Cake Batter & Crumbs

Daring Bakers Challenge - Perfect Party Cake

Time for another Daring Baker's Challenge. This month Morven from Food Art and Random Thoughts chose the  Dorie Greenspan's recipe for Perfect Party Cake. I was so excited to try this recipe. There has been so much positive feedback going around about Dorie's recipes from her book Baking: From My Home to Yours. I've been wanting to purchase this book and after successfully completing this challenge, I definitely will be adding it to the top of the list.

While we were allowed to play around with some of the flavorings, I decided to follow the recipe almost exact. The cake layers are so moist and tender with a light lemony flavor complimented perfectly, as the recipe name implies, with the buttercream and raspberry preserves. The only change I made was to exchange the coconut on top with fresh raspberries.

I loved this cake and plan to try it again with some other flavors. Who wouldn't be excited to find this on the table at any party?

Thanks, Morven for a great challenge and be sure to check out the other Daring Bakers here.

Even the kitties loved it! 

For the Cake

2 1/4 cups cake flour (updated 25 March)
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 ¼ cups whole milk or buttermilk (I prefer buttermilk with the lemon)
4 large egg whites
1 ½ cups sugar
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
1 stick (8 tablespoons or 4 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
½ teaspoon pure lemon extract

For the Buttercream
1 cup sugar
4 large egg whites
3 sticks (12 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
¼ cup fresh lemon juice (from 2 large lemons)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

For Finishing
2/3 cup seedless raspberry preserves stirred vigorously or warmed gently until spreadable
About 1 ½ cups sweetened shredded coconut

Getting Ready
Centre a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter two 9 x 2 inch round cake pans and line the bottom of each pan with a round of buttered parchment or wax paper. Put the pans on a baking sheet.

To Make the Cake
Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt.
Whisk together the milk and egg whites in a medium bowl.
Put the sugar and lemon zest in a mixer bowl or another large bowl and rub them together with your fingers until the sugar is moist and fragrant.
Add the butter and working with the paddle or whisk attachment, or with a hand mixer, beat at medium speed for a full 3 minutes, until the butter and sugar are very light.
Beat in the extract, then add one third of the flour mixture, still beating on medium speed.
Beat in half of the milk-egg mixture, then beat in half of the remaining dry ingredients until incorporated.
Add the rest of the milk and eggs beating until the batter is homogeneous, then add the last of the dry ingredients.
Finally, give the batter a good 2- minute beating to ensure that it is thoroughly mixed and well aerated.
Divide the batter between the two pans and smooth the tops with a rubber spatula.
Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until the cakes are well risen and springy to the touch – a thin knife inserted into the centers should come out clean
Transfer the cakes to cooling racks and cool for about 5 minutes, then run a knife around the sides of the cakes, unfold them and peel off the paper liners.
Invert and cool to room temperature, right side up (the cooled cake layers can be wrapped airtight and stored at room temperature overnight or frozen for up to two months).

To Make the Buttercream
Put the sugar and egg whites in a mixer bowl or another large heatproof bowl, fit the bowl over a plan of simmering water and whisk constantly, keeping the mixture over the heat, until it feels hot to the touch, about 3 minutes.
The sugar should be dissolved,  and the mixture will look like shiny marshmallow cream.
Remove the bowl from the heat.
Working with the whisk attachment or with a hand mixer, beat the meringue on medium speed until it is cool, about 5 minutes.
Switch to the paddle attachment if you have one, and add the butter a stick at a time, beating until smooth.
Once all the butter is in, beat in the buttercream on medium-high speed until it is thick and very smooth, 6-10 minutes.
During this time the buttercream may curdle or separate – just keep beating and it will come together again.
On medium speed, gradually beat in the lemon juice, waiting until each addition is absorbed before adding more, and then the vanilla.
You should have a shiny smooth, velvety, pristine white buttercream. Press a piece of plastic against the surface of the buttercream and set aside briefly.

To Assemble the Cake
Using a sharp serrated knife and a gentle sawing motion, slice each layer horizontally in half.
Put one layer cut side up on a cardboard cake round or a cake plate protected by strips of wax or parchment paper.
Spread it with one third of the preserves.
Cover the jam evenly with about one quarter of the buttercream.
Top with another layer, spread with preserves and buttercream and then do the same with a third layer (you’ll have used all the jam and have buttercream leftover).
Place the last layer cut side down on top of the cake and use the remaining buttercream to frost the sides and top.
Press the coconut into the frosting, patting it gently all over the sides and top.

Serving
The cake is ready to serve as soon as it is assembled, but I think it’s best to let it sit and set for a couple of hours in a cool room – not the refrigerator. Whether you wait or slice and enjoy it immediately, the cake should be served at room temperature; it loses all its subtlety when it’s cold. Depending on your audience you can serve the cake with just about anything from milk to sweet or bubbly wine.

Storing
The cake is best the day it is made, but you can refrigerate it, well covered, for up to two days. Bring it to room temperature before serving. If you want to freeze the cake, slide it into the freezer to set, then wrap it really well – it will keep for up to 2 months in the freezer; defrost it, still wrapped overnight in the refrigerator.

Giant Chocolate Chip Cookie

Recently I had the opportunity to bake with my teenage cousin Emily. She’s learning about all kinds of new interests and hobbies that she can develop, so I really enjoyed showing her my most favorite hobby – baking! My mom was there helping out too, and it turned out to be a lot of fun. I love baking with my family.

Emily chose this recipe, which calls for a giant cookie baking pan. After making a batch and spreading it out in the pan, we realized that one batch wouldn’t be enough. So, we made a second batch and used around half of it to fit in the pan. One batch might have been enough, but I thought it would make a really thin, crispy cookie bar, and that’s not what we wanted. We used the rest of the second batch to make little cookies that she used to decorate the top.

The cookie really turned out perfectly. It was just the right thickness – around ½ to ¾ inches thick and she loaded the top of it with the classic vanilla buttercream icing I used a while ago for these cupcakes.

Ok, so in actuality I had to force her to stand there so I could take a picture of her and the cookie for my blog... (Darn teenagers!) … but she did a fantastic job and I look forward to baking with her again.

Thanks, Em, for letting me show you my favorite hobby! =)

Giant Chocolate Chip Cookie

Ingredients:

• ½ cup butter
• ½ cup granulated sugar
• ¼ cup packed brown sugar
• 1 egg
• ¾ teaspoon vanilla
• 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
• ¼ tsp. baking soda
• ¼ tsp. salt
• ½ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray pan with vegetable pan spray. In a large mixing bowl, cream butter with sugars. Add egg and vanilla and mix well. Stir in flour, baking soda and salt; mix well. Stir in chocolate chips. Spread dough into prepared pan with spatula. Bake 15-20 minutes or until light golden brown. Cool on rack for 5 minutes. Remove from pan. Cool before cutting. Decorate.

Makes 8-10 servings.

Apple Pecan Muffins Ellie Krieger

I can't say enough good things about these muffins, and they're actually healthy! They're incredibly moist and have an awesome crunchy pecan and brown sugar topping. I have to say, I'm really loving the cookbook "The Food You Crave" by Ellie Krieger. All the recipes I've made so far have turned out with A+ results.

The recipe calls for whole wheat pastry flour, which has a finer texture than regular whole wheat flour while still retaining more nutrients than white flour. It was a little tricky to locate the whole wheat pastry flour in my area, but luckily I found some at Wegmans. The recipe also says that you can use regular whole wheat flour as a substitute. I would guess it would just make a denser muffin.

The recipe also states that it yields 12 muffins, but I easily got 18 out of it, filling the tins two-thirds full as instructed. I just made up a little extra of the brown sugar pecan mixture to top them.

I made a batch of these to take for breakfast in the mornings. You can store them in the refrigerator for up to three days or freeze them for up to three months. I didn't have time to weigh all the ingredients for metric measurements, but if you're interested in them, send me an email. I expect to be making these again soon and will send that info out.

Apple Pecan Muffins
Ellie Krieger
The Food You Crave and Online

Ingredients: 

Cooking spray
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons packed brown sugar
1/4 cup chopped pecans
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole-wheat pastry flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup canola oil
2 large eggs
1 cup natural applesauce
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup lowfat buttermilk
1 Golden Delicious apple, peeled, cored and cut into 1/4-inch pieces

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Coat a 12-capacity muffin pan with cooking spray.

In a small bowl, mix together 2 tablespoons of the brown sugar, the pecans and cinnamon.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the all-purpose and whole-wheat flour, baking soda and salt.

In a large bowl, whisk the remaining 3/4 cup sugar and oil until combined. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, whisking well after each addition. Whisk in the applesauce and vanilla.

Whisk in the flour mixture in 2 batches, alternating with the buttermilk. Whisk just until combined. Gently stir in the apple chunks.

Pour the batter into the prepared muffin pan and sprinkle with the pecan mixture. Tap the pan on the counter a few times to remove any air bubbles. Bake for 20 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center of 1 of the muffins comes out clean.

Let cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes. Run a knife around the muffins to loosen them and unmold. Cool completely on the rack.

Nutrition Information
Nutritional Analysis per Serving 
Calories: 219
Total Fat: 8 grams 
Saturated Fat: 1 gram
Protein: 4 grams 
Carbohydrates: 35 grams

Excellent source of thiamin.

Baked Alaska

For a long time now, my husband has been begging me to make Baked Alaska. He had it while on a cruise many years ago and loved it. I knew the basic components to it were cake, ice cream, and meringue. Other than that I wasn't sure how to actually assemble it and bake without it collapsing into an sticky, ice cream mess in the oven.The trick, I discovered, is to be patient and let it chill in the freezer before popping it into the oven.

I made a deal with him that I would make it as long as he helped, and he happily agreed. He picked the flavor combinations of strawberry cake and French vanilla ice cream. In the end, this turned out to be one of the very best desserts I've ever made. Fresh out of the oven, the cake was warm; the ice cream was slightly soft, and the meringue just pulled it all together. We both sat eating it in amazement at how good it was when we were so unsure during the entire process. Now, of course, he wants to make it again and again.

Base - Strawberry Cake
courtesy of DanaP on this website

**I halved the recipe to make only one 8-inch cake.

2 cups, (270 g) Self rising Flour
3 eggs
1 cup, (112 g) Vegetable Oil
1 cup, (198 g) Sugar
1 Pkg. Strawberry Jello
1/2 cup, (114 g) Buttermilk
1 1/4 cup of  Strawberries , Pureed [As it turned out I had forgotten to buy strawberries so I used around 4-5 tablespoons of strawberry jam and it was perfect]

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour two 8 in round pans. Sift flour into a bowl , set aside in another bowl beat eggs then add oil, sugar, gelatin, and buttermilk. stir until well blended. Add flour to the mixture and blend.
Drain 1/4 cup of juice from berries and save for icing. fold in berries . pour in pans and bake for 25 to 30 min, or till browned. Turn out on a rack to cool.

Middle - Ice Cream

While the cake is cooling, prepare the ice cream. Line an 8-inch pan with foil. If your ice cream is very hard, soften it a little in the microwave so that you can spread it more easily. Spread 1/2 gallon of ice cream into the lined pan and place in the freezer for an hour.

Top - Meringue
8 egg whites
1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar
pinch of salt
1 cup, (198 g) white sugar                                

Beat egg whites with cream of tartar, salt and sugar until stiff peaks form.

Assemble

Place the cake on an oven-proof dish or baking pan and turn out the ice cream on top, flipping the ice cream pan on top of the cake and lifting it off. Peel off the foil. Pile the meringue on top of the ice cream and cake, carefully sealing all sides.

Place in freezer for 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C).

Bake the Alaska on the lowest shelf, 8 to 10 minutes, or until meringue is lightly browned. Serve immediately.

Valentine's Cupcakes

For Valentine's week, we had a red/pink themed lunch at work where everyone brought a food item in those colors. I chose to make mini red velvet cupcakes -- although a snow storm kept me from going to work the actual day of the lunch, so I missed out!

Anyway, these mini cupcakes were supposed to be of the red velvet variety, but they came out more chocolaty brown -- still delicious, but certainly not the pretty red color I was aiming for. I take all blame though, as I thought the batter needed more chocolate than called for and I also used both regular baking cocoa and dark baking cocoa.  More chocolate on Valentine's Day isn't necessarily a bad thing, right? The batter at least was a lovely shade of deep red, though the final product was decidedly not. Although, I really do think that if you hold them up to the light and squint just right, you can see a slight red coloring!

Topping these little guys is the traditional cream cheese icing, tinted pink (to fit our red/pink theme, of course) and on the tippy top I placed a little conversational heart candy. This particular cupcake, of course went to my husband!

Red Velvet Cupcakes
Adapted from Martha Stewart's Red Velvet Cake recipe
Makes 48 mini cupcakes

• 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 1/2 cups cake flour, not self-rising
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 1/2 cups canola oil
• 2 large eggs
• 2 tablespoons red food coloring
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 cup low-fat buttermilk
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 teaspoons white vinegar

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line mini cupcake trays with liners. Set aside. Whisk together flour, salt, and cocoa in a medium bowl; set aside.
2. Mix sugar and oil on medium speed in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk until combined. Add eggs one at a time; mix well after each addition. Mix in food coloring and vanilla. Add flour mixture in 3 batches, alternating with the buttermilk and beginning and ending with flour, mixing well after each addition. Scrape down sides of bowl as needed.
3. Stir together baking soda and vinegar in a small bowl. Add baking-soda mixture to batter, and mix on medium speed 10 seconds. Pour batter into prepared pans. Bake until a cake tester inserted into centers comes out clean, 15 minutes. Let cool completely in pans on wire racks.

Cream Cheese Icing

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 (8-ounce) cream cheese, room temperature
• 2 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• red/pink food coloring

Place butter in bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, and beat on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add cream cheese, and beat until well combined and fluffy, about 2 minutes more. Add sugar and vanilla, and beat until combined, about 2 minutes.

Very Vanilla Cupcakes with Vanilla & Blackberry Buttercream

I saw these gorgeous blackberries at the grocery store and tossed them in my cart without having any specific plans for them. I decided they would look beautiful sitting surrounded by rich buttercream on top of vanilla cupcakes.

I wasn't feeling stingy with the vanilla that day and used 3 teaspoons of pure vanilla extract in the batter. These cupcakes have a wonderful strong vanilla flavor and full dense texture.

So, what better to pair with a dense vanilla cupcake than a heavy, rich buttercream! This is a classic buttercream using egg yolks, butter, and sugar that I found in the Taste of Home Baking Book that my parents gave me for Christmas. Yum! I frosted the tops of the cupcakes with the vanilla buttercream.

...and..

To bring in the blackberry theme again, I took out around 3/4 cup of the buttercream and folded some blackberry preserves. The buttercream turned this amazing shade of light purple with little darker specks of dark blue/purple. Using a pastry bag I filled the centers of the cupcakes with the blackberry buttercream.

I kept these cupcakes in the fridge and they lasted a good week. Just remember to take them out a few minutes before devouring them. Mmmmmmmm.

Very Vanilla Cupcakes
Makes around 18 cupcakes

1½ sticks unsalted butter
1¾ cups sugar
3 large eggs
3 teaspoons pure vanilla
½ teaspoon salt
2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
2½ cups flour
1 cup milk

Preheat over to 350 degrees. Line a muffin pan with cupcake liners.

Cream together butter and sugar. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Whisk together all of the dry ingredients -- salt, baking powder and flour. Add the dry ingredients in 3 batches, alternating with milk. Mix on low speed just until combined and then on medium for 2 minutes.

Divide batter evenly among cups. Bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick into center comes out clean.

Cool on wire rack.

Classic Buttercream

1 cup sugar
1/3 cup water
6 egg yolks, lightly beaten
1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1-1/2 cups butter, softened

6 tablespoons confectioners' sugar

In a heavy saucepan, bring sugar and water to a boil; cook over medium-high heat until sugar is dissolved. Remove from the heat. Add a small amount of hot mixture to egg yolks; return all to the pan, stirring constantly. Cook 2 minutes longer or until mixture thickens, stirring constantly. Remove from the heat; stir in vanilla. Cool to room temperature.

In a mixing bowl with the whisk attachment, cream butter until fluffy, about 5 minutes. Gradually beat in cooked sugar mixture. Beat in confectioners' sugar until fluffy, about 5 minutes. If necessary, refrigerate until frosting reaches spreading consistency. Store in the refrigerator. Yield: 3 cups.

Blackberry Buttercream

Using around 3/4 cup of the classic buttercream, fold in 1-2 tablespoons of blackberry preserves.

 

 

Daring Bakers Challenge: Lemon Meringue Pie

I'm so excited to be part of the Daring Bakers group. January's challenge is my first, and it was really a lot of fun. Jen from The Canadian Baker announced that this month's challenge will be Lemon Meringue Pie, which was a little more intimidating for me because my husband's grandmother makes an awesome lemon meringue pie. Dare I attempt such a pie as well?

The recipe has three components. First the crust is prepared and blind baked in the oven. I should have read the recipe more closely as I didn't realize I needed pie weights. Guess I don't make many pies and will have to work on that. I rummaged through my cupboards looking for some dried beans that I could use as weights, but had none. I thought for a while about other solids I could shove inside some tin foil to weigh the crust down. I almost grabbed a box of macaroni, but in the end decided it was worth the trip to the grocery store to buy a bag of dried beans. Sixty-eight cents later, I was on my way home with  my makeshift pie weights. The lemon curd is such a beautiful, glossy-yellow filling for the pie. It's poured into the pie crust and allowed to cool to room temperature. The last component is the fluffy meringue that is piled on top and browned in the oven.

Overall, I thought this pie was a great success. My pie crust didn't come out as pretty as I had hoped and it seemed to slide a little down in the pan. Luckily the meringue covers most of it! The crust though has a really nice sweet flavor and wasn't dried out like some can get. The lemon curd has an excellent tart flavor and is complimented really well by the sweetness of the meringue. Not sure if it beats grandma's, but hey she's had a lot longer to perfect her recipe!

Check out everyone else's pies at The Daring Bakers' Blogroll.

Lemon Meringue Pie
Daring Bakers January Challenge
recipe from Wanda's Pie in the Sky

Lemon Meringue Pie

Makes one 10-inch (25 cm) pie

For the Crust:

¾ cup (180 mL) cold butter; cut into ½-inch (1.2 cm) pieces
2 cups (475 mL) all-purpose flour
¼ cup (60 mL) granulated sugar
¼ tsp (1.2 mL) salt
⅓ cup (80 mL) ice water

For the Filling:

2 cups (475 mL) water
1 cup (240 mL) granulated sugar
½ cup (120 mL) cornstarch
5 egg yolks, beaten
¼ cup (60 mL) butter
¾ cup (180 mL) fresh lemon juice
1 tbsp (15 mL) lemon zest
1 tsp (5 mL) vanilla extract

For the Meringue:

5 egg whites, room temperature
½ tsp (2.5 mL) cream of tartar
¼ tsp (1.2 mL) salt
½ tsp (2.5 mL) vanilla extract
¾ cup (180 mL) granulated sugar

For the Crust: Make sure all ingredients are as cold as possible. Using a food processor or pastry cutter and a large bowl, combine the butter, flour, sugar and salt. Process or cut in until the mixture resembles coarse meal and begins to clump together. Sprinkle with water, let rest 30 seconds and then either process very briefly or cut in with about 15 strokes of the pastry cutter, just until the dough begins to stick together and come away from the sides of the bowl. Turn onto a lightly floured work surface and press together to form a disk. Wrap in plastic and chill for at least 20 minutes.

Allow the dough to warm slightly to room temperature if it is too hard to roll. On a lightly floured board (or countertop) roll the disk to a thickness of ⅛ inch (.3 cm). Cut a circle about 2 inches (5 cm) larger than the pie plate and transfer the pastry into the plate by folding it in half or by rolling it onto the rolling pin. Turn the pastry under, leaving an edge that hangs over the plate about ½ inch (1.2 cm). Flute decoratively. Chill for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350ºF (180ºC). Line the crust with foil and fill with metal pie weights or dried beans. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes. Carefully remove the foil and continue baking for 10 to 15 minutes, until golden. Cool completely before filling.

For the Filling: Bring the water to a boil in a large, heavy saucepan. Remove from the heat and let rest 5 minutes. Whisk the sugar and cornstarch together. Add the mixture gradually to the hot water, whisking until completely incorporated.

Return to the heat and cook over medium heat, whisking constantly until the mixture comes to a boil. The mixture will be very thick. Add about 1 cup (240 mL) of the hot mixture to the beaten egg yolks, whisking until smooth. Whisking vigorously, add the warmed yolks to the pot and continue cooking, stirring constantly, until mixture comes to a boil. Remove from the heat and stir in butter until incorporated. Add the lemon juice, zest and vanilla, stirring until combined. Pour into the prepared crust. Cover with plastic wrap to prevent a skin from forming on the surface, and cool to room temperature.

For the Meringue: Preheat the oven to 375ºF (190ºC). Using an electric mixer beat the egg whites with the cream of tartar, salt and vanilla extract until soft peaks form. Add the sugar gradually, beating until it forms stiff, glossy peaks. Pile onto the cooled pie, bringing the meringue all the way over to the edge of the crust to seal it completely. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until golden. Cool on a rack. Serve within 6 hours to avoid a soggy crust.

French Apple Tart

A while ago I splurged on some baking pans from France and I've been dying to use them ever since. I'm not sure why it's taken me so long to use them, but I'm very pleased in the result with their inaugural use. I love the look of the French apple tarts that you can see displayed so beautifully inside the patisserie shop cases. I wanted to give it a try for myself.

These open-faced tarts are really quite simple to prepare. I adapted mine from Le Cordon Bleu Dessert Techniques book. First the dough is prepared. I used a recipe for pâte sucrée, which is a sweet, short pastry dough. It reminds me a lot of short bread cookies. Peel, core, and thinly slice some cooking apples and arrange nicely in the tart pan. I love, love, love my apple peeler/corer. It makes this job oh so easy, and it's actually kind of fun to use! The apples are brushed with melted butter, then sprinkled with sugar and baked. After the tart is baked, I heated some apricot preserves and lightly brushed it on the tops of the apples.

The toughest task was arranging the apple slices. No matter how I tried, mine just didn't look as good as in the picture. What I discovered though is that as the apples bake, they magically soften up, shrink a bit, and meld together nicely. So, the final product turned out a lot better than the raw version. The tart was excellent; definitely different than an apple pie and really delicious with vanilla ice cream.

French Apple Tart

Pâte Sucrée

1 2/3 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1/4 cup sugar
2 egg yolks
1/4 tsp vanilla

Sift the flour into a bowl and rub in the butter. Stir in the sugar. Use a fork to lightly whisk the egg yolks with the vanilla then add them to the dry ingredients and mix to forma short dough. Press together lightly and chill for 30 minutes. (The dough will be more crumbly than regular pie dough)

Apple Tart

4 cooking apples, peeled, cored, and thinly sliced (I used Granny Smith)
juice from 1 lemon
1/3 cup melted butter
1/2 cup sugar

Toss the apples with the lemon juice to prevent discoloration. Press the tart dough into the tart pan making sure to get the dough along all of the sides. Arrange the apples in the pan, overlapping them slightly. Brush with the melted butter and sprinkle with the sugar. Bake at 375 for around 45 minutes. (Keep an eye on the edges of the crust. I had to use a crust shield toward the end of the baking time.)

I also brushed mine with some cooked apricot preserves. It gave it a nice glossy finish with even extra flavor.

Tiramisu Cupcakes

One of my most favorite desserts ever is Tiramisu. There's something about the combination of sponge cake and velvety mascarpone cream filling that is irresistible to me. Throw in some chocolate and a hint of coffee, and I'm in heaven.

When I saw that the Cupcake Hero's challenge this month was coffee, I decided to try turning this classic Italian dessert into a cupcake.

To get started with the base, I adapted the tiramisu sponge cake recipe from a Williams Sonoma Desserts cookbook. Instead of baking in a spring form pan, I filled 18 cupcake liners. You really have to watch these in the oven as the batter is so airy, it takes a very short time to bake. Once the cupcakes have baked and cooled, I made some slits in the tops with a knife and then brushed them with a sweetened espresso syrup. The final component is the mascarpone cream that I filled inside the cupcakes as well as on top. Dust them with cocoa powder, and a few chocolate shavings, and it's all set! These were so tasty and just as good as their full-sized counterparts. Yum!

Tiramisu Cupcakes

Sponge Cake
1 cup (4 1/2 oz / 140 g) all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 eggs, at room temperature
2/3 (4 2/3 oz / 145 g) sugar
1 1/4 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line muffin pan with 18 liners. I sprayed the liners with nonstick spray. (I don't know if that's necessary, but the cake didn't stick in the end so it worked)

In a bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt until blended.  In a large bowl, using a mixer on medium-high speed, beat the eggs until pale and thick (about 3 min). Add the sugar and vanilla and continue beating until very thick and tripled in volume (about 3 min more). Sprinkle the dry ingredients over the wet ingredients, and using a rubber spatula, fold gently until blended.

Fill the liners with the batter and baking until a toothpick inserted in the cakes comes out clean. Mine only took around 15 minutes. Let the cake cool completely

Syrup
1/2 cup (4 fl oz / 125 ml) water
1/3 cup (2 1/3 oz / 70 g) sugar
2 tablespoons dark rum
2 teaspoons instant espresso powder

Combine the water and the sugar in a small saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, until the sugar dissolves.Bring to a boil and remove from the heat. Stir in the rum and espresso powder. Set aside to cool to room temperature.

Make slits in tops of cupcakes with a sharp knife and then brush on the espresso syrup.

Filling
8 oz mascarpone
scant 1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar
1 tablespoon marsala
1/2 cup heavy cream, chilled

Beat together the mascarpone, confectioner’s sugar and marsala in a mixer until well blended. Add the cream for around another 1-2 minutes until it is fluffy.

Using a pastry bag with the filling mixture, insert the tip in the cupcake to squeeze a small amount. Then frost the tops of the cupcakes with the mixture. Sprinkle cocoa powder and chocolate shavings.

Banana Cupcakes

My husband loves banana flavored baked goods and when given the choice between chocolate or fruit flavored cupcakes, he was quick to ask for a banana cupcake. For Christmas he bought me the book 500 Cupcakes by  Fergal Connolly and it had a nice recipe for banana cupcakes.

Now, I have to admit I really only like bananas in their natural form. I was never a fan of banana bread or banana cakes, but I was happy to give these a go. I altered the mixing process after watching Alton Brown explain the science behind cake baking. I've included my method below in the instructions instead of the original recipe version.

The batter includes quite a lot of butter and in addition to your typical cake ingredients, it also incorporates a bit of nutmeg and of course bananas. I found the batter to be quite tasty. In fact, I was blissfully excited because it only had a faint flavor of banana and a wonderful nutmeg spiciness. I took the mixer beater and was in heaven. After baking these golden beauties though, I was slightly saddened at how the banana flavor intensified while in the oven. My husband though couldn't stop shoving them in his mouth, so I'm figuring they must be a winner. The recipe suggests topping these with a simple cream cheese icing. Since these have fresh fruit in them, I'm storing them in the refrigerator.

Banana Cupcakes

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 cups self-rising flour
4 eggs
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 cup (about 2 large mashed ripe bananas)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 C). Place 18 paper baking cups in muffin pans. Cream together the butter and sugar until it is pale and fluffy. Sift together the flour and nutmeg. Lightly beat the eggs into a bowl. Slowly add part of the flour mixture to the sugar and butter and then alternate with the eggs until all of the flour and eggs are incorporated. Fold in the mashed bananas. Spoon the batter into the cupcake liners and bake for 20 minutes.