A Cupcake Tasting

I was given a challenge!

A loyal reader of the blog wrote to me and explained that her soon to be “40-something year old friend” was guilty of decapitating every cupcake that she ever eats. In other words, (as my sister would describe) this Birthday girl has a cupcake eating condition whereby she prefers a higher icing to cupcake ratio.

This reader wanted to know if I could create a batch of cupcake tops (like muffin tops) with various icings piled on top for her friend as a birthday gift.

I accepted the challenge!

Since there were three ladies getting together for the reveal of cupcake icings, I decided to take it a step further! You know the other two ladies weren’t going to love sitting there watching their friend devour the icings and listen to her description of the various tastes and textures; nor were they going to ask the birthday girl to share her favorites either. So I went ahead and made a batch for each of the friends so they could all bite into the different flavors and combinations at the same time and do this “Mmmmmmmmmm”.

Surely, if you’ve done the math you’ll notice that there are sets of four on the table, and I’ve mentioned three ladies. That leaves one extra of each flavor combination. Well, The Boss was kind enough to be my “creative editor” for the day and photographed every single set of cupcakes for me. That saved me a LOT of time; I paid him in treats for his labor!

Here’s a closer look at the line up!

Mexican Chocolate- Spiced Chocolate Buttercream/ Chocolate Cake

Birthday Cake- Birthday Cake Icing / Funfetti Cake

Smores- Toasted Marshmallow & Ganache center / Graham Cake

Bertie’s Lemonade- Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting / Vanilla Cake

Cherry Blossom- Cherry Buttercream / Cherry Chip

Tiramisu- Espresso Cream Cheese Frosting / Vanilla Cake

Peppermint Patty- Peppermint Buttercream & Ganache / Chocolate Cake

The Classic- Chocolate Buttercream / Vanilla Cake

Boston Cream- Ganache with Cream Filling / Vanilla

Peanut Butter Nom- Peanut Buttercream & Ganache / Chocolate Cake

**MIA** The “Vanilla Dream” and “Salted Carmel” were the last icings made, and of course I was running a little tight on time and they unfortunately did not get individual “fashion shots”.

Then they were all packaged up including a tasting menu and a bow!

So what do you think, how did I do? Is this a box of treats up might like to receive for your birthday? More importantly I have to very important questions for you…

1) What would you be willing to pay for a dozen customized cupcakes (or just tops) with your choice of cake and icing combination?? Complete with a menu and bow!

2) Reflecting on the flavors I created for these ladies I think I did a good job varying the icing flavor profiles  and textures. What flavor would YOU have liked seen featured in a cupcake tasting?

That’s all for now folks, thanks for stopping by!

Read more »

Oscar Worthy Dessert

Is everybody as excited as I am about this weekend’s Academy Awards and Oscar Red Carpet Showdown??

Now I don’t get too revved up about the Grammy, Emmy, or Tony’s Awards, but I sure do love the Oscars! I am a huge movie buff and love seeing all of my favorite peeps get super styled out to celebrate another year of great entertainment (ahem, also their multi-millions of dollars made…).

Now I promise come Monday morning I will not go on a rant about who should have won what, but I might just have to comment about my favorite dress! We’ll see, I hope this year is not a dud for fashion!

Now, getting back to the post; I present to you the Bakery’s take on how to enjoy the show! Since we don’t get to tread the Red Carpet like all of the stars, I figured we should at least be treated to something just as eye catching!

Bertie’s Bakery Red Carpet:

There you have it! Short and sweet. I hope you enjoyed the pictures and it was enough to get you jazzed about the award show this weekend!

If you would like to enjoy some cream cheese frosting the recipe is here.

If you would like to see how I made my totally awesome Red Carpet cupcake wrappers you can find out here.

I am still not totally happy with my Red Velvet cake recipe so I’m holding off on posting that until I create a really good one!

Thanks for stopping by!… who do you think is going to win best movie??

Read more »

Cheese Cake Layered Chocolate Cupcakes

Watch out for this triple threat! Chocolate, Cheese Cake, and Chocolate liqueur, oh and lets not forget… dipped in chocolate ganache! I apologize to those on a New Years resolution to cut back on sweets; I am not on such a resolution :)

Here’s how the story goes of how I managed to put cheesecake inside a chocolate cupcake!

I had originally started off with a new recipe that I had thought up while traveling abroad over Christmas. How could I make a saturated fat and egg free cupcake? There are many reasons I would want to play in the world of recipe alterations; mostly because I would like to offer different options to customers with dietary needs. So onward with the experimentation!

Whisk together all of the dry ingredients and dig a hole in the sand. I guess I really did have my mind on the beach when creating this recipe!

Then I gathered all of the liquid ingredients into a cup with a spout! Please note that the ingredient list says “Boiling Water” please follow that direction. Since there are no eggs in the batch you need the hot water to react with the baking soda to create a rise in the batter! Thanks  :)

I think that the last 4 pictures speak for themselves in “what to do next”.

It was at this stage that I thought that this recipe was missing something. Was this just going to be another batch of chocolate cupcakes? Hmmmm.  Then, with not a lot of searching I found an unopened package of cream cheese in the fridge. I think we can safely say that the idea of an egg and saturated fat free recipe just went out the window…

Basically I made a small batch of cheese cake batter and spooned about 1 tbsp of cheese cake batter into the 1/3 filled cupcake batter and then covered the cheese cake with the rest of the chocolate batter!

They baked up just fine!

Once they finished cooling off, I dipped them in a chocolate ganache… well, actually, I double dipped them in the chocolate.

Anxious to see what it would look like on the inside I cut one open and was pleasantly surprised. I really had no idea what it would turn out like. Next time I might do two layers of cheese cake!

The recipe is below, enjoy!

Chocolate Cupcake Batter

1 1/2 Cups All Purpose flour

3/4 Cups Brown Sugar

1/4 Cups Granulated Sugar

1tsp Baking Soda

1/4tsp Salt

1/3 Cup Vegetable Oil

1 Cup Boiling water

2Tbsp Chocolate Liqueur (optional, but so good!)

1/2tsp Vanilla

1. Whisk all dry ingredients together in bowl and create well large enough for liquid ingredients to be poured into. Gently, while turning the bowl, fold the dry ingredients into the liquid. Continue to fold until all is incorporated.

2. Fill the bottom of cupcake pan with approx. 1/4 batter. Add a heaping tablespoon of cheese cake filling into the cupcake batter and then cover the rest with more chocolate batter. Do not try to stir the batters together.

3. Bake for 25-28 minutes at 350*F.

4. Let cupcakes cool to room temperature before attempting the chocolate dip. A warm cupcake will lead to runny chocolate and a big mess!

Cheese Cake Filling

4oz Cream Cheese

1/4 Cup Confectioners Sugar (sift after measuring)

1/8tsp salt (two good pinches)

1/2tsp vanilla

1 egg

1. Beat all ingredients together in electric mixer on medium until the cream cheese is smooth. Scrape down sides of bowl and beat for another 40 seconds just to be sure!

Chocolate Ganache Topping

3/4cups Semisweet Chocolate

1/2Cup Unsalted Butter

1/4cup Light Corn Syrup

1. Combine all ingredients in a microwave safe container and slowly bring the chocolate and butter to a liquid state. Stir the ingredients every 15 seconds. You could also do this step in a double boiler, but unless I’m making meringue I would honestly rather use the microwave. Just be sure not to burn the chocolate, hence the stiffing every 15 seconds.

2. Hold cupcake upside down and plunge directly into the chocolate goodness. Pull cupcake straight back up and let it drip for a second; make a twisting motion to scoop the cupcake around and back up right. Set the cupcake down on cooling racks.

3. If the chocolate is too runny try two things (in this order). Let the chocolate cool for about 2 minutes at room temperature and try again. If it is still a dripping mess, add a small handful of chocolate chips to the batch and melt them in, this should add a little more density. However, I have never had a problem with this specific ganache recipe for dipping, so do worry and give it a shot!

Enjoy!

Read more »

Candy Cane Cupcakes

So you’re standing around with your hands on your hips wondering how the holidays have taken you by storm and left you with all of the mess to clean up… again. Yup it happens every year. With tomorrow (January 6th) being the last of the 12 Days of Christmas, I figured you could use one more recipe to use up the last of your Christmas goods. Candy Canes.

Start off with any vanilla cupcake recipe that you like. If you even have a box of Betty C. in the cupboard and you are that tired from baking, go ahead and use that up too!

Then grab all of the candy canes off of your Christmas tree, 1 or 2 will actually be plenty. Unwrap them, crack them in half or into thirds and stick them in a sandwich bag. Now go find the meat tenderizer, a small sauce pan, or if you’re really struggling a soup can. Put the sandwich bag of candy canes in between a kitchen towel and go ahead and let out any residual holiday stress!

Please remember that although it seems like a small step, it is an important step to put the bag in between a towel. This helps keep the noise down, saves your counter top, and also keeps the candy canes from bursting through the bag and making a bigger mess than you need to deal with right now!

Next… whip up the candy cane filling (Recipe below).

Once your cupcakes are cool, go ahead and start hollowing them out like a pumpkin. Please only do this step once BOTH the cupcakes are cooled and you are ready to stuff with your filling. If you cut the cupcake open while they are still warm they will loose a lot of their moisture, the same goes for if you cut them open and leave them sitting there for long time; you will end up with a dry cupcake.

Hollow them to allow for the amount of filling you prefer. The more filling you like, the bigger you make the space.

Fill the cupcakes and then trim the tops so the excess portion of cupcake tops is off and they are flat. This does two things. Allows you to eat some of your cupcake! As well if allows for you to have a cupcake surface to apply the icing to. I find this makes my life easier!

Then ice your cupcakes with a vanilla buttercream and garnish with left over candy cane sprinkles. I do this part with the cupcakes on a cooling rack inside a cake pan for easy cleaning!

 

Cream Cheese Candy Cane Filling:

8oz Light Cream Cheese Softened

1 tsp Peppermint Extract

1 tbsp Crushed Candy Cane

1/2 Cup Confectioners Sugar

2 tbsp Milk

1) Using electric mixer beat cream cheese for 3  on medium low minutes to soften.

2) Add Peppermint and continue to beat until incorporated

3) Add both the confectioners sugar and milk and continue to beat on medium low until the mixture is smooth; be sure to scrape the sides.

4) Depending on how you measured the sugar you might find the mixture too thick or to thin. You want the mixture to be creamy and smooth, but you don’t want it to be runny. If is too runny, when a guest bites into the cupcake it is going to run down their hand! Play with it until you like the consistency… there really isn’t a right or wrong here!

5) Add the crushed candy cane last so the color from the candy cane doesn’t run and turn your filling pink. Fold the candy cane in with a flat spatula and stop once combined.

6) Use right away or refrigerate!

 

 

 

Read more »