Two of my favorite things--cupcakes and the Jesuit Relations!
I made these cupcakes using Ina Garten's recipe for chocolate cupcakes and adding a chai frosting created by Chokylit, who, like, invented cupcake blogs. The choco cupcakes were originally supposed to go with Peanut Butter frosting, but that sounds gross.
Ina's Chocolate Cupcakes:
12 T unsalted butter, at room temp
2/3 C granulated sugar
2/3 C light brown sugar, packed
2 extra-large eggs, at room temp
2 t vanilla extract
1 C buttermilk, shaken, at room temp
1/2 C sour cream, at room temp
2 T brewed coffee
1 3/4 C all-purpose flour
1 C good unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t kosher salt
Preheat oven to 350. Line cupcake pans with liners. Cream butter and 2 sugars on high speed until light and fluffy, approx. 5 min. Lower speed to medium, add eggs one at a time, then add the vanilla and mix well. In a separate bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, sour cream, and coffee. In another bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt. On low speed, add the buttermilk mixture and the flour mixture alternately in thirds to the mixer bowl, beginning with the buttermilk mixture and ending with the flour mixture (I wasn't sure what this meant, so I just threw it all in together.). Mix only until blended. Fold the batter with a rubber spatula to be sure it's completely blended.
Divide the batter among the pans and bake for 20-25 minutes.
Chokylit's Chai Frosting (slightly modified)
1/2 C butter
2 1/2 C powdered sugar, sifted
1/8 C milk
1 1/2 t chai spice mix*
1 t minced fresh ginger (I omitted this due to laziness)
Beat butter until creamy. Scrape bowl. Add 2 C sifted powdered sugar, milk, spice mix, and ginger. Beat until combined. Add more powdered sugar as needed to get piping consistency.
* Chokylit's Chai Spice Mix (again, modified, and this is way more than you could possibly use in the frosting, but I am going to keep it and just look at it):
1 t fennel seeds, (I spent valuable hours of my life grinding up fennel seeds by hand)
1 t cloves, ground
1 1/2 t cardamom, ground
1 t cinnamon, ground
1 t ginger, ground
Mix it all together.
15 comments:
This are serious blog. If you were in the English Thesis class, everyone would call you a kiss-ass for posting on your blog so frequently.
The blurriness of that picture makes me feel ill.
Wow, I have to withdraw my previous remark. What a lovely picture, Julia.
But, additionally: What a dork.
I must say, that cupcake looks scrumptious; indeed, its placement next to that salubrious text on Jesuit relations makes it even more appealing to the jaded cupcake connoisseur (me).
I think you should be required to send samples of all your cupcakes to your uncle. (After all, he's the only one in the entire family who thinks your interest in cupcakes as a potential business venture makes any sense whatsoever.) But regardless of your uncle's unwaivering devotion to your interests and passions and regardless, too, of the rest of your family's eye-rolling attitude, your uncle would simply like to add that he had your mom's yogurt vanilla cupcakes last night, and they were to die for. You must get the recipe. This is an Oedipal war if I've ever seen one! Love, Uncle Mark.
this cupcake blog is fabulous.
i love the adventurous of the cupcakes and the creativity of the toppings too.
i too would like samples and i would like more info on what the baker feels about the finished product.
i understand the bakers process but i dont really get the sense of what she thinks of the end result.
i am only interested in trying a recipe if i know that you think its a TOTAL WINNER so can you do some kind of rating system on the cupcakes? maybe 1-4 on looks? taste? unusualness? would definitely recommend? etc?
as for the oedipal war that uncle mark suggests i am so happy to have another baker in the family and am delighted to read about your food and eat your food any day of the week.
last night sari ordered cupcakes from a new bakery in town and i put one in the freezer for you to try.
nice looking but not a fabulous taste.
so keep baking!
Did I say Oedipal war? I meant Edible War. Forgive me. It was a Freudian slip.
I have decided that this blog should be turned into a Kramer/Weinberg family blog. Cupcakes can be part of it, but in addition I think this is how we should all communicate with each other. Any objections (other than that I am destroying Julia's dream?)
O.k., hearing no objections, I go first: Perri, I have two tickets to see Elizabeth Kolbert at the Chicago Humanities Festival tomorrow night. She speaks at 7:00 . I can't go. Do you want them?
Those cupcakes look lovely, and the TSL office would really appreciate seeing them live.
Hey Uncle Mark,
I like your idea. I think, though, that you and I might be checking back a little more frequently than the rest of the fam . . .
I saw Elizabeth Kolbert last year; she is a little bit boring.
Love,
Julia
Julia -- You saw Elizabeth Kolbert on Tuesday night? That's funny, since she was in Chicago on Wednesday night, and the lecture was sold out, and I actually had two tickets to see her, but I blew her off to go with your mother to hear Michael Berenbaum (sp?) speak about Krystalnacht (it was the 69th anniversary yesterday). I had never heard him speak before. It was quite a sight. I was sort of amazed by him, for both good and bad. Meaning that while he has thought deeply about many issues and while he has many interesting and (I think) important things to say about them and while he speaks with great passion, there's an undue authority to his manner and voice that I find dangerous, off-putting and offensive. He speaks with such certainty about so many things (e.g., the meaning of Israel to American Jews, the dangers of the Iranian President, the causes of the Holocaust, etc., etc., etc. I didn't see him express an ouce of doubt all night, in an hour-long speech). Me, I've become a little suspcious of such certainty. Certainty, someone said, is the mother of repose, which goes a long way in explaining its attraction, but the best thinkers I know seem to be leery of their own certainties. It didn't seem to me that Michael was. Hope all's well.
With love, Uncle Mark
will you make something pink?
Aren't your cupcakes debuting at the Motley today? I've been camped out since dawn. Also, I think Uncle Mark makes an excellent point about the danger of certainties in his comment above. Maybe you could design a cupcake reflective of this issue.
Julia:
Congrats on your big day! I hope it's a big success....Amanda (whoever you are), yes, I think a cupcake of uncertainty is a grand idea. Here's my recipe: two or three tablespoons of doubt, a cup or two of self-criticism, with a topping of fudge-flavored or caramel-flavored or strawberry-flavored humility. It's yummy...well, I think it is...at least it is to me...I can't speak for any one else...can I?
Uncle Mark
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