Nutty goodness.

The first thing I’m going to show you is brought to you in part by Oh Nuts! of Brooklyn. I was contacted by them and asked if I’d like to try some of their bulk nuts and dried fruit for use in a recipe. Of course I said yes! It took me a while to decide what I wanted to try (they have a HUGE selection, and I’ll definitely be placing future bulk orders through them), and eventually I decided on raw macadamia nuts (because they are generally not something I would buy due to their price) and dried candied kiwi (which I’d never had before).

Kiwis: now in technicolor.

The kiwis are honestly kind of a better snack than an ingredient, but I did use a few alongside candied pineapple and papaya (from the store downstairs) in my first creation, some coconut macaroons topped with macadamias.

Both nutty & coconutty.

Where is the fruit, you ask? It’s a surprise!

Hey, fruit!

However, that is not one of the recipes I will be sharing today. I wasn’t overly thrilled with the way they came out and they were a pain in the butt to shape without them falling apart. They were tasty, but I thought the macadamias deserved a little something more special. So I made something else.

Crunchy & soft.

I decided to make macadamia-topped banana mochi cakes. I couldn’t find an actual recipe for banana mochi cakes, just one for Hawaiian mochi banana bread. It sounded great but contained Bisquick, something I definitely don’t keep in my kitchen, so I found a recipe for a Bisquick substitute and replaced the flour with non-glutinous rice flour to keep them gluten-free. I also added what I believe to be the banana’s best friend: Chinese 5 spice powder. And to give another slight dimension to the flavors, I used a splash of sesame oil.

Oh them banana speckles.

But that’s not all. Oh no. You see, I thought that banana and macadamia weren’t quite enough. I wanted a third flavor. I asked on Twitter. The responses were basically all cries for chocolate and coconut. But I had no chocolate in my possession (or else I’d have added cocoa nibs, I’m sure) and I didn’t want to mess with the texture by adding dessicated coconut. There was a third flavor that kept floating to the top of my brain – CARAMEL – but for a while I just couldn’t figure out the best way to add it to the batter without compromising the recipe. So I took a step back and thought about all the things that went into the recipe. It quickly became obvious that I just had to caramelize the bananas first! So I did. And the cupcakes were amazing.

Pretty cake!

Caramelized Banana Mochi Cakes with Macadamias

1. 4 medium bananas, ripe
2. 1/4 cup sugar in the raw
3. 5 g baking powder
4. 2 g sugar
5. 48 g rice flour (not Mochiko)
6. 23 g vegetable oil
7. 8 oz. Mochiko
8. 2 tsp baking soda
9. 1/2 tsp salt
10. 1/4 tsp Chinese 5 spice
11. 3/4 cup sugar
12. 3/4 cup vegetable oil
13. Splash of sesame oil
14. 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
15. 2 1/2 eggs (scramble one egg and add half the weight to the other two)
16. 1/2 cup roughly chopped macadamia nuts

Slice the bananas in half lengthwise and place on a foil-lined sheet or broiler tray. Sprinkle the raw sugar in a thick layer. Broil or torch until the sugar is melted and well caramelized. Allow to cool, then puree thoroughly in a blender and set aside.

Preheat the oven to 350F. Combine the 5 g baking powder, 2 g sugar and non-Mochiko rice flour in a medium-large bowl and use a pastry cutter to cut in the 23 g vegetable oil. You want the mixture to be in tiny crumbs…crumblets, if you will. Whisk in the Mochiko, baking soda, salt, 5 spice and sugar. Stir in the oil and vanilla, then the eggs, then the bananas. Allow the batter to rest for a couple of minutes, then spoon it into lined muffin tins. Sprinkle with chopped macadamias and bake for 20-25 minutes, until the edges of the cake tops are browned. Makes about 16 cupcakes.

These cupcakes, unlike most mochi cakes, are actually really good while still warm (like most banana baked goods), though a bit oily. They don’t get quite as chewy as a normal all-mochi cake, but they are extra soft and crazy fragrant. I declared them possibly the most banana-y thing EVER. Z likes them with a schmear of cream cheese.

***BONUS RECIPE Y’ALL***

I know I promised two recipes, so here’s the second one! It does deserve its own post but I only got one decent picture so I decided to just tack it on here. Prickly pears have a pretty short season so get a bunch while you can (discounted bruised-looking ones are the way to go; the outside looking yucky doesn’t mean the insides aren’t fine) and make this fast! It’s a great thing to have on hand in the early fall if you’re going through a final heat wave like much of the country is now. Just be careful and don’t touch them bare-handed – the worst pricklies are invisible!

Hard to capture the insane magenta color.

Prickly Pear Sorbet

1. 12 medium prickly pears
2. 6 Tbsp sugar
3. Juice of 2 limes
4. 1 Tbsp tequila or vodka

Wearing gardening gloves or holding the fruit with an oven mitt or other form of prickle protection, slice each prickly pear in half lengthwise and use a spoon to scoop out the pulp. Combine the pulp and the other ingredients in a blender and puree thoroughly. Strain out the seeds and chill. Once cold, churn in an ice cream maker and freeze until solid and scoopable. Makes about 1 quart.

Prickly pears come from cactus plants and as such are indigenous to the American southwest, Mexico and Israel. They come in a variety of colors ranging from yellow to magenta, with magenta being the most common. They’re full of little stone-like seeds, so they’re most often consumed blended and strained into Margaritas. Both the fruit and sorbet have a simultaneously sticky and slimy quality to them that isn’t unpleasant, it just makes for some tricky scooping sometimes. It tastes at first like unripe banana, then like lime, then not at all like either of those things, and is very tasty and addictive.

White chocolate is a unique ingredient, and while dark and milk chocolate have hordes of rabid fans, you’d hear those same hordes echoing horrible sentiments like “I hate white chocolate” and “white chocolate is gross” or even “white chocolate isn’t REAL chocolate.” Lately I’ve taken up the cause and have been stubbornly defending what I know to be a special, delicious ingredient. And it is TOO real chocolate!

Where's the white chocolate?

However, as with many things, sometimes it takes baby steps to get people to like an ingredient that they’ve completely dismissed. That’s why I was so elated when I learned that you could CARAMELIZE white chocolate to make it extra special!

But what IS it?

I ended up using white chocolate in the form of a caramelized ganache. Easy to make, easier to eat. Since caramelized white chocolate just screams for salt, I topped each cupcake with a random sprinkling of large crystal sanding sugar and coarse sea salt.

What's with the cherries and almonds?

The first time I ever made caramelized white chocolate, I decided that, while it looks like peanut butter, it tastes decidedly more like toasted almonds, if anything. I chose to make an almond flour cake, though not a gluten-free one. I wanted the natural almond flavor more than the density. For that toasted flavor I craved, I toasted the almond flour in the oven before using it, which worked perfectly.

Such a warm and inviting looking cupcake.

Instead of my usual filling-in-a-hole-in-the-middle style, I went for a muffin-ier approach in these cupcakes and added fresh chopped cherries to the batter just before baking. Honestly they weren’t my first choice, as much as I love cherry and almond together; I would have preferred apricots. But I just barely missed the end of apricot season by about a week as I waited for the weather to cool down enough for me to turn on the oven, and just went with the cherries from the bodega downstairs. They definitely do the trick, though, adding a sweet, juicy note to the almost-savory cupcakes. And they gave me the inspiration to use these sexy red wrappers I bought recently.

Quite elegant, actually.

A few notes about the ganache: while it eventually sets up to the point where it will hold its shape enough to pipe, that takes at least 24 hours in the fridge. Even after that point it’s very soft and melts easily. I prefer to use it as a glaze – you get plenty of the unique caramelized flavor while not overdosing on sticky sweetness.

You may also notice that I used milk as the liquid in the ganache instead of the usual cream. I felt that the white chocolate was fatty enough and any more fat would make it too greasy and slick in the mouth, and I think that was the right choice, considering how buttery-moist this cake recipe is.

Half sweet, half savory, totally awesome.

Toasted White Chocolate Cherry-Almond Cupcakes

First, Make the Ganache:

1. 200 g chopped white chocolate, divided
2. 75 g milk

Caramelize half of the white chocolate in a shallow baking dish or sheet pan set in an oven at 250F. Stir every ten minutes and bake until the chocolate is a deep peanut butter color and fragrantly caramelized (don’t worry if it looks grainy, that’s normal). Allow to cool, then transfer to a double boiler over simmering water. Add the rest of the white chocolate and melt both together completely. Meanwhile, heat the milk in the microwave until it’s steaming hot (less than 30 seconds). Remove the melted chocolate from over the simmering water and gently stir in the hot milk until it is completely combined and emulsified. Chill in the refrigerator, stirring once every hour or so, until it is thick, spreadable and no longer runny.

Then, Make the Cakes:

1. 68 g almond flour
2. 4 oz butter
3. 4 oz sugar
4. 2 eggs
5. 1/4 tsp vanilla
6. 46 g AP flour
7. 1/2 tsp baking powder
8. Pinch salt
9. 1/3 cup chopped fresh cherries (from about 8 cherries)

Preheat the oven to 325F. Spread the almond flour out on a small baking sheet (I put mine in a pie tin so I wouldn’t accidentally sweep any away when I was stirring it) and toast, stirring every 2 minutes or so, until it’s fragrant and moderately browned. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

In a stand mixer or with a hand mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Slowly beat in the eggs and vanilla, scraping down the bowl between additions. Sift together the dry ingredients and, with the mixer off, add all but about 1 Tbsp at once, then mix slowly until the dry is just incorporated. Scrape down the bowl, then toss the chopped cherries with the leftover 1 Tbsp of dry mixture. Gently fold the cherries into the batter. Bake in lined muffin tins for about 30 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cakes comes out clean. Cool completely before frosting.

To Assemble:

1. Cupcakes
2. Ganache
3. Sanding sugar
4. Coarse sea salt

Use a small spatula or butter knife to smoothly spread a layer of ganache on each cupcake. Sprinkle lightly with both sugar and salt. Keep refrigerated (the ganache will set up fully once refrigerated overnight).

Makes 8 cupcakes with some ganache left over.

The winner of August’s Mystery Box Cupcake Challenge will receive prizes from:

• Bake It Pretty; $5 electronic gift card
• Beanilla; 3 Indian + 3 Tahitian vanilla beans & a jar of Ground Vanilla
• CT2Designs; a cupcake ring
• Miss Kitty Creations; a cupcake charm of your choice
• Sweet Cuppin Cakes; a prize pack worth $25

Thank you to all our prize sponsors!

Hello again!

Yeah, my pumpkin cupcakes are back. And with a purpose!

What pumpkin shortage?

This month’s Cupcake Hero theme is pumpkin! Since I couldn’t get it together in time to enter last month’s banana contest, I’m totally bringin’ it with my favorite fall treats.

I take back what I said last year. Mellocreme pumpkins NOT optional.

BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE!

Just shifting into focus to say hello...

Since I finally figured out the perfect frosting for these spicy lovelies last year (and greatly improved upon it by way of some gorgeous chocolate and cocoa powder that I got at a Scharffen Berger event), I decided it was high time I created a filling for them. And what a filling it is…

Ladies and gentlemen, pumpkin cupcake nirvana has been achieved.

A little browned butter caramel with your pumpkin and chocolate?

Sittin' on some pumpkins.

Oh yes…I think that about does it as far as pumpkin-y awesomeness is concerned.

Oh artificial pumpkin goodness. Why you got to be so awesome?

I brought these to class. They were appreciated pretty thoroughly, especially the filling. Many of my classmates had only recently (like last week) been introduced to the wonder of brown butter so it went over very well.

Quick! Eat it!

I definitely recommend you make these this fall. And then eat them. Eat them fast.

...before it turns into a pumpkin.

Ultimate Pumpkin Cupcakes

First You Gotta Bake the Cakes…

1. 1 1/4 cup unsalted butter
2. 1 cup dark brown sugar
3. 1 1/4 cup sugar
4. 2 eggs
5. 1 15 oz. can pumpkin (plain pumpkin, no spices pre-mixed in there!)
6. 3 cups AP flour
7. 2 tsp baking soda
8. 1 tsp fine salt
9. 3 1/2 tsp cinnamon
10. 1 tsp nutmeg
11. 1/2 tsp ground cloves
12. 1/2 tsp ground ginger

Preheat the oven to 350. Cream the butter and sugars until they are light and fluffy, then add the eggs one at a time, waiting until each is fully incorporated into the creamed mixture before adding more. Gradually add the pumpkin and beat until smooth. Whisk together the flour and other dry ingredients, then gradually add them to the batter until everything is homogenous. Plop into lined muffin tins (an ice cream scoop is great for this since it’s a very thick, almost dough-like batter) and bake for 20-25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the middle of one comes out clean. Cool completely before filling and/or frosting. Makes about 28 cupcakes. (I usually make 24 and pour the rest of the batter into a buttered large ramekin or Pyrex dish as a little treat for myself.)

Then You Have to Make the Filling…

1. 4 oz./8 Tbsp unsalted butter (you can use salted if you like, just omit the added salt)
2. 1 cup sugar
3. 1/2 cup + 2 Tbsp heavy cream, room temperature
4. Pinch of fine salt

Cut the butter into several pieces and melt them in a small saucepan. Continue cooking, gently swirling the pan, until the milk solids begin to burn – the butter will smell nutty and caramelly and there will be brown bits in the bottom of the pan. Don’t let the burnt bits get black though – remove the pan from the heat before it gets too dark. If you have a vessel that can handle it (like a Pyrex container) pour the browned butter into it immediately; otherwise, let it sit in the pan until it has cooled slightly, then move to a bowl or other container, being sure to scrape as much of the lovely brown part from the bottom of the pan as you can. Refrigerate the butter until it has solidified. Once you are ready to make the rest of the filling, cut it into small pieces.

Place the sugar in a saucepan with tall sides. Wet it with just enough water to make it the consistency of wet sand, then place over high heat. Brush down the sides of the pan with water to keep crystals from forming. Cook, swirling the saucepan gently, until it is a nice amber color and smells caramelly. You can make it as mild or dark as you like but a nice medium caramel is just about perfect for me. Add the butter and salt all at once and stir until melted, then remove the pan from the heat and gradually add the cream. Be careful – the caramel will bubble up angrily when you pour in the cream (this is why you want a tall pan). If any bits of caramel seize up, just place the pan over medium-low heat and stir gently until everything is dissolved and smooth. Allow to cool, then chill in the refrigerator to make it firmer and easier to scoop into the cakes.

And Of Course There’s the Frosting…

1. 2/3 cup whole milk
2. 6 oz. chopped dark chocolate
3. 2 tsp cocoa powder

Place the chocolate in a medium mixing bowl. In a small saucepan, bring the milk just to a boil, then immediately pour it over the chocolate. Let it sit for about 30 seconds, then slowly begin stirring it with a whisk, from the middle out, until all the chocolate is melted and you have a smooth, creamy ganache. Sift in the cocoa powder and stir until it is fully incorporated. Chill until firm and spreadable.

Now for the Assembly!

1. Cooled Pumpkin Cupcakes
2. Chilled Brown Butter Caramel Filling
3. Chilled Double Chocolate Ganache
4. Mellocreme Pumpkins

Use a small round cutter to cut out the middles of the cupcakes. Be careful – they’re very soft! Spoon a glob of caramel into each, then trim the middle and place the “lid” of cake back on top of the caramel. Let the caramel set up a bit inside the cakes (chilling or even freezing if you’d like). Whisk the ganache slightly to get it tightened up, then spread a thin but opaque layer on top of each cupcake. Top each with a mellocreme pumpkin.

I’ve learned a lot of things over the past year on my own as well as more recently in class. For instance, the cocoa powder in the ganache is entirely unnecessary from a technical standpoint – the cocoa butter in the ganache is what makes it bind up. If you were to use cream, as is traditional, the cream itself would be thickening it as you beat it. I decided to stick to my original, slightly odd choice of milk (back when I was afraid of cream) because I think a perfectly smooth ganache would detract from the velvety soft cake, and left in the cocoa powder strictly for that extra bitter chocolate kick that goes so well with the almost too-sweetness in this cupcake.

Well, it's technically BURNED, though not BURNING.

Since I got my challenge done a little late in the month this time around, I was able to observe several other Daring Bakers’ reactions to this recipe before embarking on my own Dobos Quest. One of the things I noticed a lot of people saying was that they didn’t like the top caramel-soaked layer of cake, pretty as it is.

Fun with hot sugar.

So I decided to forego that whole thing entirely, though with the shape my cake ended up taking on there are a lot of interesting patterns I could have made with a top layer like that. BUT, I decided to just play with some caramel on its own for the top.

Seriously, the cake was the exact size and shape of a brick. Tastiest brick ever!

Of course I had the caramel drizzled on the Silpat, THEN I remembered the totally awesome pulled sugar demo Chef did for us in class the other day, which involved pulling and kneading caramelized sugar until it looked like pure gold. If I had thought it out a bit better I could have (maybe) done a gorgeous golden ribbon, but I ended up with splatters that were nowhere near as delicate as what I originally wanted. However they did look quite a bit like flames, so I bent the bottoms to form bases and stuck the shards on top of the cake.

Count 'em! Six!

Since it’s just little old me alone in my apartment right now (and Bowser doesn’t eat cake), I halved the recipe and decided to bake the sponge cake in one large sheet and cut it into whatever shape I ultimately wanted for the cake.

Uhoh, the buttercream is getting melty...*lick*

I considered trying a crescent shape for an extra-fancy little cake but decided to go with a good old rectangle. Besides, neatly frosting the inside of a tiny crescent? No thank you.

Yeah, so they're not the straightest layers ever, but it's not like it matters. It all ends up the same in the end...

I brushed the layers with a little Monin violet syrup, just for fun. The day I made it I couldn’t taste the syrup and everything was a bit too sweet for me, but after a day in the fridge, the cold dulled the sweetness and everything was much yummier! The caramel got a little gummy and melty from the humidity in my wacky fridge, but that just makes it easier to eat I think – not as shattery and sharp.

Agh! Throw it out the window!...Wait, don't!

I really enjoyed this challenge for many reasons – I’ve never made sponge cake before, but I am really a fan of anything that involves whipping egg whites and folding them into something! And I like the texture of it. A lot of people said it was too dry, which it probably would be if I hadn’t brushed it with the syrup, but I did…so…nyah! I also REALLY loved the chocolate buttercream. It was some tasty stuff! I used some really nice super dark chocolate and it turned out yummmmmy.

Thanks to Lorraine and Angela for such a fun and beautiful challenge! Now that I’m done writing about mine I can go check out some of the other lovely cakes out there on the internet today!

Gooey sticky cupcakes!

Chocolate was my first idea, followed by…beer! Chocolate Guinness cupcakes it would have to be!

No sense of modesty or self-respect, these cupcakes.

I was out at the time I was coming up with the idea and had to phone home and have Z look up a recipe for me to base my shopping on, but I ended up with everything I needed. My only challenge would be whose recipe to choose?

See that awesome chocolate cake?

I was busy for the rest of the day and didn’t have much time to look at too many recipes before I went to bed, so I asked via Twitter if anyone knew any particularly perfect recipes.

Told you that frosting was gooey!

And then, early in the morning, the power went out. So I slept. At noon, it came back on, so I got up (what, I like sleep!)…and then it went out again almost immediately.

Don't you just want to tunnel all up in that chocolatey goodness?

So I started searching through my cookbooks. But, as I don’t have many, I couldn’t find one. So I worried.

Eventually, around 2 in the afternoon, while I was in the middle of complaining about the lack of power for probably the fiftieth time, it came back on. Immediately I began my search for the perfect cupcake recipe, idly chekcing to see if anyone had answered my call on Twitter.

Omnomnomnom

Someone had!

This photo taken hastily as I gathered my cupcake carrier and bag of marinating portobello caps.

The fabulous Shiv, one of the two lovely ladies behind Pithy & Cleaver replied with this recipe – which apparently just won the 3rd annual Brooklyn Kitchen Cupcake Bake-off! And with good reason. These cupcakes are incredibly moist, dark and rich, with a super gooey frosting that has a really nice tang from the cream cheese. I skimped a little on the salting because I ran out of unsalted butter halfway through and was using salted, and didn’t want to overdo it. They were fantastic as they were, though, so if you’re not into salty (which is silly), you can still make these and enjoy them as much as everyone at the cook out did.