How about Mango?

Sitting outside at company housing with Jamie & the Strawberry Cupcakes turned about to be quite an adventure.  Lots of people got to sample the cupcakes (since there were so many of them!) and it gave me my next baking experiment.  I believe the exact words were something like "You need a bigger challenge, why don't you try mango?"  I don't like mangoes, but a challenge is a challenge.

This one took some research for me, since I'm not a mango fan.  I didn't exactly have a "go-to recipe" for mangoes.  In all of my googling I found a lot of interesting mango desserts.  I found mango tarts, mango pies, mango sorbet, mango yogurt, mango mousse.  I knew wanted to be able to incorporate at least one of those fun things into my cupcake, but first I had to decide on a cupcake.  Because of the success of the strawberry cupcakes, I didn't just want something with a mango puree in it.  I wanted the cupcake to have chunks of mango.  After reading many recipes, I finally decided to go with this one and switch up the frosting with something a bit different.  And, the cupcakes came out exactly the way I wanted them to - light, fluffy and full of mango chunks.

Now back to my research.  I really liked this recipe that I found for a Mango Lime Mousse.   It's meant to be made in little chocolate cups and served as its own dessert, but I thought it would make a tasty filling for my mango cupcakes.  I used Cool Whip in place of the Dream Whip that the recipe calls for, just because I think it tastes better.  And then I piped it into the center of the cupcakes.

For a frosting I went with one that I use often - Vanilla Bean Cream Cheese Frosting.  I thought the vanilla bean would go really well with the mango, and it helps that it's one of my favorite frostings ever.  Here's how you make it:

1/4 Cup     Butter
1/4 Cup     Cream Cheese
2 Cups      Confectioners Sugar
1 Vanilla Bean, split & seeded
1 Teaspoon  Vanilla Extract

Cream together the Butter & Cream Cheese.  Add in Sugar slowly, beating with each addition.  Mix in Vanilla & Seeds from vanilla bean.

This frosting is nice and thick, and the tiny black specks from the vanilla bean make it pretty as well as yummy.  I stuck a dried mango on top of each cupcake, and I have to admit - even I liked them.

Almost a Classic

What goes together better than Chocolate & Strawberries?  

As we were eating the apple cupcakes of the previous experiment, my friends Chris & Jamie put their brains together (which is a very dangerous thing) and requested a strawberry cupcake, with a chocolate filling and a strawberry frosting.  At first I was a little skeptical, because I thought this would be way too much strawberry and not enough chocolate.  But, I said I would do it anyway.

Instead of a strawberry flavored cake, I decided to do a vanilla based cake that had chunks of fresh strawberries mixed in.  I used Martha Stewart's Recipe for Strawberry Cupcakes, that can be found here.  For the filling, I made a tasty chocolate ganache.  I first learned how to make ganache from JoyofBaking.com and have been a big fan of it ever since.  The important thing to know, and you can read all about this on the Joy of Baking site, is that ganache can take make different forms, like a glaze or a truffle.  For my cupcake, I wanted it to be a whipped ganache, so it would be airy and light.

When it came down to the frosting, I was torn.  The Martha Stewart site linked to her recipe for Strawberry Buttercream, which I am sure would have worked just fine.  However, I'm not a fan of egg whites in my buttercream.   I prefer what is considered "American Buttercream," which is pretty much butter, powdered sugar and whatever flavoring you are going for.  So, I just made my own Strawberry Buttercream.  I'm not going to lie to you - I fell in love with it and may have eaten a few spoonfuls before frosting the cupcakes.   And, it's very simple.

1/2 Cup    Butter
1/2 Cup    Fresh Strawberries, diced
1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
Dash of Salt
3 Cups     Confectioners Sugar (feel free to use more or less depending on your taste)

Just cream the butter.  Then add in strawberries, vanilla & salt and beat.  Add Sugar in parts, mixing in between.  My frosting was a bit thin, but thats because of all the liquid in the strawberries.  I stuck the frosted cupcakes in the fridge and they firmed up enough.

I love that you can see the chunks of strawberry inside of the cupcake!  I still had a lot of strawberries, so I cut them in half and used them to top the cupcakes.  They were very yummy and certainly one of my favorites so far.

As a side bar (since it wasn't really a cupcake) I had a request from my friend Keleigh that week as well, to make her a muffin.  I broke out my trusty Magnolia Bakery book again and made her these delicious Raspberry Cream Cheese Muffins.   I think she was pleased.

"See what you can do with... Apple"

Sean said these words to me shortly after the Chocolate Raspberry experiment.  The same Sean who came up with the name of this blog.  I'm always up for a challenge, so I made some apple cupcakes.  I've been told that the best apple to use for baking is Winesap, but I've never heard of them and they definitely were not in any of the grocery stores that I went to in Sarasota.  I eventually decided on some Gala apples, and they worked just fine since they are traditionally a sweet apple.

Here is the recipe that I used for the Apple Cupcakes.

1 cup, unsalted butter
2 cups, sugar
5 large eggs
3 cups, all purpose flour 
2 teaspoons, baking powder
1/2 teaspoon, salt
1 cup, milk
1 1/2 teaspoon, vanilla
4 cups, apples (peeled, cored & diced)


Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Cream together butter and sugar, until fluffy.  Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each.  In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt.   Add dry ingredients to butter mixture in parts, alternating with the milk & vanilla, and beat until all ingredients are incorporated.  Using a rubber spatula, stir in apples.   Scoop into cupcake pans (I always use an ice cream scoop for this) and bake for 25-30 minutes.

Now, I originally planned on frosting these with a butterscotch cream cheese frosting, but didn't plan on only getting enough icing for 12 cupcakes out of the recipe (when I had 24 cupcakes).  So, half of the cupcakes got the butterscotch cream cheese frosting and the other half got a caramel buttercream.  Both of the frostings were from another one of my favorite cupcake places: Magnolia Bakery in NYC.  The recipes are in their book, "The Complete Magnolia Bakery Cookbook," along with a lot of other tasty treats.

Since I'm fairly new to the blogging world, I don't really know what the rules are.  But, I would assume that printing their recipes on my blog probably isn't a nice thing to do.  (Plus, my cookbook is in my office in Sarasota and therefore I won't see it again until January!)  So for now the photos will have to do.  Here's a shot of the half that were lucky enough to get the butterscotch cream cheese frosting.

And, for the one that Sean actually ended up liking better - the Apple Cupcake with Caramel Buttercream Frosting:

This was the first cupcake that I brought to work with me and started sharing with the cast of my show, and they were a hit.  It led to many more baked goods in rehearsals.

Attempt at Re-Creation

My friend Jamie introduced me to the fabulousness that is "The Flying Cupcake" while we were in Indy together.   In January of this year, Jamie's birthday was approaching and we were about to be working together again, this time in Sarasota, Florida.  Immediately I went to the "Flying Cupcake" website, hoping to order a dozen of Jamie's favorites and have them shipped to Sarasota.  My only problem was that they don't ship cupcakes.  How disappointing.

This left me with no other choice but to bake the cupcakes myself.  I set out on an attempt to recreate greatness from "The Flying Cupcake" - Jamie's favorite, the Razzamatazz.  

I had been in Sarasota for about a day, and it was already Jamie's birthday so I had to get to work.  The first step for me, when tackling a baking project this big: Call Sarah.  My friend Sarah is the one person I know who loves baking probably more than I do.  And she lives in Sarasota, so of course she was the perfect partner in crime for this experiment.  

We started with a recipe for Dark Chocolate Cupcakes.  I'm a horrible person because I can't remember what recipe I used, but I can tell you that for other cupcake adventures I have used this one and the cupcakes are delicious.   To make them Dark Chocolate, all I do is substitute Hershey's Special Dark Cocoa in place of the unsweetened Cocoa.  

As the filling, I used a jar of Black Raspberry Preserves.  You can use Red Raspberry Preserves too, but I really wanted something seedless and that was only available at my store in Black.  As the frosting, I used this Raspberry Buttercream (which was amazing!) and topped it with a fresh raspberry.  I think they came out pretty tasty.

What matters most is that the Birthday Girl was all smiles upon receiving her surprise treats.

It was a successful mission at least, and it lead to many more missions throughout the 4 months I was in Sarasota.