Not a King Cake, Day 2

Ah, yes, when we left off, our beautiful ring of dough was resting in the refrigerator. Today is the fun and delicious day, wherein you remove your beautiful, child-like ring of dough from the refrigerator, throw it into a screaming hot oven, bake it, and eat it. When you think of it, it's brutal, but the brutality of the process is redeemed because of its deliciousness.

So remove the whole thing from the refrigerator and place your whole pan in an oven that isn't turned on. Boil a few cups of water and place in a shallow pan underneath your cake/dough child, close the door and let proof for half an hour. Waiting is STILL the hard part.

Once it's proofed for half an hour, take everything out of the oven and preheat it to 350 degrees. Once the oven is ready, return your dough ring to the oven and bake for 30 minutes. Your house will smell wonderful for this part of the process and you will gain friends who want some of your yeasty-cinnamon-y goodness.

After 30 minutes, check on your ring. It should be golden brown and toasty. Alton Brown checked the temperature of his ring; it's supposed to reach 190 degrees F. However, mine clearly was a slight underachiever. It was, however, completely cooked through.


Once it's out of the oven, prep your icing. I made mine Kahlua-flavored and topped it with pecans, although I think I would mix my pecans in my frosting next time as they kind of slid off. Boo. Allow your cake to cool completely before icing.

I almost forgot to take my picture, which is why it's literally on the spatula ready to be thrown on my cake.

I had to transport mine relatively quickly so I iced my cake in its container. It was a little messy, but the slide-off icing is equally delicious. If I were to do it fancy-like, I would put it on a wire rack and put the icing on, let it sit for a while, and then move it to its final destination.

Delicious.

I had about a half cup of pecan pieces yet, so I dropped those over the top while it was still wet. They kind of slid off, but they were awesome nonetheless.

Gratuitous frosting drip-porn picture.

Enjoy! I neglected to add a baby or multi-colored sugar but you could definitely do that...were you to be making a King Cake.

Coffee Cake Ring/Not a King Cake, Day 1

Ok, it looks an awful lot like a King Cake. It should taste an awful lot like King Cake. It will be glazed an awful lot like a King Cake. But it's a not a King Cake. It's after Fat Tuesday and serving this cake after Mardi Gras is apparently tantamount to sacrelidge. I don't want Emeril Lagasse to come after me with a crawfish or something. But it's tasty nonetheless.

I'm using two of Alton Brown's recipes from the House of the Rising Bun Recipe: his overnight cinnamon rolls for flavor, and his overnight Citrus-Ginger Ring for the shape (because it's a ring, not a King Cake.)

The Bread:
4 large egg yolks, room temp (save your whites for later!)
1 whole egg, room temp
2 oz sugar
3 oz unsalted butter, melted
6 oz buttermilk, room temperature (I didn't have any so I substituted 6 ounces half and half with about 3/4 T of vinegar)
20 ounces All Purpose Flour
1 package instant dry yeast
1 1/4 tsp kosher salt
A few sprays cooking spray

Whisk yolks, eggs, sugar, butter, and buttermilk together. Sift together Flour, salt and yeast.

Wet and Dry ingredients...

Add approximately half of the flour along with the yeast and salt; whisk until moistened and combined. Add all but about 3/4 cup of the flour mix.

Now, if you're not a lowly graduate student like myself, you may have your own handy stand mixer. Unfortunately, I do not have such luck and have to hand knead everything. So knead for either 5 minutes by stand mixer or about 10 by hand.

Kneading action shot.

If you have a stand mixer, check your dough after 5 minutes. It should be moist and soft to the touch but not sticky. If it is sticky, add the remaining flour and continue to knead for an additional 5 minutes by stand mixer or 10 by hand.

My wrists are so shapely.

After you're finished kneading (I kneaded for the majority of a Jon and Kate Plus Eight episode), form your dough into a ball. Spray a large bowl with cooking spray and drop your dough in. Spray the top of your dough and allow to sit for 2 to 2 1/2 hours in a nice warm spot to proof. I took this opportunity to cook and eat my dinner, which conveniently kept my dough warm.

Once you're finished with dinner but ideally before your dough has proofed, mix together your filling:

The Filling:

8 oz brown sugar
Pinch salt
1 T cinnamon

Mix together and set aside.

Once your dough has doubled, drop onto a lightly floured surface and roll it out to a 12 by 18 inch rectangle. Melt 3/4 oz butter in the microwave and spread over your dough rectangle.

Once your butter is spread over your dough, spread the filling over your dough and press in lightly.

I neglected to take pictures of the next portion of the process. I would like to say it was because it was so complicated that I couldn't possibly pick up a camera, but I simply forgot. Beginning at the bottom edge, begin to roll the dough up toward the unbuttered part of the dough. Roll it into a tight cylinder, making sure the seam is on the bottom. Gently squeeze to even out any uneven parts in the dough to make an even cylinder. Pull ends together to form a ring and dab a little bit of beaten egg on the ends to help seal everything together.

And now the hard part. Put in the refrigerator to sit overnight or up to 16 hours. Waiting is always the hardest part.

Rosewater-Pistachio Cupcakes, or, Magic Cupcakes

Rosewater doesn't particularly intimidate me. It's an auxiliary flavoring ingredient in a lot of Greek cooking (namely, baklava), and growing up near a Greek neighborhood, you got a lot of it in odd places. For example--rice pudding with rosewater? Killer. Seriously. Absolutely amazing stuff (although I think that incarnation is more of an Egyptian thing). When I saw these cupcakes, I knew I wanted to make them for myself but I was rather anxious about the reception from other tasters. I whipped up a half batch on a Sunday afternoon and then contemplated who to spring them on. The logical choice was graduate students, which I did. Little did I know that these weren't merely rosewater-pistachio cupcakes, but they were in fact magic cupcakes. To my surprise, they were well received. Incredibly well received in fact. I warned tasters ahead of time that they contained rosewater as a flavoring, and that some people might think it tastes like perfume. They couldn't get enough of them; I got no complaints, puckered faces or the dreaded "oh how...interesting." One friend loudly lament the fact that he missed his opportunity to taste one, and then proclaimed me a goddess.

I then brought them to a local organization where I volunteer as a researcher. The next day, they solemnly called me back and declared me the official baker for the Institute. These cupcakes are just that good.

These are also sinfully easy. I'd almost call them "plop" cupcakes because you can basically plop everything together in a bowl and have fantastic results.

Adapted from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World

Ingredient	3 Cupcakes	6 Cupcakes	12 Cupcakes	24 Cupcakes
Vanilla Yogurt	2 oz	3 oz	6 oz (1/2 cup)	8 oz
Milk	1 1/3 oz	2 2/3 oz	5 1/3 oz (2/3 cup)	10 2/3 oz
Canola Oil	2/3 oz	1 1/3 oz	2 2/3 oz (1/3 cup)	5 1/3 oz
Sugar	1.75 oz	3.5 oz	7 oz (3/4 cup + 2 T)	14 oz
Rosewater	2/3 TBSP	1 1/4 TBSP	1 1/2 TBSP	3 TBSP
AP Flour	1 1/8 oz + 1/2 T	2.25oz + 1 T	4.5oz + 2T (1 Cup +2 T)	9 oz + 4 T
Corn Starch	1/2 TBSP	1 TBSP	2 TBSP	4 TBSP
Baking Powder	1/8 tsp	1/4 tsp	1/2 tsp	1 tsp
Baking soda	1/8 tsp	1/4 tsp	1/2 tsp	1 tsp
Salt	Pinch	1/8 tsp	1/4 tsp	1/2 tsp
Pistachios, chopped	2/3 oz	1 1/3 oz	2 2/3 oz (1/3 cup)	5 1/3 oz

Note: I didn't have any issue making these with the cup to ounce conversion as a half-dozen; however, my dozen turned out a little flat, but still deelicious.

Mix together yogurt, milk, oil, sugar and rosewater in a large bowl.

Sift together flour, corn starch, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Slowly whisk into the wet ingredients. Fold in pistachios.

Drop into cupcake liners and bake for 18-23 minutes at 350. Avoid licking the bowl.


I did a test run of two cupcakes before I baked the entire thing (after my honey-sesame related fiasco, wherein my batter attempted to overtake my oven). 2 ounces of batter worked best for me, but I would suggest beginning at 1.5.

These guys didn't pop up much in the oven and retained pretty flat tops. However, that just makes an apt platform for more pistachios.

My wee-small taste-test muffin was up in the top corner. mmm.

Rosewater frosting
1 T butter
1.5-2 cups powdered sugar
1.5 T rosewater
Milk to thin.

Cream the butter, add the sugar, make it smooth with milk and rosewater.

Rosewater is a strong flavor; it does smell like perfume, but I like its taste nonetheless. However, I think piling on a ton of rosewater frosting would do a disservice to these beauties, so I opted for a thin layer.


I think the best part is the pistachios on top. I was going to try for something elegant and centered but they, homestyle frosting. That's not how Mom would do it; she would dunk these guys. So I followed suit.


mmm, perfection. My new favorite flavor combination.

Red Velor Cupcakes

Red Velvet, for some reason, eludes me. I've tried just about every recipe under the sun and have gotten everything from watery, blood-red, vaguely chocolate-y pudding to unleavened vaguely chocolate bricks hard enough to serve as ammunition when hunting small animals. Unfortunately, it's also my Dad's favorite, and most of his past few years of birthday cakes have been virtually inedible. (But at least the frosting is delicious, right?) When I was doing small test batches of these beauties, I encountered more of the same issues. Beautifully red cakes would be rock-hard, dense chocolate biscuits. Cakes that were airy and light when coming out of the oven would collapse under their own weight, leaving me absolutely cresfallen and feeling like an absolute failure of a baker.

After so much consternation (and after a slight feeling of panic), I decided to make my standard, go-to recipe but substitute in red velvety goodness. I added a touch of chocolate, buttermilk and vinegar and hoped for the best, and after four failed batches, was finally rewarded.

Red Velor Cupcakes

Ingredient	2 Cupcakes	4 cupcakes	6 cupcakes	12 cupcakes	24 cupcakes
Unsalted Butter	1 T	2 T	3 T	6 T	12 T
Sugar	1 oz	2 oz	3 oz	6 oz	12 oz
Beaten egg	1 TBSP	2 TBSP	1	1	2
Flour	1.33 oz	2 3/4 oz	4.25 oz	8.5 oz	17 oz
Baking powder	pinch	1/8 t	2/3 tsp	1 t	2 t
Baking soda	pinch	1/8 tsp	2/3 tsp	1 t	2 t
Vinegar		1/8 tsp	2/3 tsp	1 tsp	2 tsp
Salt	Pinch	Pinch	1/8	1/4 t	1/2 t
Buttermilk	1 oz	2 oz	3 oz	6 oz	12 oz
Cocoa Powder	2 tsp	4 tsp	6 tsp	12 tsp	24 tsp

Sift together flour, cocoa, salt, baking powder and baking soda. Set aside.

Mix together buttermilk and vinegar. Set aside.

Cream together room temperature butter and sugar. Add egg and beat well.

Add 1/3 of wet mixture and 1/3 of dry mixture at a time, beating well after each incorporation.

Pour into prepared cupcake cups (1.75 oz's for nice, rounded cupcakes; 2 oz's for fuller cupcakes like pictured).

Bake for 18-23 minutes until the centers are finished.

Enjoy.


And the best part of red velvet is, of course, the cream cheese frosting, which is also quite possibly the best-est, easiest, tastiest frosting ever, and doesn't even require a recipe. Mix together a half-brick (4 oz) of cream cheese, 2 TBSP (1 oz) butter and thicken it out with confectioner's sugar, et voila, magic!

Top with red sprinkles for awesome Valentine's Day love, or eat with a spoon...either way is delicious.

Caramel Cupcakes with Burnt Butter Frosting

I made these for my Thursday night class in order to commemorate my new cupcake carrier. I had seen and bookmarked the recipe a while back and meant to try it. It had a lot of steps, but none of them were complicated, and I actually made them over the course of a few days. I began with caramel syrup, which was incredibly perilous, but very exciting nonetheless.



Caramel Syrup
This yields about 2 cups; however, for this recipe, you can safely cut it in half and have more than enough. In fact, this made two batches of 24 cupcakes each.

2 Cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup water
1 cup water for stopping caramelization.

In a small stainless steel saucepan with tall sides, mix together 1/2 cup water with sugar, being careful not to get any stray crystals on the sides of the pan.

Turn heat to highest setting and allow the sugar to caramelize until it is amber colored.

**Important** Put on long sleeves and wear oven mitts when doing this! It will jump around and burn you, and caramel burns HURT! When the dark amber color is achieved, carefully pour the remaining cup of water into the pan. The caramel will jump around and sputter, so be very, very careful.

Whisk over medium heat until the syrup has slightly reduced and feels sticky when cooled.

Allow to cool completely and store until ready to use. I had mine in a Tupperware on the counter for several days before use. Oh, and it's pretty good by itself.


Next, the cupcakes.

Caramel Cupcakes

Ingredients	3 Cupcakes	6 Cupcakes	12 Cupcakes	24 Cupcakes
Unsalted Butter, Room Temp.	1.25 T (.75 oz)	2.5 T (1.25 oz)	5 T (2.5 oz)	10 T (5 oz)
Granulated sugar	2 T+1 tsp (1.25 oz)	1/3 cup (2.5 oz)	2/3 cup (5 oz)	1 1/4 cups (10 oz)
Salt	Pinch	1/8 tsp	1/4 tsp	1/2 tsp
Caramel syrup	1 Tablespoon	2 Tablespoons	2 T+1 tsp (1.15 oz)	1/3 cup (2 1/3 oz)
Eggs, room temperature	2 T egg	3 T egg	1 egg	2 eggs
Vanilla extract	dash	1/2 tsp	1 tsp	2 tsp
AP Flour, sifted	1/4 cup (1 oz)	1/2 cup (2 oz)	1 cup (4 oz)	2 cups (8 oz)
Baking powder	Pinch	1/8 tsp	1/4 tsp	1/2 tsp
Milk, room temperature	2 T (1 oz)	1/4 cup (2 oz)	1/2 cup (4 oz)	1 Cup (8 oz)

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Line your desired number of cupcakes with cupcake liners and spray with Pam.

Sift together your flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

Mix together your milk, vanilla, and caramel syrup. Set aside.

Cream butter and flour until light and fluffy. Add eggs and beat until well combined.

Mix in 1/3 of both the milk and flour mixtures until incorporated. Repeat twice more (so you don't fling flour all over your kitchen).

Drop into lined cupcake tins and bake for 18-23 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean.

As your cupcakes are baking, whip up this frosting.

Burnt Butter Frosting

Ingredient	3 Cupcakes	6 Cupcakes	12 Cupcakes	24 Cupcakes
Unsalted Butter	1.5 T (.75 oz)	3 T (1.5 oz)	6 T (3 oz)	12 T (6 oz)
Powdered Sugar	2 oz	4 oz	8 oz	16 oz
Caramel Syrup	1/2 T	1 T	2 T	4 T

Plus milk to smooth.

Melt butter in a sauce pan over medium heat until browned. The butter will make crazy noises and begin to smell nutty and not unlike dulce de leche. Pull it off the heat and transfer to a bowl to make frosting in. Allow it to cool to room temperature.

When the butter is cool, add caramel syrup and powdered sugar and beat until the mixture attains a frosting consistency. Use milk to smooth out the mix. Avoid eating straight out of the bowl--you won't have enough left to frost your cupcakes! It's just that good.


To decorate these guys, I mixed together about 1/2 a cup of raw sugar with about 1/4-1/2 tsp kosher salt and then rolled the edges of the frosting in this mix. It gave it a nice sweet-salty bite that rocked the caramel.


And all of this to christen my new cupcake carrier. An amazing recipe for an amazing invention!

(PS: I put cut up water bottles in my cupcake carrier because it sagged a little; it helped prop everything up but wasn't too glamorous. Oh well.)

Rainbow Cupcakes, or Failure Pie in a Sadness Bowl

Actually, these weren't a failure per se. However, there are better things out there. I, too, fell to the siren song of the rainbow cupcake. What can I say. I like color. Funfetti? Mightyfine. Rainbow? Hell yeah!

I basically aspired to make a cupcake so psychedelic it would send epileptics into color-and-sugar induced seizures.

These went wrong on several different levels. Not in terms of ingredients or the cakes themselves, per se, but in terms of execution. Alton Brown oh-so-eloquently put it, "Organization will set you free." These cupcakes suffered from my lack of organization, and more specifically, measuring skills.

I used Amy Sedaris's cupcake recipe again, after the results of the ice-cream-cone cupcakes. I whipped together the batter and then put drops of Wilton food coloring in the bottom of four different bowls.


I figured eh, why not. I can eyeball it. So I divided my batter into my four different bowls with my four different colors and then beat everything together to evenly incorporate the color.


Unfortunately, I had a lot more yellow and green and a lot less pink and purple than I imagined. I got about 16 perfectly blended cupcakes, and then a lot of green and yellow cupcakes. I also figured I could eyeball the proportions for the cupcakes, and ended up with cupcakes that attempted to creep over the sides of the cupcake tins.

There's nothing worse than cupcake-on-cupcake violence.

So, yes, I learned the measuring lesson the hard way. However, it was nonetheless delicious.

I was also on my never-ending quest for the perfect frosting. I decided to try Cooking for Engineer's American Butter Cream, which looks a lot like Swiss Meringue buttercream. This was another first and another disappointment.

American/Swiss Meringue Buttercream
1 pound unsalted butter, cut into tablespoon-sized pieces
4 eggs
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla

Hardware:
Glass or metal bowl fit over a pot to make a double boiler.
Instant-read thermometer
A hand or stand mixer.

Crack the four eggs at the bottom of the bowl and whisk in vanilla and sugar. Place over boiling water and whisk constantly until the mixture reaches 160 degrees.

Take the egg-sugar mix off of the heat and slowly add butter, one cube at a time, until the mixture comes together and is light yellow and fluffy. It will be lumpy but will eventually incorporate into a smooth, silky frosting.

OK, it wasn't a complete failure. The frosting itself was *delicious*--it had a wonderful butter flavor and was so smooth and awesome. However, it was so soft it wasn't pipeable and kind of felt like an oil slick. I ended up making "homestyle" cupcakes, using a spatula to spread icing instead of piping it. It looked a little too rustic for me. However, all is not lost. I think if I were to make it again, I would beat in extra confectioner's sugar to make it lighter and fluffier, and most importantly, pipeable.

For all the stress I put on myself, people liked them. They were, in fact, delicious. However, they definitely weren't what I imagined and that affected my perception. This is a work in progress.

Chocolate and Vanilla Icecream Cone Cupcakes

These lovelies were made for an end-of-the-year picnic and were still pretty experimental. I had seen the recipe online and wanted to try it for myself, and figured a largish event would be a good place to get some feedback.

Having yet to discover my perfect cupcake recipe, I tried Alton Brown's Chocolate Chiffon Cupcake recipe. While I love Alton Brown, I was sorely unimpressed with this particular recipe of his. Consequently, I made Amy Sedaris's Cupcake recipe for the half-dozen vanilla cupcakes.


Amy Sedaris's Cupcakes
This recipe yields about 24 cupcakes; I scaled it down to half for my purposes.

1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter
1 3/4 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
2 1/2 cups flour
1 1/4 cups milk

Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

Beat in eggs and vanilla. Mix in milk, salt, and baking powder. Carefully add the flour.

Beat well and fill a muffin tin lined with paper cupcake cups 3/4 of the way full. Spray cupcake cups lightly with Pam before pouring batter.

Bake at 375 for 18 to 20 minutes.


I also used traditional buttercream (butter and confectioner's sugar) plus a chocolate buttercream, which is probably the best thing going.

Chocolate Buttercream Frosting
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 2/3 cups confectioner's sugar
1/3 cup half and half or milk (or sour cream)
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
Unsweetened Dutch Cocoa Powder (1/3 cup for light, milk chocolate; 1/2 cup for medium-chocolate; 3/4 cup for rich, dark chocolate).

Mix together the confectioner's sugar and desired amount of cocoa powder until evenly distributed.

Cream the butter until softened. Add vanilla.

Slowly add in confectioner's sugar and cocoa mix until evenly distributed. Add milk to thin mixture out until it is stiff enough to be pipe-able.

Seriously. Good. Stuff.


Perhaps the most ingenious part of this whole get up was the method of transportation. I couldn't find anything that would keep my cupcakes safe for their journey to their final destination in a park, so I improvised and made my own.

I took two doughnut boxes from the bakery at my local grocery store and taped the two boxes together. I then figured out approximately how big the base of the cupcake cones were and traced that shape onto the paper bottom. I then used an X-acto knife to *carefully* cut each hole out. I dropped my cupcakes in and et-voila! No mishaps during transport.

ah, these were the early days...they were good, but I'm glad I've got my recipes figured out now.

Kentucky Derby Cupcakes

...or the cupcake that started it all.

These were the first cupcakes I remember making. I found the recipe at Coconut and Lime's blog back in May, just in time for what would become an absolutely gut-wrenching Kentucky Derby. My fellow is a Kentucky-native, and I wanted to impress him with my baking skills. Little did I know He would eat just about anything...


Luckily the recipe itself is sublimely easy and a crowd-pleaser to boot.

The Cupcakes:
(Yeilds 6 cupcakes)

1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar
3 Tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature
1/4 cup half and half
1/4 cup bourbon
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg, room temperature
3 tablespoons mint, bruised and minced

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Mix milk and mint and allow to steep for at least 15 minutes. After mint and milk have steeped, add the bourbon and set aside.

Sift together flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

Line six cupcake wells with papers. Spray lightly with Pam to allow for easy release.

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar. Add the egg and beat until well combined.

Add 1/3 of the milk and flour mixtures. Stir to combine. Repeat twice more, alternating between the milk and flour mixtures.

Pour into cupcake cups (about 2 ounces per cup) and bake 15-18 minutes or until golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean.




And now, the icing.

Mix together the icing while the cupcakes are in the oven so you'll be ready to go when they're cooled.

Bourbon-icing
1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
1 1/2 cups confectioner's sugar
2 tsp bourbon
Half and half to thin
Food coloring--not essential, but I had green so I used it.

Beat together the butter and confectioner's sugar, using milk to smooth the mixture out into an icing-like consistency.



Delicious!