Adventures in . . . Bleeding Heart Cupcakes

I just can't believe how fantastically disgusting these look, and how they manage to look even grosser on camera than in person. This is a particularly bloody looking one because as the frosting melted in the course of painstakingly frosting tiny nerves on two dozen cupcakes, the dye started to separate from the frosting. My vein-frosting skills were improving by such unexpected margins that I decided to appreciate the increasingly bloody veins rather than pause and refrigerate the frosting.

This recipe comes from Clare Crespo's book Hey There, Cupcake! , which I don't own, but I found this particular recipe on Epicurious. It was a fun recipe to make, and I might make veiny cupcakes once again, but probably not with this recipe. It is just a vanilla cupcake with vanilla frosting, and then you drop a little bit of strawberry jam into the cupcake to make "blood." So actually making the cakes was pretty easy, but the assembly was a bitch: removing little plugs from each cupcake, dropping in a little 1/2 t of strawberry jam, plugging them back up, frosting with pink frosting, then doing the blue and red veins. It was labor-intensive, to say the least. Plus I think that I should have found a strawberry frosting recipe to go with the strawberry jam, but I didn't think of that till it was too late.

Bleeding Heart Cupcakes
from Clare Crespo

Preheat oven to 350. Line tins. Remove butter and whole milk from fridge.

In a medium bowl, sift:
3 C flour
2 ½ t b.p.
½ t salt

In a separate, larger bowl, cream 2/3 C butter (1 + 1/3 sticks?).
Gradually add 1 ¾ C sugar, creaming until light and fluffy.
Add 2 eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.

In a small bowl, combine:
1 ¼ C whole milk
1 t vanilla

To the butter mixture, add ¼ of the flour mixture and mix well. Add about one quarter of the milk mixture and mix well. Continue alternating the flour mixture and milk mixture, beating after each addition until smooth.

Pour into tins. Bake 15-20 min.


Vanilla Buttercream Frosting
In a large bowl, cream ½ C butter until smooth.
Add:
4 C powdered sugar
½ t salt
1/3 C whole milk
1 t vanilla

Mix until smooth and creamy.
Keep 2/3 of the frosting in that bowl. Divide 1/3 of it into two additional bowls. Color the big bowl pink. Color the remaining bowls blue and red.


Assembly
With a small paring knife, cut out a circle about the size of a dime in the center of each cupcake, going about 2/3 of the way in. Pull the little plug of cake out. Cut off the top of this piece (About ½ in. thick), and eat or discard the bottom. Use a teaspoon or a squeeze bottle to fill the hole partway with strawberry jelly "blood." Put the little cake plug back in.

Frost the cupcakes with the pink frosting. Make it super smooth by dipping the knife into a bowl of hot water and smoothing it over the top. With a pastry bag, use the red and blue frosting to make veins on the hearts.

Adventures in . . . Red Velvet Cupcakes

It was only three years ago that I had never heard of Red Velvet. And I have to admit, the first few times I tried it, I didn't understand it. But I have a new crush on Cream Cheese Frosting, and Valentine's Day is just around the corner, so I figured it would be just be wrong not to make Red Velvet Cupcakes.

I found this recipe on the Food Network Website, courtesy of Paula Deen. I adore her, but very few things she cooks ever appeal to me, so I was psyched to get to try one of her recipes. It turned out terrific, although Andrew said the frosting was "tangy." Not sure what that means.


Paula Deen's Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

Preheat oven to 350. Line tins. Remove 1 C buttermilk, 2 eggs, 2 things cream cheese, and 2 sticks butter from fridge.

In medium mixing bowl, sift together:
2 ½ C flour
1 ½ C sugar
1 t b.s.
1 t salt
1 t cocoa powder

In a large bowl, gently beat together:
1 ½ C vegetable oil
1 C buttermilk
2 large eggs
2 T red food coloring
1 t white distilled vinegar
1 t vanilla extract

Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix until smooth and thoroughly combined.

Divide into tins about 2/3 full. Bake 20-22 min. (I baked 24-25 min., but again, my oven is a relic from like the industrial revolution.)



Cream Cheese Frosting

In large mixing bowl, beat until smooth:
1 lb cream cheese
2 sticks butter
1 t vanilla

Add 4 C sifted confectioners' sugar on low speed, beat until incorporated. Increase speed to high, and mix until very light and fluffy.

NOTE: The second time I made this recipe, I used the Cream Cheese Frosting from Ina Garten's Coconut Cupcakes (recipe on this blog), sans almond extract. I think it's better--it has less cream cheese, so it's a bit more subtle.

Adventures in . . . Orange Chocolate Chunk Cupcakes

This is my first time converting a cake recipe into cupcakes. I was a little bit nervous about it, but I think it was pretty much a success. I took Ina Garten's delicious Orange Chocolate Chunk Cake, made it pretty much exactly as the recipe says, but then scooped it into lined muffin tins. The only thing that was a little bit messy was spreading the orange-sugar syrup over the cupcakes; next time, I think I will do this with a pastry brush, because you can't just pour it over the cupcakes as you would a cake (it gets the liners all sticky!). I wanted to make candied orange peel, but to be totally honest, this recipe is sort of a "potchke" already (what with all the zesting and juicing and orange-sugar glazing), so I scrapped that ambition. I should also note that the consistency of this cupcake is more like a muffin or a breakfast cake--it doesn't have that light, delicate crumb that usually characterizes a cupcake. Anyway, I don't see this as a problem.

(Ina's) Orange Chocolate Chunk Cupcakes with Coffee-Chocolate Ganache
Makes 24 regular size cupcakes + 24 minis.

Preheat oven to 350. Line muffin tins. Take butter, buttermilk, and eggs out of fridge.

Zest 4 oranges to get ¼ C grated orange zest. Squeeze oranges to get 1/2 C o.j.

Sift in a bowl:
3 C flour
½ t b.p.
½ t b.s.
1 t salt

In another bowl, combine:
¼ C orange juice (half of the o.j.)
¾ C buttermilk
1 t vanilla extract

In a whole nother bowl, cream until light and fluffy (5 min):
½ lb unsalted butter at room temp
2 C sugar

Add 4 extra-large eggs, one at a time, and then orange zest.

Add flour and buttermilk mixtures alternately in thirds to the creamed butter, beginning and ending with the flour.

Toss 2 C semisweet chocolate chunks with 2 T flour, and add to the batter.

Scoop into tins, and bake for 24 minutes. (Minis bake for about 12-14 minutes.)

Syrup
In a small saucepan over medium-low heat, cook ¼ C sugar with ¼ C o.j. until sugar dissolves. Spoon over cakes after removing them from pans.

Ganache (I altered this recipe to make more ganache)
Melt in a double boiler, stirring occasionally:
12 oz semisweet choco chips
3/4 C heavy cream
1 t instant coffee granules

Spread ganache over cupcakes once they're cool. If you're a better person than I am, top with candied orange peel. Otherwise, I stuck a slice of orange on top of each cupcake, which I don't really recommend (it was a little bit juicy, and it's just sort of weird.)

Second Adventure in Sweet Mandy B's Cupcakes

I decided that although my first batch of Sweet Mandy B's Chocolate-Chocolate Cupcakes were delicious, there was definitely room for improvement.

So I made a few small changes to the recipe:
(1) I upped the amount of baking powder and baking soda, just by 1/4 teaspoon each, to see whether I could get them to rise with a bit more confidence
(2) I raised the oven temp to 350, since the oven I'm using is from the 1950's anyway, so I figured it wouldn't hurt
(3) I baked them for only 22-24 minutes (22 for one pan, 2 minutes longer for the other)
(4) I made sure really to fill the tins only 1/2 full. This way I ended up with 24 regular size cupcakes + 24 mini-minis
(5) I realized that the first time I'd made the frosting, I'd used about 1/2 the amount of confectioners' sugar that the recipe had called for, so I pretty much stuck with this mistake, since I thought the frosting came out so great
and (6) I doubled the amount of frosting, because the other night I didn't have enough to pipe. This made about 30% too much frosting, so I will have to tinker with that in the revised recipe below.

So, the results: they didn't dome, but they didn't sink this time, so I considered this a triumph. Plus since I exercised some control with the scooping, they didn't look like muffins. All in all, it was a big success. I can't wait to make these again.



Here's the revised recipe:

REVISED Sweet Mandy B's Chocolate Cupcakes with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting
Makes 24 regular-size + 24 mini-mini cupcakes

Preheat oven to 350. Line muffin tins.

Sift into big bowl:
1 ½ C flour
1 C unsweetened cocoa
1 ½ t b.s.
1 1/2 t b.p.
1 t salt
2 C sugar

Turn mixer on low and add, in order:
¾ C hot water
¾ C milk
2 eggs
½ C vegetable oil
1 ½ t vanilla extract

Scrape down sides of bowl and beat on medium, briefly, to achieve a smooth batter.

Scoop into muffin tins. Fill tins about ½ full. Bake for 22-24 min.

Chocolate Frosting
Cream:
3 sticks butter

Beat in:
4 1/2 T dark corn syrup
1.5 t vanilla
generous pinch salt

With machine off, sift in 1 C unsweetened cocoa. Carefully turn the mixer on low and avoid inhaling. Then turn off and sift in 1 lb (about 4 1/2 C) confectioners' sugar, in three parts. Last, add 3/4 C whipping cream, and beat until fluffy.