When the meat has browned, add onion and red peppers to the skillet.
7. Reduce heat to medium and cook onions, peppers, red wine vinegar and Worcestershire sauce with meat for 5 minutes.
8. Add tomato sauce and paste to pan.
9. Stir to combine.
10. Reduce heat to simmer and cook Sloppy Joe mixture 5 minutes longer.
11. Using a large spoon or ice cream scoop, pile sloppy meat onto toasted, buttered bun bottoms and cover with bun tops.
12. Serve with your favorite sides or sliced tomatoes seasoned with salt and pepper, dill pickles and Potato Salad.
13. We like to put a thick slice of cheddar on top of the meat in the sandwich and broil it for a few minutes to melt. YUM.

What I learned: Well, because I have done the first recipe before, nothing new there. But the cupcake recipe included a chocolate ganache that you dip the baked and cooled cupcakes in. I've seen it done on t.v. many a time but this is my first on hands approach. It was a lot of fun to make! Especially when pouring the hot cream over the chocolate--boy, did that look delicious!

Any modifications? Yes, I tweaked both recipes slightly. For the sloppy joe's, I didn't use the steak seasoning (don't have any), instead I used pepper. I used ground chuck instead of ground sirloin (cheaper, lol!).

And for Ree Drummond's recipe. . . I didn't add the baking soda to the wet ingredients at the beginning, like the recipe states. I instead, placed the soda in the dry ingredients. I did this because I knew the baking soda would react with the wet ingredients and I didn't want to lose all that leavening power before they are in the oven.

How it tasted? The Sloppy Joe's were as good as ever (especially with those homemade buns), and the cupcakes were VERY good. But then how, I ask you, can a cupcake that has a chocolate batter, a chocolate kiss in the center, and a chocolate ganache on top be bad? Yeah, that doesn't make sense. :D I loved everything about both recipes!

How about a 2nd time? Without a doubt, absolutely, totally, definitely. . . In other words: YES.

Oh yes, a note about the photos. I will begin sharing my photos to you by way of Flickr. So when you click on any one of them, you will be transferred to my Flickr account and have the ability to view them at full scale.