Honey Cupcakes with Peaches

Honey Cupcakes with Peaches

I wanted to try out my new bee stencils, and these cupcakes were the perfect candidates. Peaches are in season, and the fruit helps balance the cake and keep things moist, as well as being tasty.

Cupcakes:

1/2 cup (1 stick butter), soft

3/4 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 1/2 cup flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup buttermilk

1/4 cup honey

1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 F. Butter and flour your cupcake tin.

Beat butter and sugar. Add in eggs, one at a time. In another bowl, mix together buttermilk, honey, and vanilla. Stir into the butter mixture, alternating by sifting in the flour and baking powder.

Fill cupcake tins about 3/4 full. Bake for 9 minutes, turn, bake 10 minutes.

Let cool. Remove from tins.

Makes 12.

To complete:

2 large ripe peaches

xxx sugar

Slice the cupcakes in half using a serrated knife. Slice the peaches into thin rounds. Using a round cookie cutter, cut the peach slices to the size of the cupcakes. Sandwich them between the two halves of the cupcake.

Turn cupcakes over. If you have no stencil, sift xxx sugar over the top of each cupcake. If you have a stencil, place it over the cupcake firmly:

Sift sugar over until well covered:

then lift away carefully.

Cupcakes adapted from TheCakeBlog.com.

Chocolate Raspberry Cupcakes with Almond Frosting

Chocolate Raspberry Cupcakes with Almond Buttercream

I think my favorite part of these cupcakes is how elegant they look, even though the decorating is really easy! Also, no I will not stop making cupcakes with raspberries. I love raspberries.

Cupcakes:

2 cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened

1 cup packed brown sugar

1 cup sugar

4 eggs

4 oz unsweetened chocolate (I used a Ghirardelli bar)

1 cup buttermilk

2 tsp vanilla

24 large red raspberries

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Cream butter and sugars. Add eggs, one at a time. Stir in the melted chocolate.

In another bowl, sift together flour and soda. Add alternately with buttermilk; add vanilla. Mix until just combined.

Fill cupcake tins about 3/4 of the way full. Bake for 13 minutes, turn, bake 13 minutes.

Warning: these cupcakes rise out, not up, so be careful not to overfill the baking cups. I ended up having the trim the edges off a bunch of the cupcakes because they were so overflowed. Also, the cupcakes are not very structurally sound when baked, so be gentle with them -- I lost two or three because they just fell apart while I was handling them.

Let cool.

When cool, use a small serrated knife or apple corer to cut a small hole in the center of each cupcake. Place a raspberry inside the hole.

Makes 24.

Icing/Decoration:

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, soft

3 cups sifted xxx sugar

1 tbsp almond extract

chocolate syrup

24 red raspberries

24 chocolate chips

Beat butter until creamy. Add sugar and almond extract and beat until smooth. If the frosting is not yet the right consistency to pipe, you can add more sugar to stiffen it or a tablespoon of cream to make it softer.

Using a piping bag, pipe a spiral of frosting on top of each cupcake, covering the cored center.

Place a single chocolate chip inside each raspberry.

Drizzle chocolate syrup over frosted cupcakes so that it kind of runs down and gets in the grooves of the icing.

Place a raspberry on top of each.

This cupcake, like I said, looks fabulous for very little work, and the cupcake itself tastes delicious. However, the cake part is very fragile, and I think I might make a few adjustments to the recipe if I were to try it again. On the other hand, making the batter chocolate by stirring in the melted chocolate bar creates an amazing flavor, so definitely keep that part.

In terms of how many raspberries to buy, 48 of them is about what you'd expect to get out a pint box.

Adapted from The Baking Robot.

Blackberry Cornmeal Cupcakes

 

Blackberry Cornmeal Cupcakes

Once again I was traveling this week! These cupcakes are actually an old favorite, and can be made in a single bowl, which makes them ideal for an on-the-road recipe. Since I didn't want to bring my baking tins with me, I decided to use my silicon cups. This is definitely the best experience I've had baking with them; incidentally, it's also the one where I took the time to butter and flour them. Make a huge difference. I should have known.

This recipe is also great with blueberries or other fresh berries.

Cupcakes:

1 1/4 cup flour

1/2 cup cornmeal

2 tsp baking powder

1 1/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup buttermilk

2 eggs

7 tbsp (nearly one stick) of butter, melted and cooled

At least 1 cup of fresh or canned blackberries

Preheat oven to 375 F.

Whisk together buttermilk, eggs, and butter; be sure the butter is cool enough not to cook the eggs, and that the buttermilk is room temperature enough not to curdle the butter.

Sift flour, cornmeal, baking powder and sugar into the butter mixture. Whisk until combined. Mix in 1 cup berries.

Pour batter into baking tins or silicone molds. These cupcakes don't rise much, so you can fill them about as full as you like. Place several berries on top of each portion of batter.

Bake for 12 minutes, turn, bake 12 minutes (10 each if using silicone molds, which are smaller).

Let cool.

Makes 15.

These cupcakes can be eaten as snacks or crumbled over ice cream; they're good warm or cold. The perfect on-the-go cupcake!

Adapted from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes.

Nutella Moon Pie Cupcakes

Nutella Moon Pie Cupcakes

Wow, you guys. Wow. I am a genius. Nutella marshmallow fluff? Genius.

Cupcakes:

2 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 cups sugar

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter

1 cup mashed bananas (about 2 1/2 actual bananas)

1/4 cup buttermilk

1 tsp vanilla

2 eggs

Preheat oven to 350.

Cream butter and sugar. Add in bananas, buttermilk, vanilla, and eggs until well mixed. Sift in flour, baking powder, and baking soda, being careful not to over mix.

Fill cupcake tins about 2/3 full. Bake for 15 minutes, turn, bake 15 minutes.

Let cool.

If your cupcakes overflow the tins -- and mine did, believe me -- your best friend is a small, serrated knife. Use it to trim the edges off the cupcakes so that they are even, as in the picture. This keeps them from looking like terrible deflated mushrooms.

Makes about 15.

Nutella Marshmallow Filling:

2 cups marshmallow fluff

1 cup nutella

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened

Beat the ingredients until fluffy and well combined.

Chocolate Coating:

12 oz semisweet chocolate chips

2 tbsp vegetable oil

Melt the chocolate chips either in a double boiler or the microwave, being careful to stir frequently to prevent burning. Stir in the oil to keep the chocolate from resolidifying. Let cool.

To combine:

Gently core the cooled cupcakes using your weapon of choice -- as always, I prefer a serrated apple corer.

Fill the holes with a generous helping of the nutella mixture, making sure there is a small peak on top of the cupcake. You can use  a piping bag if you would prefer (I didn't feel like doing any more dishes, so I used a spoon).

Holding the cupcake carefully over the bowl of chocolate coating, use a spoon to cover the top of each cupcake, fulling covering it down to the wrapper. You will need to turn it as you do this, and you will have to pay attention and be quick to make sure the filling doesn't melt off into the chocolate while you're working.

After the cupcakes are covered, decorate with small slices of banana and place them in the freezer or refrigerator for about 20 minutes.

When cool, gently peel off the cupcake wrapper so that the chocolate comes down to about the same even place. Feel free to refrigerate as necessary; however, let the chocolate come back to a soft room temperature before serving. It will hold its shape, but be soft enough to eat.

Cupcakes adapted from FoodNetwork.com

Filling by me.

Chocolate Mousse Cupcakes with Marshmallow Frosting

Chocolate Mousse Cupcakes with Marshmallow Frosting

These cupcakes take a bit of work, but they are definitely worth it. The mousse is slightly bittersweet, but balanced nicely by the frosting and the rich devil's food of the cupcakes. If the frosting is too sweet for you -- it was for my mother -- you can leave the cupcakes uniced and just enjoy the pure chocolate goodness.

Cupcakes:

3/8 cup cocoa powder

3/8 cup hot water

1 1/2 cup flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

3/4 cup (1 1/2 stick) butter

1 1/4 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 tbsp vanilla

1 cup sour cream

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Whisk together cocoa and hot water until all lumps are dissolved. Set aside. Sift together flour, baking powder, and baking soda in another bowl and set aside.

Melt butter and sugar in a saucepan over medium-low heat, stirring to keep sugar from burning, until butter is totally melted. Remove saucepan from heat and pour into a mixing bowl. Beat until mixture is somewhat cooled. You want it to be cool enough that when you beat in the eggs, they won't cook from the heat.

Add in eggs, one at a time. Add in vanilla, then cocoa mixture.

Add in flour mixture and sour cream, beating only until ingredients are fully combined.

Fill cupcake tins 2/3 full. Bake 10 minutes, turn tins, bake 10 minutes. Let cool.

Mousse:

1 tbsp cocoa powder

3 tbsp hot water

4 oz (1 bar) bittersweet chocolate, like Ghirardelli.

3/4 cup cold heavy cream

1 tbsp sugar

As with the cupcakes, whisk the cocoa powder and water until smooth and set aside.

Melt chocolate over a double boiler or by putting a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Stir until smooth. Remove from heat and let cool.

In the meantime, whip the cream and sugar. Be careful to time it right and stop as soon as soft peaks form. Otherwise the cream will whip into butter.

Whisk cocoa powder into the melted chocolate, then fold in the whipped cream until the mixture is smooth.

Frosting:

4 oz marshmallow fluff

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, soft

1 tsp almond extract

2 cups xxx sugar

food coloring/decorations, as desired

It's hard to measure ounces on marshmallow fluff, since it doesn't really want to go into a measuring cup or scale, so with that in mind: I used a little more than half of one of those 7 oz jars. Beat together the fluff, butter, and almond extract until creamy. Sift in the xxx sugar.

If the frosting is too thick to pipe, you can add a tablespoon or so of cream. Do this 1 tablespoon at a time.

When the frosting is the right thickness for piping, add any color that you would like.

Putting it together:

Core a hole in the center of each of the cooled cupcakes. I used an apple corer, as pictured, which is still my favorite tool for coring cupcakes, but a small serrated knife also works well.

Fill each hole with a generous helping of mousse, then store cupcakes in the fridge or freezer for about 20 minutes until the mousse is firm enough to pipe over.

Pipe a spiral of frosting over each cupcake, being sure to cover the mousse. Decorate as desired.

Adapted from Lady Behind the Curtain