Mini Rollo Cupcakes with Chocolate Ganache

Mini Rollo Cupcakes with Chocolate Ganache

Cupcakes:

1 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/3 cup cocoa powder

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 cup water

1 tsp vanilla

1 tbsp white vinegar

48 rollo candies, unwrapped

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Sift together flour, soda, and cocoa powder. Stir sugar and oil together in a mixing bowl, then add in flour mixture, water, vanilla, and vinegar. Stir until smooth; make sure there are no flour lumps in the batter, as this happens really easily.

Line a mini cupcake tray with wrappers, and fill 3/4 full of batter.

Bake for 7 minutes. Remove cupcakes and quickly insert a rollo into the center of each. It should sink in a little, but not be covered by the batter. As you can see that some of the rollos are visible and some aren't. The ones that aren't were where I tried to insert the rollos at five minutes; they ended up sinking to the bottom and sticking to the cupcake wrappers, so I recommend seven minutes. Since you're going to frost the cupcakes, it doesn't matter if the rollos are visible on top.

Ganache:

12 oz semisweet chocolate chips

1 cup heavy cream

48 rollo candies, unwrapped

Heat the cream in a saucepan until it comes to a boil. Immediately pour it over the chocolate in a heatproof bowl, then stir until totally combined and smooth. Refrigerate for several hours, or until firm.

Spoon the ganache into a piping bag and pipe little swirls onto the tops of the cupcakes, covering the rollos. I meant to take pictures of this process as I did it, and then forgot, but as you can see, the spirals don't need to be perfect, because once you have piped them you should quickly place a rollo on top of the ganache as an accent. I also used edible silver sprinkles for accents.

The original recipe directed you to make your own caramel filling, but I have had bad luck in this area. If you melt kraft caramels they have a tendency to reharden into solid lumps of rock-hard caramel, so I prefer to use the rollo, which stays soft even after being melted.

I will say that the recipe made exactly 50 mini cupcakes, and there was exactly the right amount of ganache, which has not been my experience with Martha Stewart recipes, which often lie about this key feature. So excellent!

Adapted from Design Bake Run.

Orange Vanilla Cupcakes

Orange Vanilla Cupcakes

Candy the oranges the night before, seriously. They are a pain.

Cupcakes:

2 cups flour

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp baking powder

3/4 cup heavy cream

1 tbsp orange zest

1/4 cup orange juice (if you can squeeze it out of the orange you zested, that's the best)

1 tbsp vanilla

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter

1 cup sugar

2 vanilla beans, halved.

2 eggs

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Sift together flour, baking powder, and baking soda. In another bowl, combine cream, orange juice, and vanilla.

Cream the butter, sugar, zest, and vanilla beans together until fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, until well combined. Add in flour mixture alternating with cream mixture until combined.

Fill tins 3/4 full. Baking for 13 minutes, then turn, and bake for 13 minutes. Let cool.

Candied Orange Slices:

2-3 small oranges

1 cup sugar

1 cup water

Slice the oranges into thin slices and remove seeds.

Bring sugar and water to a boil, stirring, until clear. Add the orange slices to fit in one layer -- if they don't, you will need to do the candying in two batches -- some overlap of slices is okay. Simmer for 40 minutes. Put slices in a container of some kind -- I used a pyrex 9x11 baking dish -- in one layer, along with syrup, and let cool.

Confession time. I tried to make the recipe for Swiss Meringue Buttercream given here but it did not work for me, and I ended up frosting the cupcakes with my usual standby icing, which is what you see in the photographs. I am still going to provide the original icing recipe, since maybe you will have better luck with it than I did!

Icing:

2 egg whites

1/4 cup sugar

1 stick butter, cup into tablespoons and room temperature

1/2 tsp vanilla

Combine egg whites and sugar in a heatproof bowl using a double boiler -- I use my metal mixing bowl and a saucepan of simmering water. Whisk constantly until sugar has dissolved. It will feel smooth if you rub a little between your fingers. Take off heat.

Whisk until stiff peaks form and mixture is completely cool, about 10 minutes.

Add butter a few tablespoons at a time, mixing well after each addition. Mix in vanilla. Switch from a whisk to a beater and and beat until frosting is completely smooth (don't forget to scrape down the sides of the bowl periodically).

Tint if desired.

Ice the cupcakes with your icing, and then lay a candied orange slice overtop. Warning: you may want to drain the orange slices before you use them; they are pretty sticky with syrup, and in my case they oozed everywhere and got the cupcake wrappers and plate pretty sticky.

If you can't get vanilla beans, don't worry about it (they can be pretty pricey). I left them out because I didn't have any on hand, and the recipe certainly didn't suffer for it.

Adapted from Martha Stewart's cupcakes.

Peanut-Butter Filled Chocolate Cupcakes

Peanut-butter Filled Chocolate Cupcakes

Cupcakes:

2/3 cup flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, cut into pieces

4 oz. semisweet chocolate chips

3/4 cup sugar

3 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 325 F.

Whisk together flour and bp. Put butter and chocolate into a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water -- I used my stainless steel mixing bowl and a small saucepan -- and stir until the ingredients melt together. Remove from heat and let cool somewhat.

Whisk in sugar, then add eggs one at a time, mixing until smooth. Add vanilla. Add flour mixture.

Peanut Butter Filling:

4 tbsp (1/2 stick) butter, melted

1/2 cup xxx sugar, sifted

3/4 cup peanut butter

1/2 tsp vanilla

Whisk ingredients together until smooth.

Put a few spoonfuls of batter in your tins, then add a spoonful of the peanut butter mixture; top with more batter to cover.

Bake for 20 minutes, then turn, and bake for another 20.

I used my silicon baking cups for this recipe, which bumped the number of cupcakes up from 12 to 16 (the cups are slightly smaller than a normal cupcake tin), but they worked pretty well. On the other hand, the filling caused these cupcakes to separate  somewhat -- the tops came off really easily, which made it difficult to take them out of the cups, meaning you more or less have to eat them with a spoon or fork out of the cup. So given that structural deficiency, I think in the future I'd tend to do them in a regular wrapper, and save the silicups for something with more overall structural integrity.

My dad, who loves chocolate-peanut butter, and was the target audience for these cupcakes (bleahhhh is my personal opinion on the subject), said they nonetheless tasted great. He described the cupcake itself as being brownie-like, and then added "you won't have any trouble getting me to eat them". So I guess we can consider these a success!

A final note: the recipe also called for 2 oz unsweet chocolate added to the semisweet chocolate in the batter, but I didn't notice and left it out. The cupcakes don't seem to have suffered any, but if you like a more chocolate flavor you may want to add this back in.

Adapted from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes.

Lemon Meringue Cupcakes

Lemon Meringue Cupcakes

I recommend making the lemon curd first, because it has to chill for two hours before you can use it.

Cupcakes:

3 cups flour

1 tbsp baking powder

1 cup (2 sticks) butter

2 cups sugar

4 eggs

3 tbsp freshly grated lemon rind

1/4 cup lemon juice

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup buttermilk

Preheat oven to 325 F.

Whisk together flour and baking powder. Meanwhile, cream butter and sugar with an electric mixer. Add eggs, beating until combined. Add zest and vanilla. Alternate in flour and buttermilk/lemon juice, still beating.

Fill cupcake tins 3/4 high. Bake 13 minutes, turn, bake 13. Let cool.

Lemon Curd:

2 eggs + 8 egg yolks (save whites for icing)

1 cup sugar

2/3 cup lemon juice (the recipe says about 6 lemons; I only needed 3 and was still able to get the juice for the cake)

2 tbsp butter, cut into pieces

Combine eggs, yolks, sugar, and lemon juice is a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water. I used my metal mixing bowl and just set it in a small saucepan, since I don't have a double boiler. Cook, whisking constantly, until mixture is thick. It'll bubble into a thick, light colored foam -- you can definitely tell when it's ready.

Remove from heat and whisk in the butter until it melts. Strain into a bowl you can store in the fridge for at least two hours.

I strained the lemon juice right after I squeezed it, to remove the seeds and pulp, and when I stained the curd I found that there was really nothing left in the strainer -- maybe a few fragments of egg white. So I think you can save yourself a step by straining the lemon juice, and then you don't need to worry about straining the curd when it's hot. The picture on the right shows what the curd looked like after strained.

Meringue Icing:

1 1/2 cups sugar

2/3 cup water

2 tbsp corn syrup

6 egg whites

Combine sugar, water, and corn syrup in a small saucepan with a candy thermometer. Bring to a boil, stirring until sugar dissolves. Continue boiling until syrup reaches 230 F (110 C, or "thread" stage).

Meanwhile, whisk egg whites until they form stiff peaks. Add in the syrup slowly while continuing to whisk.

Whisk hard until this mixture is cool and stiff -- at least seven minutes.

To Put Together:

Take the cooled cupcakes and slice a shallow indentation in the tops using a serrated knife. Put a generous spoonful of the lemon curd into each of these indentations, using the spoon to spread it slightly.

Using a piping bag fitted with a wide tip, pipe a little spiral of icing on top of the curd.

Use a kitchen torch to brown the icing spirals gently.

Adapted from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes.

Raspberry Marble Cheesecakes with Graham Cracker Crust

Raspberry Marble Cheesecakes with Graham Cracker Crust

Crust:

1 1/2 cups fine ground graham crackers (if they come in one of those boxes with the three packets of about six crackers each? One packet is about right.)

3 tbsp melted butter

3 tbsp sugar

Preheat oven to 325 F.

Mix together the graham crackers, butter, and sugar. Press one tablespoon into the bottom of each of your cupcake liners. Bake for 5 minutes.

Raspberry:

6 oz fresh raspberries

2 tbsp sugar

Puree the raspberries in a food processor until smooth. Pass the puree through a fine sieve to strain out all the seeds; discard seeds. Mix the sugar into the raspberry puree.

Cupcakes:

2 lb cream cheese

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 tsp vanilla

4 eggs

Beat the cream cheese until it's fluffy. I did not beat mine sufficiently, and there ended up being lumps in the finished batter. Don't be me!

Slowly pour in the sugar and continue to beat. Add vanilla.

Add eggs one at a time, beating until combined.

Spoon 1/4 cup of batter over each little crust. You can add more if you prefer a thicker cheesecake; it didn't affect the baking time for me. Put a small spoonful of raspberry over the batter, then swirl it into the batter with a toothpick or skewer. The picture to the right shows the process for this.

The recipe then asks you to take your tin and put it in a roasting pan, half filled with water, and bake like that. I wasn't sure why, so I did one batch as, and one just plain. The main difference that I saw was that the ones baked in water stayed puffier after they'd been taken out of the oven and didn't sink in the middles, but honestly it wasn't hugely significant? I'm not sure if it made a difference in overall moistness or something, but my conclusion was that you can if you want, but it's not vital.

Anyway, bake your cupcakes for 15 minutes, turn, and bake another 15 minutes (turning ensures wonderfully even baking). Remove from tins and place on wire racks to cool. Refrigerate after you're finished; cheesecake goes bad fast.

A final note: this recipe is a liar. It claimed to make 32 cupcakes; the actual result was around 45, and I ended up having to make another batch of crust. I would highly suggest halving the recipe so these suckers don't get gross before you can eat them all.

Adapted from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes.