Chocolate Marshmallow Cupcakes

I actually made these for 4th of July. They're marshmallow filled chocolate cupcakes with chocolate buttercream frosting! I colored the marshmallow with red and blue food coloring, and piped it into the center in layers, but in most of them you couldn't tell. Anyway, my point is colored marshmallow filling is fun for holidays!



Btw, this is my favorite chocolate cupcake recipe ever, it comes out excellent every time. As for the marshmallow recipe, the marshmallow filling came out well, but I found the directions for the ganache frosting a little...sparse... I didn't understand it had to completely cool or chill before it could be whipped, and I ended up wasting it, it never firmed up. No worries though! I fell back on my favorite chocolate buttercream recipe and piped it on in little dots since I was afraid I would run low. Everyone thought that was super fancy and cute apparently, so I'll definitely do it again!

Marshmallow Chocolate Cupcakes
Makes 24 standard sized cupcakes

For the chocolate cupcakes
Adapted from Ming Makes Cupcakes

1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup buttermilk
6 heaping tablespoons cocoa
2 sticks butter
1 cup water
2 cups sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla

1. Preheat oven to 350 and place paper cupcake liners in pan.
   
2. In a small bowl, dissolve baking soda in room-temperature buttermilk.
   
3. In a saucepan, melt butter and cocoa together at a low temperature. Whisking until smooth.
4. Add water and whisk to combine.
5. In a separate bowl, whisk together sugar, flour, and salt.
   
6. Add cocoa mixture and egg and mix at low speed.
   
7. Add buttermilk mixture and vanilla and beat until smooth.
   
8. Bake for 20 minutes or until inserted toothpick comes out clean

For the marshmallow filling
From Swanky Pear

1 - 7 oz container marshmallow cream
1/2 cup softened butter
1/3 cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon water
1/4 teaspoon salt

1. Combine marshmallow cream and butter. Beat together until smooth
2. Add water and salt
3. Slowly add powdered sugar and beat until creamy

Fill cupcakes
When cupcakes have completely cooled, cut out a "cone" from the center of the cupcake. Cut of the bottom of the "cone" and keep the "hat." Spoon a bit of the cookie dough filling into the cupcake and replace the hat. Some nice photos of this method can be found in this post for boston cream cupcakes.

For the frosting
From Cooks.com

6 tablespoons butter
1 cup powdered sugar
4 tablespoons cocoa
2 to 3 tablespoons milk

1. Cream the butter.
2. Combine the sugar and cocoa.
3. Slowly add the sugar and cocoa mixture to the butter and continue beating
4. Add milk one tablespoon at a time to thin frosting if necessary

Easter Baking Part 1: Homemade Cadbury Egg Cream Cupcakes

I've seen a lot of great inspiration for Cadbury egg cupcakes this year, but I admit I do sort of want to pat myself on the back for these! I made the filling from scratch (to me it tastes just like the cream inside of the chocolate Cadbury eggs!), and cored about 2 dozen minis, then colored part of the filling to look like the yolk and piped the center into each one. Piping tiny egg yolks is when I started to wonder if I was a little bit crazy, but no! They were worth it and were a big hit!




Mini Chocolate Cadbury Egg Cupcakes
Yields about 2 dozen minis

For the chocolate cupcakes
Adapted from Ming Makes Cupcakes

1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup buttermilk
6 heaping tablespoons cocoa
2 sticks butter
1 cup water
2 cups sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla

1. Preheat oven to 350 and place paper cupcake liners in pan.
   
2. In a small bowl, dissolve baking soda in room-temperature buttermilk.
   
3. In a saucepan, melt butter and cocoa together at a low temperature. Whisking until smooth.
4. Add water and whisk to combine.
5. In a separate bowl, whisk together sugar, flour, and salt.
   
6. Add cocoa mixture and egg and mix at low speed.
   
7. Add buttermilk mixture and vanilla and beat until smooth.
   
8. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until inserted toothpick comes out clean

For the Cadbury egg cream filling
Adapted from Food.com

1/2 cup light corn syrup
1/4 cup butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 cups powdered sugar
1 - 2 tablespoons milk
Yellow food coloring

1. Cream the butter in a large bowl
2. Add the corn syrup, vanilla and salt and beat until smooth.
3. Slowly add the powdered sugar and beat until creamy
4. Add the milk a little at a time until a consistency you can pipe easily is reached.
5. Remove about 1/4 of the sugar mixture and place in a small bowl
6. Add the yellow food coloring to the 1/4 sugar mixture you just set aside and mix well

Fill the cupcakes!

1. When cupcakes have completely cooled, put them in the fridge for 10 min or so until they firm up a bit. This cake is delicious and moist and can be a bit crumbly.
2. Fill one pastry bag with the white Cadbury egg cream, and a second pastry bag with the yellow cream.
   
3. Once the cupcakes are sufficiently cold, cut out a "cone" from the center of the cupcake.
   
4. Cut off the bottom of the "cone" and keep the "hat." (I usually eat the cones...or put them in a bowl to make a parfait out of later!)
   
5. Pipe a layer of white cream into the center of the hollowed out cupcake. Then pipe a bit of the yellow cream in the center for the yolk. Then pipe some more of the white on top to cover the yolk, then replace the cupcake hat! Some nice photos of the cone/hat method can be found in this post for Boston cream cupcakes if you like!

Here's my Cadbury egg filling assembly line. It is a little crazy, I know!



For the chocolate buttercream frosting
Adapted from Cooks.com

9 tablespoons butter
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
6 tablespoons cocoa powder
3 - 4 tablespoons milk

1. Cream the butter in a mixer
2. In a separate bowl, combine sugar and cocoa.
3. Add sugar/cocoa mixture to the butter
4. Slowly add the milk little by little until a nice texture for frosting is reached.
5. Frost your minis!
   

Chocolate Chocolate Cookie Dough Filled Cupcakes

These are chocolate cupcakes, with chocolate chocolate chip cookie dough filling, frosted with brown sugar chocolate chip cookie frosting! OMG! So good, I die.



The chocolate cake recipe I used is THE BEST I have ever tried. I had intended to put mini chips in the batter, but it is a very thin batter, so the chips would likely sink to the bottom. If you have a chocolate cake recipe you love that would support the chips, go ahead and throw then in!

Note that I adapted the recipes by doubling the cupcake recipe and halving the cookie dough filling and frosting recipes.

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes

For the chocolate cupcakes
Adapted from Ming Makes Cupcakes

1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup buttermilk
6 heaping tablespoons cocoa
2 sticks butter
1 cup water
2 cups sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla

1. Preheat oven to 350 and place paper cupcake liners in pan.
   
2. In a small bowl, dissolve baking soda in room-temperature buttermilk.
   
3. In a saucepan, melt butter and cocoa together at a low temperature. Whisking until smooth.
4. Add water and whisk to combine.
5. In a separate bowl, whisk together sugar, flour, and salt.
   
6. Add cocoa mixture and egg and mix at low speed.
   
7. Add buttermilk mixture and vanilla and beat until smooth.
   
8. Bake for 20 minutes or until inserted toothpick comes out clean

For the chocolate chocolate chip cookie dough filling
Adapted from Frosted!

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 tablespoons light brown sugar, packed
1 1/2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
3.5 oz. sweetened condensed milk
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup mini semisweet chocolate chips

1. Combine the butter and sugars in a mixing bowl and cream on medium-high speed until light and fluffy.
   
2. Beat in the flour, sweetened condensed milk and vanilla until incorporated and smooth.
3. Stir in the chocolate chips.
   
4. Cover with plastic wrap and chill until ready to use.

Fill with cookie dough!
When cupcakes have completely cooled, cut out a "cone" from the center of the cupcake. Cut of the bottom of the "cone" and keep the "hat." Spoon a bit of the cookie dough filling into the cupcake and replace the hat. Some nice photos of this method can be found in this post for boston cream cupcakes.

For the frosting
Adapted from Frosted!

1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
6 tablespoons cup light brown sugar, packed
1 3/4 cups confectioners’ sugar
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 tablespoons milk (or a touch more if necessary)
1 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Beat together the butter and brown sugar until creamy.
   
2. Mix in the confectioners’ sugar until smooth.
   
3. Beat in the flour and salt.
   
4. Mix in the milk and vanilla extract until smooth and well blended.
5. Frost away!
   

my first french macarons: pumpkin with cinnamon buttercream filling

I love mini desserts. I haven't known about french macarons for long but they're so damn cute I had to learn how to make them. in googling some recipes I saw another blogger mention this book, I Love Macarons by Hisako Ogita which is apparently the macaron bible. Although I have a wishpot which is mostly books, I've sort of sworn off buying baking books or magazines, since there's ssssooooooooo many recipes online. But since my new obsession I decided to stop by Barnes and Noble to see if they had any macaron-ing books, and it was there!

I actually brought it home and read it. Like from cover to cover. I read a review on it later which said something about it originally being published in Japanese? Then translated...this was clearly translated. :o)

Anyway, on to the macarons!


I am pretty impressed they worked the first time around! It was not without incident though. In the book, she describes this method for making butter cream where you make syrup (I guess) by microwaving the hell out of sugar and water for 4 minutes!? This is crazy, I actually did it and burned the hell out of the sugar, surprise, and thought my measuring cup was not going to be salvaged. It was, but that's just a bad idea.

I stuck a bunch of sticky notes all over the pages as well, here are what some of them said, in case you're a first time macaron maker as well:

1. Seriously...just sift it (she says sift the almond meal and powdered sugar twice, i half assedly did it once...but it makes it much lighter and fluffier...so just sift it, once should do it...)
2. Cut the damn parchment so it's flat, otherwise macarons may run when piped
3. Don't pipe onto the same side as the circles are drawn on, it comes off on the macron, oops. Either flip parchment over or make a template on a new piece of paper that you remove after piping.
4. When getting ready to stir 15 or 20 (or whatever gets the job done, hello) times, add the food coloring at this point
5. When piping, don't swirl. pipe straight down until it spreads out and fills the circle
6. Really, make sure the oven racks are in the center, my bottom rack burned. And check em! Mine baked way faster than 15 minutes

Those are my macaron gems of wisdom for you.


But beware when good macarons go bad. Here's what happened to mine that were on the bottom rack and piped by swirling, it's hard to look at...


Yikes! Sad... this one is better. :o) They even baked up with the little "foot," without which they can't be called macarons apparently. They're (by "they" I guess I mean the French?) referring to the little crinkley baked up looking part at the bottom of the macaron.


Oh, by the way, to get the pumpkin flavor I used two teaspoons of pureed pumpkin added to the meringue. I have many many bags of pumpkin puree, as it is also the first year I've pureed my own pumpkins and Dave bought me 3. :o) We'll be having pumpkin treats until into the new year I think. :o)

Also here is the recipe I used for the cinnamon buttercream. Good, but super sweet, maybe too sweet? I made a note to try with less sugar next time. Dave confirmed the macrons over all had a nice pumpkin pie taste, so for my first time these were certainly a success. I've decided this winter will be the year of the macaron, so I have more macaron plans to come.

One more sexy macaron picture and the rest are on flickr.

heart shaped 40th anniversary boston cream cupcakes

My parents were married 40 years in September! Dave and I joined them for dinner Sunday night and I made Boston cream cupcakes from a magazine my mom bought. My dad had book marked the recipe for me since he knows about me and cupcakes :o)


The cupcakes are filled by cutting out the center and slicing away the "cupcake innards," then filling with pastry cream the putting the cupcake top back on. I was pretty sure it would work best with full sized cupcakes so I broke out my heart shaped pan and did the rest in minis. Since I do love minis so.

My only real issue was they're baked without wrappers so the glaze can run amok down the sides, but the edges got a little dark on some of the minis. :o/ Not sure if it was the pans, position of the oven rack or what, because it varied by pan, but most came out good enough!

I thought I'd try piping the filling in on the minis, but no luck, since the cake is denser to support the filling, I ended up "coring" and filling them by hand too. I think it was 1:00 am by the time I finished. Plus I got excited to fill the cupcakes since this was my first filled cupcake, and I filled them all before making the glaze, then realized the glaze is supposed to sit. wah.

Here's my play by play for filling:

1) Slice out cupcake center


2) Slice away middle and save to layer with pastry cream and chocolate glaze for parfait later! :oD


3) Fill!


4) Reassemble the cuppity cake


Fabulous! Here's how they look cut into.


They're best at room temperature so the filling becomes pudding like, but we kept them in the fridge, and it was really hard waiting until they came back to room temp before consuming. The minis especially, you can eat them in one bite. Totally make the effort to fill them with as much pastry cream as possible, that stuff is orgasmic and it's what makes these cupcakes extra amazing.

More in the flickr page, as usual, plus a bunch of fall baking I have yet to post!