Madison Avenue Cupcakes

I have a lot to write about considering I have been on multi-city sugar tour/vacation. It's going to take me a few days to review all the delicious place I have been to in the last week. I am going to start with this weekend and work my way back to last Thursday. Sunday I made Madison Avenue Cupcakes for Fathers Day. The recipe was inspired by a cake from Michelle Marie Patisserie called Park Avenue. Madison Avenue Cupcakes are chocolate cupcakes filled with caramel and frosted with vanilla butter cream. It's definitely a sugar overload.

Chocolate cupcake:
1 cup milk
1 tsp vinegar
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup canola oil
2 tsp vanilla
1 cup flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

Preheat oven 350 and prepare muffin tin.
Stir milk and vinegar in bowl of stand mixer, and let stand.
In a separate bowl whisk flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
Add to the bowl of milk the sugar, oil, and vanilla beat until foamy.
Add dry ingredients to the wet in two batches until no longer lumpy. (a few small lumps are ok.)
Pour into prepared muffin tin and bake 18-20 minutes.

 Caramel:
1/2 cup water
2 cups sugar
1 can condensed sweetened milk
1 cup light corn syrup
12 tbsp butter
1 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla

Combine water, sugar, milk, corn syrup, and butter in a large saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat stirring constantly with silicon spatula.
Continue stirring until syrup reaches 235 or soft ball stage.
Remove from heat. Add salt and vanilla.
Store in airtight container in refrigerator.

Vanilla Butter Cream Frosting:
1 cup shortening
1 cup butter softened
8 cups/1 bag powdered sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup heavy cream or milk

In a bowl of a stand mixer cream shortening and butter
Add powdered sugar and beat until well blended.
On low speed add salt vanilla and cream.
Turn to high and beat until fluffy.

Assembling

Twist round cookie cutter into center of the cupcake and pull out. Cut the removed cupcake center in half.  Fill center of the cupcake with caramel and place the top half of center back on top of the cupcake. Frost with butter cream.

You may want to make a dental appointment before making these yummy cupcakes, or perhaps next time make a less sugary frosting. :)

Oreo Truffles

 

I made Birthday Oreo Truffles for a coworker this morning along with more Boston Cream Cupcakes. Oreo Truffles are always a big hit and so easy to make. (My friend made these one year for Christmas and I was hooked, she always makes the easiest and best desserts) This time I tried something new and made a batch with Golden Oreos too. The golden were not very good, but it was worth the try.

Recipe:

 Oreo Truffles

1 package Oreo cookies (Not double stuffed, I grabbed those by accident.)

1 package cream cheese room temperature ( I usually use non-fat, it taste the same just less fattening)

8 oz  white, milk or dark chocolate

1. Crush Oreo cookies in a food processor until fine crumbs

 2. Mix in cream cheese with a rubber spatula until a dough is formed.

 

3. Roll into small balls and refrigerate for several minutes until firm

4. Dip into melted chocolate and sprinkle

Boston Cream Cupcakes

 

Not the quickest dessert to make or lowest in fat, but good none the less.

There are 3 separate recipes to make these cupcakes, but you can spread the recipes between two days to make it easier. I have made these before with other recipes but this time I used America's Test Recipe's.

 Pastry Cream
(I halved the recipe)

2 cups half & half
1/2 cup sugar
pinch salt
5 large egg yolks
3 Tbs cornstarch
4 Tbs cold butter
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1. Heat half & half and 6 tablespoons of sugar and salt in medium saucepan over medium heat until simmering, stirring occasionally.
2. Meanwhile whisk the egg yolks in medium bowl until combined. Whisk in the remaining 2 Tbs sugar until creamy about 15 seconds. Whisk in cornstarch until combined about 30 seconds
3. When half and half reaches full simmer gradually whisk the half and half into yolk mixture to temper. Return to sauce pan and return to simmer over medium heat whisking constantly until few bubbles burst and mixture is thickened.
4. Off the heat whisk in the butter and vanilla. Press plastic wrap on the surface to prevent a skin from forming and refrigerate until cold and set, at least 3 hours up to 2 days.


Yellow Cupcakes

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 stick butter softened
1/2 cup sour cream
1 large egg plus 2 egg yolks at room temperature
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1. Adjust oven rack to middle position and preheat 350. Line muffin tin.
2. Whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a standing mixer. Add butter, sour cream, egg, yolks, and vanilla and beat the wet ingredients into the dry on medium speed for about 30 seconds. Stir by hand until smooth and no flour pockets remain.

 

3. Divide batter into prepared pan. Bake for 20-24 minutes. remove from pan and transfer to cooling rack.

Chocolate Ganache Frosting

1 cup heavy cream
1 cup chocolate chips

1. In a bowl of a standing mixer add the chocolate chips. In another bowl bring cream to simmer in microwave.
2. Add  cream to chocolate chips and let stand for 5 minutes. Whisk until smooth, cover and refrigerate until cool and firm.
3. When cool whip at medium speed until fluffy about 2 minutes.






Assembling
1. Put Pastry Cream and Ganache Frosting in pastry bags.
2. Scoop out the center of the cupcake with a spoon.
3. Fill with pastry cream then cover in frosting.
4. Store in airtight container in refrigerator.
5. Serve before and extra long workout. :)

Divine Delights

I was brought a sweet little treat from my friend "W" on Monday. While out of town she stopped by a favorite place of hers called Divine Delights in Petaluma California.(By the way they deliver.) I got a cute little box with a sweet card filled with petits fours.

I never had petits fours before but have wanted to try them since I was a child. They are so beautiful and make you feel so prim and proper when eating them. "W" hand picked my assortment.

Chocolate, strawberry, lemon, lime, raspberry, and vanilla. They were moist almond flavor butter cakes layered with butter cream and covered in white chocolate. They were almost too cute to eat but I did manage to eat each and everyone of them.  The lemon and lime had a very refreshing flavor. The strawberry remind me of a decadent strawberry shortcake. The beautiful white petit four was vanilla. Then chocolate which was my favorite, creamy chocolaty goodness wrapped up in a tidy bite size package.  If only my daughter wasn't a teenager with opinions of her own, I would love to have and Alice in Wonderland garden party with these displayed on the tables. :)  Oh well, I guess I will have to throw one for myself.

Coconut Lime Truffles

She put the lime in the coconut she drank them both up.

she put the lime in the coconut
she called the doctor, woke him up, and said
"Doctor, ain't there nothing I can take"
I said, "Doctor, to relieve this belly ache?"
I said, "Doctor ain't there nothing I can take"
I said, "Doctor, to relieve this belly ache?"

  

To keep in the Mexico frame of mind I made Coconut Lime Truffles from my Culinary Institute of America cookbook. The first day I made the coconut lime ganache out of coconut milk, heavy cream, corn syrup, lime zest/juice, and white chocolate, and refrigerated it overnight.

The next day I whipped the ganache back up and rolled them out. 

I tempered a mix of vanilla bean white chocolate and regular white chocolate to dip them in.

Once I coated the centers I sprinkled coconut on top.

The recipe was very simple and I like the combination of lime and coconut, they taste like key lime pie, but the final result wasn't the best. I did not like the white chocolate with vanilla bean, it was way to sweet and rich. I also felt it could use more of a coconut flavor, maybe mix shredded coconut in the ganache.

Well one recipe down eighty two more to go until I have made everything in the Culinary Institute of America  Chocolates and Confections cookbook. 

P.S  I accidentally came up with an idea for Coconut Bark. I mixed my leftover coconut and tempered white chocolate together and it was delicious. My thought is to add a layer of dark chocolate with it and maybe even almonds. YUM

Part 2 - You Can't Take Me Anywhere

 

Sunday morning I wake up again at 12:00 am and I can't swallow. Panic floods through me and my mind starts racing, "Oh my gosh I can't swallow, can I breathe? Yes. Why can't I swallow, is my throat swollen now? Calm down breathe through your nose. Oh crap I am in Mexico and my throat is swelling I am going to DIE. No, you're not going to die, you are going to see what the inside of a Mexican hospital looks like, and perhaps get a tracheotomy." Side note: I love Mexico. I love the atmosphere I love the people, I feel at home in Mexico, I love the quaintness of the towns, with that said I don't want to go to a Mexican hospital.(I really don't want to go to a US hospital either, doctors freak me out.)

The conversation in my head continued. "I need that stupid epinephrine pen. Calm down and breathe. If the epinephrine is an adrenaline shot then I guess it's good my heart is racing like this. Okay, am I dying or am I just having some weird sore throat thing?" I got up an went into the bathroom to diagnosis myself. (Apparently I am just as qualified since the allergy specialist diagnosed it "unknown swelling".) From all appearances everything looks fine but the prognosis I gave myself was imminent death.

I went back into the bedroom and woke up my husband and told him what was happening, apparently too calmly, because he just gets me some tap water. When I try to drink it I panic some more because I cant swallow it, it just sits in my mouth with nowhere to go. My next step was the Internet.  "What was the medication I had at home that kind of worked. How do you even say epinephrine in Spanish?" All we keep saying to each other is "what should we do?" I lie down and concentrate on my breathing, and every so often he would say something to make sure I was awake. This wasn't working and I kept going back and forth in my head "Am I dying or am I a hypochondriac?"  I decide to have Mr. Sugartarian go to the guard station at the entrance of the subdivision and ask if any of the 50 pharmacies in a town of 14,000 people are open 24 hours a day. The guard calls the only pharmacy in town that should be open, and of course with my luck they are closed. He offers to call a doctor to come to the house, and we decline. (If I'm just crazy and nothing is really wrong I'm going to need a different type of doctor anyway.) The guard says that there is another pharmacy that should be open 24 hours in another town that is 70 miles and a military check point away. He will have a police officer go and check to see if it's open for us. No thank you, again I don't want to inconvenience someone else if I am just a drama queen. (I do have to say how wonderful all of the people we have met over the years in San Felipe are.)

My husband and dad, who we travel with, thought we should pack up and go home so we would at least be in the U.S. Apparently their heads don't work like mine, "What if we are halfway to the border in the middle of the desert and my throat completely closes, at least here we are surrounded by elderly snowbirds with lots of medication."  We packed up and my husband drove like Robby Gordon (Off-road racer) down the dirt highway across the border. As we crossed the border, my dad driving in front of us told the border patrol we were leaving early because I was sick. When we pull up to the border patrol he asks which one of use was sick, and made some small talk. As we pull away Mr. Sugartarian says you know your dad probably shouldn't have told them you were sick, after the Swine Flu hysteria they might quarantine people who are sick. That would be my kind of luck. They didn't quarantine me and my throat never got worse. By the time we reached Palm Springs it returned to normal. So now I will be going to my local pharmacy and getting one of those stupid epinephrine pens to carry with me. As we sped through the border town of Mexicali I did manage to find and take pictures of my kind of shops.

A Bakery

A Candy Shop

A Smoothie Shop