Adventures in . . . Carrot Cake Cupcakes

Ina, you have failed me. Not the kind of failure where I, like, stop making your pesto pasta or coconut cupcakes or peach blueberry crumbles--don't worry, it's nothing like that. It's a very minor kind of failure, the kind where, maybe, next time, when a whole bunch of wackos on the Food Network website tell me that your carrot cake is too oily, that the cooking time for it is drastically wrong, well, maybe next time I'll believe them. And I'll add to my list of complaints: they sank! I hate when cupcakes sink, but then again, they're so easily salvageable--I just slapped a whole lot of cream cheese frosting on top of them, made a little "x" with some extra grated carrot, and these guys were good to go. And, well, I'll just admit it, oily and sunken and slathered with much too much cream cheese frosting, these were pretty delicious.

Ina Garten's Carrot Cake Cupcakes

2 cups sugar
1 1/3 cups vegetable oil
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3 extra-large eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
3 cups grated carrots (less than 1 pound)
1 cup raisins
1 cup chopped walnuts
Cream Cheese Frosting--see the Coconut Cupcakes post

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Line muffin tins

• Grate 3 C carrots, chop 1 C walnuts, and measure out 1 C raisins. Set aside together.
• Sift in separate bowl:
2 C flour
2 t cinnamon
2 t baking soda
1 ½ t salt
• In separate, large bowl, beat together with electric mixer :
2 C sugar
1 1/3 C vegetable oil
1 t vanilla
• Add 3 eggs, 1 at a time.
• With the mixer on low speed, add ½ of the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Add carrot/raisin/walnut mixture to the remaining dry mix, mix well, and add to the batter. Mix until just combined.

Scoop batter into 22 muffin cups, about ¾ full. Bake at 375 for 10 min., then reduce oven temp. to 350, and cook for a further 15 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean (I actually kept them in a little bit longer, just to see whether they would get some more structurally integrity--alas, they did not.). Cool on a rack.

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.)

Adventures in . . . Perfection

Ina Garten's Coconut Cupcakes are just perfection. Pictured above in mini form.

Here's the recipe, adapted to make 12 cupcakes + a handful of minis:

Preheat oven to 350. Remove 3 sticks butter, 3 eggs, ½ C buttermilk, and ½ package cream cheese from fridge. Line muffin pans.

Sift:
1 ½ C flour
½ t baking powder
½ t baking soda
¼ t salt

In another bowl:
Beat 1 ½ sticks butter and 1 C sugar on medium speed for 5 minutes.
Reduce speed to low; add 3 eggs, one at a time, scraping sides of bowl after each addition.
Add ¾ t vanilla extract and ¾ t almond extract.
Beat well until blended.

Add dry ingredients alternately with ½ C buttermilk, beginning and ending with the flour. [dry ingredients, buttermilk, dry ingredients, buttermilk, dry ingredients.] Beat just until blended after each addition.

Add 3 ½ oz coconut, and beat until blended. Scoop into tins. Bake for 25 minutes.

Cream Cheese Icing

Beat:
4 oz (1/2 package) cream cheese, softened
6 T butter, softened
¼ t vanilla extract
1/8 t almond extract

Gradually add:
about 1 2/3 C powdered sugar, sifted

Adventures in . . . Choco Chai Cupcakes

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.