"Hostess Cupcakes". Or "How The Internet Lied To Me"

It could well be a factor of the type of blogs that I ready, or websites that I visit, but according to my version of the Internet, EVERYONE is making hostess cupcakes. So when I put out the call out to my FB people, asking if the rumours of deliciousness were true, I was somewhat disappointed to hear that many of my American, or part-time/sometime Americans, had no real idea what I was talking about.
Some had heard of Hostess cupcakes (I think it's a brand, so it should probably get a caps), but most had not tried one, or hadn't eaten one since childhood...
So what to do? They look delicious (chocolate cake filled with creamy deliciousness, topped with ganache and swirly white icing). I decided to take the plunge.
Phase one: bake the cake. It's a pretty easy, but light, chocolate cake. They rise nicely, but sink in the middle as they cool. That's ok, since we're filling them with a piping bag.
Phase two: make a strange gooey, custardy filling. The recipe I was using was, obviously, American, and it called for the use of 'marshmallow cream'. It is a huge coincident that I spotted some in the shop as I was thinking of making these cakes. What an odd thing. It's sticky but incredibly light - a whole tub weighs less than 100grams.
That mixture is then placed into a piping bag, and squeezed into the centre of the cakes until the top becomes almost flat.




Phase three: make the ganache, and cover the cakes. This covers up the hole you made putting the filling in.




Phase four: make icing and pipe into swirls on top of the cakes. It was a cold day when I was making these, and my icing was pretty thick, so I couldn't manage the 7 swirls that are apparently required on a real Hostess Cupcake. In fact, I could hardly manage any swirls that looked any good, so I made it up as I went along.




Would I make them again? Maybe. They were pretty tasty, but a lot of effort for a cupcake. I think these might be special occasion cakes, or by request only. A good novelty cake, but probably only for people who've either heard of, or tried the real thing.
I'd be interested to try the original, boxed version. I'm sure they are one of those foods that last forever in the cupboard, unlike the homemade ones that are filled with real cream and eggs.
Credit where credit's due: these are from my favourite cookie blog, Bake at 350.
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Proper good English and stuff

This is a very quick post just to let you know that I can speak English good. I just can't type it good (well I probably could, but only on an actual keyboard, not so much the iPad with its autocorrect-y goodness.

I DO know the different between your and you're. And there, they're and their.

I just read back over a few blog posts, and I'm appalled by the English. It could be multitasking to blame, it could be the iPad, or it could be the glass of wine I'm having while I post. Who can say.

I just want you all to know I'm not illiterate, I'm just unco and not very good at proofreading.

Please don't judge me.


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Failure cakes and their redemption.

My niece Miss E has a bunch of allergies. Some have gone away as she's gotten older, and some are probably there for life, which is fairly sucky. Mostly it's not the end of the world, but it does mean that she can't have most cakes or biscuits. If I was a 3 year old girl, I'd be pretty disappointed if I couldn't have a piece of cake when it was my friend's birthday. Miss E's mum keeps a bunch of muffiny-cakey things in the freezer for situations just like that, but it's not the same when you get one thing while everyone else gets something different (and slathered in icing).

A while ago I decided to see if I could find a cupcake recipe, with icing, that was a passable substitute for the real thing. I found a website with rave reviews about the egg and dairy free cupcakes so I thought it was a good place to start. I even read the author's tips for making sure the cakes weren't too dense, which is a problem when you can't use egg as a binder.

I'm going to assume that things don't necessarily translate from US to Australian, even when I switch my scales to crazy US measurements. This was the result:



Not cool. Thank goodness for cupcake papers, or I think that the tins would have had to go in the bin. This recipe has so much sugar that the cake edges caramelised and stuck firmly to the tin.

I pressed on and made the icing anyway. It had that slightly weird flavour that Nuttelex has, but it was surprisingly good overall. I iced the least crappy cakes and sent them to school with M, who offered them to his colleagues without telling them they were egg and dairy free. Apparently they were fairly well received.

I put off experimenting with the recipe for a while, mostly so we could have cupcakes that we could eat without hacking them out of the tin. Then my sister asked me if I would make Miss E-appropriate cupcakes for the party that my mum was hosting for my sister's birthday. The plan was that all the food at the party would be ok for Miss E to eat.

Out came the mixer, and I decided to start with the same recipe, but without so much rising agent (SR flour, but no extra baking powder, for those of you that care...). My thinking was that maybe the cakes had risen nicely, but then sunk because there was nothing to support the cake structure. The scientician in me had to experiment, and it turned out, I was right. Check this out:


(also, I got a wanky photo app on my phone...)

Pretty pleased with that. It was too far away from the party for this to be the final batch, so I iced them and my boys thought they were pretty good - but honestly, if it's cake shaped, they'll eat it. They were slightly dense (the cakes, not the kids), but entirely passable in terms of flavour. It also meant that I had to try to replicate the outcome - yay for the scientific method!

The second batch worked just as well as the first, so that was lucky. I emailed my sister to find out what color icing she wanted... The "committee", consisting, one suspects, entirely of Miss E, voted for pink. What a surprise! A bit of pink sparkle dust, and some 'dusty rose' food coloring, and this was the result:



Not bad, huh?

And Miss E certainly seemed pleased!



Credit where credit's due: the recipe is from Sweet Rosie

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You know what I like? Cookie dough.

There, I've said it. And I know I'm not the only one. I bet most home bakers take more than just a little taste of the dough before the cookies are all rolled out. I don't really even mind what flavor dough it is. It my not-so-secret shame (or one of them, at least...)
Which brings us to this week's cupcake: chocolate chip cookie dough cupcakes. Yum.




The process was astoundingly like making actual cookies. Brown sugar creamed with the butter somehow gives the batter a cookie flavour. The ini choc chips were supposed to be dark chocolate, but i couldn't find any at the shops, so I used milk chocolate. I think that may have been the reason that these were incredibly sweet.

The recipe called for a cookie dough filling too, but I didn't have any condensed milk (yeah, like I need more sweet stuff in this cake), so I just left it out.

The frosting - this is definitely not icing - is practically dough as well, with the cookie dough texture being provided by the flour in the mix. I added a bit more milk than I was supposed to because I thought the frosting was too thick and be pain to pipe. It still turned out tasty.

A few more mini choc chips on top, and these are a small child's dream.




Even as I crossed the room to take these pics, 4 year old G asked if I had cut the cake in half so I could share it with him. I guess that makes them a winner in his eyes, but for my money, they were a bit too sweet. I might just stick to eating real cookie dough when the occasion arises.

Credit where credit's due: the recipe is from TidyMom

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Lemon Buttermilk Cupcakes

A little while ago, on a whim, I invited a dear friend and her two lovely girls for afternoon tea. Once I had done that, I then needed to rustle up something for said afternoon tea, preferably without leaving the house.

It turns out I had all the ingredients for the delicious-sounding lemon buttermilk cupcake. They were super easy, and really nice and sticky.


I paired with a really simple lemony cream cheese icing, but I think they might be just as delicious with a bit of lemon syrup poured on when they're still hot.

They must have been reasonably good, since the kids (even my two little ones) ate the whole cake, not just the icing!

Would I make them again? Yes, they're a perfect afternoon tea-style cake, and give the impression of being far more complicated than they really were.

Credit where credit's due: actually, of the top of my head, I'm not sure, but I'll dig it out and edit the post when I'm not multitasking by blogging and preventing a 8 month old child from falling off the couch.

Also, I've got about 4 more cupcake blogs to write (the cakes themselves are long gone), so I apologies if you feel like your getting blog spammed by me. On the other hand, it could take me just as long to get to those posts as it did to get to this one...


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Chocolate Bacon Cupcakes

After posting some 'taster' pics and descriptions on facebook, I've had some vastly different responses to this concept. There have been a few people that are sure I've missed the mark, but a surprising number that think this might be the greatest thing ever.


To start, I should point out that I don't like bacon. Not one little bit. I even think the flavour contaminates other things but there was something about this concept that intrigued me. I should also admit that I haven't eaten any of them. I just can't do it. I can't put the bacon in my mouth, as much as I want to. But that is also a pretty strong indicator of why I bake: not for me, but to share with other people. Out of all the cupcakes I've made for this blog, I've probably had no more than 2 from any batch (usually about 18 in a batch).

So this recipe is multi-staged. First, you have to cook some bacon, dice it, and cover it in chocolate. Then, you use the fat that rendered out when you were cooking the bacon, to replace the butter in the chocolate cake recipe (too much information? Pretend I didn't say it. But i have a pic if you want one. It's disturbing.). This should give the cake an overall impression of bacon, rather than a really clear bacon taste.

Chocolate covered bacon. Doesn't look that appetising.

Then a chocolate buttercream (using real melted chocolate, rather than cocoa) goes on top, and the chocolate-covered bacon bits get sprinkled over that. There are also chocolate-covered bacon bits in the cake mix. My mystery taster said the verdict was: "super frikking chocolatey, but when you hit a bacon bit, the saltiness cuts right through and works really nicely. I rate it 4 insulin shots out of 5."

mmmm. Meaty.

Most of the cakes were sent to M's school, to make up for the egg-free, dairy-free cupcakes they tasted for me last week (I'll get to that post eventually...). Some of the staff wouldn't even taste them, I guess they were a bit like me, or just couldn't cope with the bacon/chocolate combination. I like to think it's a similar style of food as salted caramel. You just need to pretend that there isn't meat in your cake. Others thought they were pretty good, but I think the sweetness was a surprise.

Conclusion? A nice novelty, but probably not something I'll do again (unless specifically asked!).

Credit where credit's due: the recipe is from Sprinklebakes.

Chocolate Chip Cookes (and an update on the mixmaster saga)

Yes, I realise that Chocolate Chip Cookies are not cupcakes, but I'm pretty sure I never said this blog would only ever be about cupcakes. I resorted to cookies (and they are a cookie, not a biscuit), and to this old faithful recipe, after my industrial strength mixer went to mixer heaven (which it turns out is a little shop hidden behind the main street in Dickson, ACT).

Let's start with the mixer story. My delightful mother gave me a lovely strong mixer as a housewarming present when we moved to our new house in September. It has served me faithfully since then, until about a month ago when it started to struggle with anything thicker than cream. This meant that coldish butter was a problem, cake mix a bit of a struggle, and pasta dough? Well, that was what finally brought about it's demise.

I rang the manufacturer, who said to take it to their designated repairer (see mixer heaven, above). A friend of mine that works in fair trading said that I could have taken it back to the place of purchase for them to assess whether it needed fixing or replacing, even though that retailer's warranty documents said to go to the manufacturer first. Good to know for next time.

When I rang the repair guy a week later, I was told by a rather gruff sounding woman that there was only one person working in the shop at the moment, and they hadn't even looked at it. Another call yesterday, almost another week later, and we (I made M make the call...I was too scared of the gruff lady) were told that it definitely needed replacing, and the order for the replacement would go out tomorrow (which is today, now). So hopefully I'll have a new mixer soon, because my $18 hand mixer from Woolworths just doesn't cut it for pretty much anything.

Back to the cookies. I've been making this recipe since I was about 10. It was my go-to recipe when I wanted to make something yummy and quick, but somehow I forgot about it. I don't think I've made these for about 5 years. Even though you start with creaming butter and sugar, I've done it by hand with this recipe before and got a more than satisfactory result.

dark chocolate chips

This time I decided to mix up the dough, then put dark chocolate chips in half, and white chocolate chips and macadamias into the other half. I remembered the dough making lots and lots of cookies, and was sure that these are about the same size as I used to make them; it's since dawned on me that I never made a single batch, it was always a double quantity. Oh well, it's a good excuse to make another batch soon.

I think the white chocolate ones might be my favourite, so I'm a little disappointed that I wasn't very careful in my halving of the dough so I ended up with less of these than the dark chocolate ones. I suspect it's because the chocolate chips I used were much darker than I used to. Maybe I used milk chocolate chips previously? Or maybe it's just because the choc chips I have a the moment are real, good quality chocolate, rather than compound 'choc bits'.

white chocolate and macadamia

Also, in my memory, this recipe made a lot more cookies than I made yesterday. They were about the same size as I recalled, so I wasn't sure what was going on, but in the middle of the night, it occurred to me that I'd never made a single batch of dough before. Every time I've made this recipe, it's been a double quantity. Never mind, it's a good excuse to make some more soon. Also, the kids don't really like them - dark chocolate is too dark, I think, and white chocolate is not something they're really familiar with. Hooray! More for me!! (don't worry, they're not going to be neglected...!)

Credit where credit's due: I have no idea where this recipe came from in the beginning. But if you want it, let me know!

Pumpkin Brown Butter Cupcakes with Cinnamon Frosting

Yesterday I made banana cupcakes for the same reason everyone makes banana cake: guilt over letting them go brown in the fruit bowl. The recipe called for nutmeg, and I didn't have any so I figured cinnamon was a suitable substitute and went merrily on my way. The cakes were delicious, and were made even tastier by a little smear of chocolate buttercream. I'm not going to post about the banana cakes... if you want the recipe, let me know - it's a good one.

Today's post was inspired by the cinnamoon. That little hint with the banana triggered a hankering, so I did what all good researchers do. I googled. Specifically, I googled "what flavours go with cinnamon". Techinical, I know. I was presented with quite a few options, but the pumpkin intruiged me, plus I had some leftover steamed pumpkin from dinner the night before. Waste not, want not, and all that.

just like a bought one

The recipe needed a lot more pumpkin than I had, so I halved everything. Now I wish I'd gone to the shops and got more pumpkin because these cupcakes are freaking delicious.

yummo.

The cake is dense, the brown butter flavour is amazingly noticable and the pumpkin is sweek and caramelly. Maybe I'm so fascinated by the flavour because pumpkin is not something we tend to cook into sweet foods here in Aus... (American pumpkin pie, I'm thinking of you...). Also, it seems that any recipe with sour cream is a winner.

Then came the frosting. I've never made anything like it. You start by cooking some of it, so it's sort of custardy. Then you beat the living daylights out of it till its kind of meringuey.Then goes the butter, so it's a bit like a buttercream. Then you add what is almost an obscene amount of cinnamon.

 O. M. G. It is amazing.

I think this is the smallest amount of frosting you're legally allowed to put on this cake.

Here is a list of other flavoured cakes I think the frosting would go well with: chocolate, vanilla, banana, apple, zucchini (stay with me here..), or just about anything else. And I'm pretty sure the pumpkin cake would be good with a rich chocolate frosting too.

These might be my new 'special occaision' or 'I'm trying to impress you with how good my baking is' cupcakes. Plus, they've got vegetables in them, so they're practically good for you.

Credit where credit's due: recipe is from Sprinkle Bakes.

Chocolate Cupcakes with Chocolate Buttercream

Sounds bland after all the fancy ones, doesn't it? Let me reassure you early on, these are good.

Yum.

The cake is light, and the buttercream is too. Unlike all the others we've made to date, this buttercream has far less icing sugar compared to butter, so it's not as sweet (the melted chocolate doesn't hurt that either), and not as dense.

On the downside, I gave one to a friend to taste, and neglected to tell her what it was she was trying... I also forgot to tell her to keep it at room temperature, and I suspect the resulting chilled chocolate butter was not as satisfying as one would hope. But she's a good friend and didn't complain, so she might get to be a cupcake taster again soon.

The other learning moment was when I realised that a light cake requires far less buttercream.



For this type of cake, this is too much icing. In fact 1:1 cake to icing is probably too much for most cakes.

I couldn't even finish a whole cupcake before being totally overwhelmed by buttery chocolate goodness, and had to reduce the icing quantity on the rest in case I gave someone butter poisoning (that's a thing, right?).

I knew these were good when M agreed to take one to work every day (when they're not good, he usually has a day or two break from taking them for lunch). And they didn't last nearly as long as the cupcakes of disappointment from last week, which was lucky because then I got to make something else as well. I think I need to start donating the cupcakes somewhere... my rule about not making a new batch till the last one is finished is killing me. It means I spend all week planning what I'm going to make next, then one day baking/icing, then the planning starts all over again. Tough life, I know.

It turns out that all the cookbooks I have in the cupboard, four of which are specifically cupcake related, are good for something. This recipe actually came from a book. I know. They still exist, and people still refer to them. Amazing. Actually, flicking through the pages gave me heaps of ideas for other flavours (time to steer away from the chocolate again I think).

Overall, a delicious cake, with yum icing. Definitely good to do again, maybe with slightly less icing next time. Or with ice cream.

Credit where credit's due: recipe is from cupcakes! by Elinor Klivans.

The cupcakes of disappointment

These look awesome, don't they? These are not the cakes I made.

Chocolate ganache filled cupcakes, with vanilla bean buttercream. Sounds good, doesn't it? What a delicious way to use up the leftover vanilla bean buttercream, right? WRONG.

Maybe it was my far-to literal following of directions (ganache made in the microwave: disapprove. Set ganache in fridge for no more than 30 minutes? Wrong again - it was still too runny). Or maybe I'm just not good at the fancy stuff. These were some of the most disappointing chocolate cakes I've ever eaten. They promised so much but didn't deliver at all.

Let's start with the way they look. This was my batter (with the dollops of ganache in the middle):

How was this batter ever going to turn into that black cake from the picture at the top? Even the ganache looks pale compared to the example shown (not shown here, if you want to see it, follow the link at the bottom). The ganache was supposed to work it's way to the middle of the cake during the baking process, then be a tasty surprise when you bit into the cake.

My ganache either boiled and came out the top, or it worked it's way to the bottom of the cake, where it then blended with the cake mix and turned the bottom of the cupcake into a damp pudding. Less than tasty.

This ganache is supposed to be in the middle of the cake, not smeared around the paper cup.

Dense and soggy.

These cakes are so unappealing that, four days later, we still have a whole bunch left. M won't even take them to school, because he doesn't want to give his new colleagues a bad impression of my baking skills. He is a trooper, though, eating them bit by bit so that they don't go to waste (and so that they'll finally be gone so we can make something actually tasty).

The verdict? I wouldn't bother with this recipe again. If I wanted to make a ganache filled cupcake, I'd use a tried-and-tested chocolate cake recipe, make the ganache the way I know works, scoop the ganache and freeze it into balls so it doesn't boil, and probably use a far more plain icing so that the cake is the winner.

Credit (?) where credit's due: recipe for the cake (and the pic at the top) are from Wonderful Joy Ahead.

Vanilla bean sour cream cupcakes with vanilla bean buttercream

Even though it's so early on in my cupcake journey, the unthinkable happened: I got sick of chocolate cake. Not like I'll never eat it again, just that I needed a break.

Why yes, that is washing sitting on the back of the couch in the background. Thanks for noticing.

A while ago in my internet 'research', I came across this recipe for what was billed as "the perfect white cupcake". I found that intruiging because a normal vanilla cake is still pretty yellow so I decided to give it a try. Plus, I love vanilla bean.

The cake itself is delicious - moist and a little crumbly, but still holds together well. It's white, but not pure white as advertised. I'm putting this down to the recipe being American - their butter seems to be much paler than ours, which would of course result in a much paler batter. Also, the recipe for the icing called for 'clear vanilla'. I have no idea what that is, but it seems overly manufactured, so I don't think it is something I would ever keep in my pantry, but it would obviously remove any colour added by regular vanilla essence or bean. I'm OK with having icing with little specks of vanilla seeds through it. I think it makes the cake look even more yummy.

Perfectly white cake? No. Yummy? Definitely.

The other weird thing about this recipe was the requirement for 'cake flour'. Google tells me this is a fine flour, high (or was it low??) in gluten. Google also tells me that a suitable substitute is 1 cup cake flour = 3/4 cup plain flour plus 2 tablespoons of corn flour. Whatever. It worked.

The sour cream in the cake seems to cancel out some of the sugariness of the icing. As I've mentioned before, I think a generous cake:icing ratio is important, but in this recipe, the cake really held it's own. Sometimes the icing turns out to be the hero, but here, I think it was a pretty good balance.

Now that's a good icing:cake ratio.

Would I make these again? Yes, but for a 'plain' vanilla cupcake, they're a bit labour intensive. These are more your gourmet vanilla cupcake, or for when you've got plenty of time and don't mind doing the washing up.

And as per usual, the buttercream recipe made far more than was required (even though the cake recipe made 18 cakes rather than the usual dozen - the preschool teachers were happy...). So the next recipe I've got in mind is going to use up the rest of the vanilla buttercream. I think I see a pattern forming.

Credit where credit's due: recipe is from Good Life Eats.

A baker's dilemma times two.

Dilemma number one: Today's cupcakes used only egg whites, so now I have 4 yolks left over. I have no ideas what to do with them, but it's most likely they'll go into some sort of eggy-carbonara style sauce for the kids' dinner tonight, unless you can give me a good idea for something else.

Dilemma number two: I have run out of sugar. The baby is asleep and it's raining. I do not foresee a 'quick trip' to the shops in my immediate future.

First world problems: I have them.

Chocolate brownie cupcakes with peanut butter frosting

I'm not going to lie to you. This recipe was picked because it seemed wasteful to throw out the leftover peanut butter frosting from the coke cupcakes. But it also sounded delicious and that's good enough for me.

These cupcakes are almost entirely chocolate, and contain no raising agent, so they are dense and sticky. They crack beautifully on top and I think are yummy enough and pretty enough to serve on their own. I thought the frosting was good, but a bit weird since the cake contains toasted walnuts and the icing has peanut - the two flavours are surprisingly different. M says he likes these ones better than the coke cupcakes based purely on the icing: he doesn't get the salt thing with the peanut butter.

I'm glad I made some of these in miniature size - they're pretty rich, and I wouldn't want to give the kids a big one. But the peanut butter frosting balanced out the sweetness of the brownie so, as an adult, it was easy to eat a whole grown-up sized one. They are tasty without the icing - the gooey centre is yummy, and somehow all the chopped walnuts seem to end up there.

What I liked the most was that when I forgot that a batch was in the oven (only for about 4 extra minutes, but when baking time is only about 15, that's a lot), they weren't over cooked - the nice chewy bit around the edges was a bit thicker, but the centre was still soft and moist.. and the middle bit sunk a bit too, so it could hold a bit more icing - often a winner in my books.

Really, it is just a chocolate brownie baked into a cupcake shape. But you know what? That's OK with me. I'd have them with or without the icing, and it might be my new go-to brownie recipe.

Credit where credit's due: the recipe for the brownie cupcake is from http://www.epicurious.com/, and the frosting as per the coke cupcake post.

Savory cupcakes: is this a thing?

It's early in my cupcake journey... I mean, i've been making them for a while, but usually stuck to old favourites unless i've had a reason to search out something new. But now I'm making them in a more serious manner, I've realised that this amount of sugar could lead me and my family to an early grave (or at least some serious sugar hangovers).

I think I need to at least explore the idea of savory. I don't believe that just because something is baked in a cupcake/muffin pan, it automatically becomes a cupcake/muffin. And is there really such a thing as a savory cake? I've googled a bunch of stuff, trying to find the answer (i know google has the answer there somewhere), but I've not found it yet. I've found heaps of stuff that looks delicious and that I probably will make, mostly because cupcake-sized savory foods make excellent lunch-box foods, and I've recently begun the first of many school-lunch making years ahead of me.

But really, savory cupcakes. Is it a thing, do they exist, or am I kidding myself into thinking that this blog is anything more than a means to a sugary end?

What's going on here?

As a stay at home mum of three aged 4 and under, obviously I have a lot of spare time.

So I've decided to track down delicious recipes - mostly cup cakes - and try them out. This blog is where I plan to try and describe the level of ease and deliciousness of each one.

There might be pictures, and if I'm feeling slack, the review might come from a guest taster, probably my husband. If I need a confidence boost, I'll ask G, and he'll say each one was the most bestest cake ever...he's handy like that.

Coca cola cupcakes with salted peanut butter frosting

I think we can all deduce from the title that these are not a particularly healthy cupcake. They fall firmly in the 'sometimes' category.

That being said, they are freaking delicious. I could eat them every single day for a week and not be sick of them.

They are surprisingly not-very-sweet, given the coke and the amount of sugar in them, and the peanut butter adds a really yummy creaminess to each mouthful. I think the cake:icing ratio is important - not enough icing would make for a less satisfying cake.

The little sprinkle of sea salt on top (just to help the heart attack get here sooner) is a nice tangy detail, and really, who doesn't love sprinkles?

Would I make them again? Absolutely yes, but they can't become my go-to cupcake since so many people have nut allergies. This is a big problem for me, since I like to bake, eat a little, keep a litle for home and send the rest to kindy or M's work. Peanuts make this a stay-at-home treat, and I don't need a dozen of these sittig around my house.

On the other hand, the cake is so moist and delicious that perhaps another batch, with a different kind of icing, warrants a taste test.

Credit where credit's due: recipe is from http://www.sprinklebakes.com/.