Lion Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Cupcakes

 

Last week was my boyfriend's birthday :)  So for his birthday, I decided to make him some lion cupcakes :) 

I got the idea for decorating them from this video, which gave really good detailed instructions on how to do it.  The face was hand shaped out of a softened caramel candy with details piped in with black icing.  I used a Wilton's grass tip to make the 'hair' for the lion's mane.  

Since his favourite chocolate is Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, I decided to make Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Cupcakes.  They are just as they sound, a chocolate cupcake with a Peanut Butter Cup inside!     

These cupcakes were moist, similar to the cake from the cupcake tower, probably because they both contain sour cream.

The peanut butter cup makes them very rich, but delicious :)

For the icing, I made a peanut butter frosting, which is like an American buttercream but with some of the butter replaced with peanut butter!  It had a nice flavour without being overwhelmingly peanut buttery.

Since I was just making 6 cupcakes, I got a new 6 cup muffin tray.  I could have just used the full 12 cup tray and filled the extras with water, but with this smaller size, I could do my baking in the convection toaster oven :)  I tend to do as much baking as I can in the toaster oven, so I can conserve energy.  I've done cakes, pies and cookies in it and they have all turned out well.  If what I'm making fits in the toaster oven, I'll bake it in there :)


Recipe:
Adapted from Cooks Illustrated

Yield: 6 cupcakes

Cupcake:
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1 oz bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
1/4 cup Dutch-processed cocoa
6 tbsp all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 large egg, at room temperature
6 tbsp granulated sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup sour cream
6 Reese's Peanut Butter Cups

Peanut Butter Frosting:
1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup of cream peanut butter
1 1/4 cups powdered sugar
1 tbsp heavy cream

Decoration:
12 soft caramel candies
black icing

1.  To make the cupcakes: preheat the oven (toaster oven in my case) to 350 degrees F. Line a 6-cup muffin tin with paper liners. Set aside.

2.  Place butter, chocolate and cocoa powder in a medium heatproof bowl.  Microwave in 30 second intervals, stirring in between, until butter and chocolate are melted and mixture is smooth.

3.  In a small bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, and baking powder.

4.  Whisk the eggs in a medium bowl to combine, then add the sugar, vanilla and salt and continue whisking until fully incorporated. Add the cooled chocolate mixture to the bowl and whisk to combine.

5.  Add one-third of the flour mixture into the bowl and whisk gently to combine. Add the sour cream and whisk to combine. Finally, add the the rest of the flour mixture into the bowl and whisk until everything is well combined.

7. Place a spoonful of batter into each cupcake liner. Place a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup on top of the batter. Cover the peanut butter cups with remaining batter, filling each about 2/3 full. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cupcakes comes out clean, about 18-20 minutes. Remove the pan to a wire rack and let the cupcakes cool for a few minutes before removing them to a wire rack to cool completely.

8.  Beat butter and peanut butter until creamy. Slowly add in powdered sugar. Mix until combined and add the heavy cream. Mix until frosting is fluffy.

6. Pipe cooled cupcakes with the peanut butter frosting and decorate as shown in video link above.

Rosette Cupcake Tower

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine asked me to make her birthday cake :) I was excited as this was my first actual cake order!  She requested a chocolate cake with vanilla icing and red velvet cupcakes.  She asked that the cake be green and the cupcakes to be blue, yellow and green, other than that she's really easy going and gave me a lot of freedom with it.  Here's how it turned out.

The cake was 3 layers of Extreme Chocolate Cake with Italian meringue buttercream icing.  The 24 cupcakes were Red Velvet with cream cheese icing. 

The cakes and cupcakes were all decorated with rosettes.  If your remember, I like the rose cake and have made it before in Week 4 of Baking Arts.  I tried to improve on it by making the colours have a gradient, with a darker green on the bottom, but it ended up looking like the middle colour was the same as the bottom colour :( I still think it looks pretty though.

I had some problems with the cream cheese icing for the cupcakes holding it shape when it was piped because it was too soft.  If you look at some of the cupcakes, there isn't too much definition on the rose, so I think next time I make this recipe I will use more powdered sugar to stiffen it.

The cake turned out very moist, I find the sour cream really makes it almost a fudgey consistency :)   

Caramel Crunch Cake

I realize I haven't posted anything in a while, its not that I have stopped baking since class ended, just that I haven't been taking pictures and writing!

This week, I had an order for a Caramel Crunch Cake :)  I made my own spin on the La Rocca Caramel Crunch Cake (see pic below) that are in most grocery stores which consists of layers of almond meringue, caramel and whipped cream.

I started with the meringue.  I ground up a mixture of almonds and pecans in the food processor until it was a fine powder.  It wasn't getting as fine as I would like so I further pulsed it with cornstarch.  Once this was done, I put it through a medium strainer to get out any remaining lumps.  With the mixer, I whipped the egg whites to stiff peaks, which actually took almost 8 minutes on high to get the right consistency.  After folding in the nut mixture gently, the mixture was divided and spread into three 11" squares.  It's easiest to get the dimensions right if its marked on the underside of the parchment you are spreading it on.

While the meringues were in the oven, I started on the butterscotch caramel.  My first batch actually didn't turn out well since I burned the caramel and it crystalized...so I started again.  The second batch worked out much nicer, but I forgot to take pictures.  I made it fairly light and added a bit of salt at the end to give it a salty caramel flavour.

Next, the whip cream...such a simple thing, yet it tastes so yummy.  I added a pack of Whip-It to the cream just to make sure it was stable enough to hold up during the travel and until the next day.  Also, I switched out the traditional vanilla with cognac, since I've used it in ice cream before and found it really elevated the flavour. Although I only used one tablespoon, I think I went a little overboard with it, one teaspoon is more than enough. 




Once the meringues were out of the oven and cooled, I assembled the cake by layering one of the meringues, a thin layer of butterscotch caramel, a layer of whipped cream and repeating until all of the meringues were used.  Its not a big deal if the meringue cracks or breaks during assembly since the cream covers all of that.  Overall this cake wasn't too difficult and was easily done in one night with no previous prep work.  I think I will make this again as everyone seemed to really like it :)

Inspired by: http://gnufmuffin.blogspot.ca/2006/03/cakes-ctom-1-crunchy-caramel-cake.html

My Modified Recipe

Meringue

100g almonds
20g pecans (any mixture of 120g of nuts should work)
8 egg whites
30g cornstarch
450g sugar
1 tsp vanilla

1.  Draw three 11" squares on parchment paper
2.  Grind almonds, pecans and cornstarch in food processor until a fine powder and sift through a medium strainer
3.  Whip egg whites to a foam, then slowly add sugar.  Continue whipping until meringue forms stiff peaks
4.  Mix in vanilla
5.  Gently fold in nut mixture by hand
6.  Spread meringue onto the prepared parchment paper
7.  Bake at 250F for 90 minutes until meringue is dry
8.  Turn off heat and let cool in the oven for 30 minutes


Butterscotch Caramel

900g sugar
200g water
350g 35% cream
110g unsalted butter
8g salt

1.  Heat the cream just until scalded; set aside
2.  Cook sugar and water until light golden colour (wash sides of pot down with a brush to prevent crystalization)
3.  Remove from heat
4.  Mix in cream until blended
5.  Mix in butter and salt until blended
6.  Pour caramel onto baking tray to cool


Chantilly Cream

1000g 35% cream
50g sugar
1 package Whip-It
1 tsp cognac (can be substituted with vanilla)

1.  Place sugar and cream in a mixing bowl and whip to medium firm peaks
2.  Add Whip-It and mix until blended
3.  Mix in cognac


Assembly

1.  Place a layer of meringue on the cake board
2.  Spread a thin even layer of butterscotch caramel on the meringue
3.  Spread an even layer of cream on top (can use a #9 plain piping tip for this)
4.  Repeat steps 1-3 for 2nd and 3rd meringues
5.  Drizzle extra butterscotch caramel on top

Week 12: Strawberry Shortcake

It was the final week :( I'm really going to miss class and baking every Wednesday.  I've learned a lot, so I'm definitely going to take more classes, just not sure which ones yet, maybe Cakes I, Pies or Pastry?

The "Strawberry Shortcake" we made this week was really more of a yellow sponge cake with strawberries and cream, since traditional strawberry shortcake is more of a biscuit with the strawberries and cream.  Even though we made a simpler version of the traditional cake, it still turned out pretty nicely. 

We started out making the cake, which was an egg foam batter, similar to the swiss roll recipe.  I learned from the swiss roll that egg foams can tend to be a little dry, so I made sure I remembered to use lots of simple syrup when layering.

While the cakes were baking, we made whipped cream, sliced strawberries and dipped strawberries in chocolate.  Once the cakes were baked and placed in the blast chiller for a few minutes, we cut each cake into 3 layers and started layering.

The layers were yellow sponge covered in rum flavoured simple syrup, a thin layer of whipped cream and then an even layer of sliced strawberries.

We decorated the cake similarly to the black forest but learned to use a comb on the side.  The metal comb was used to create ridges.  The comb is kind of tricky to use as you need to have a thick coating of cream on the side so when you pull the comb through, you don't see cake, but when there is too much cream, it makes it a little difficult to the make the ridges look even.

Since class has ended and it may be a little while until I take another one, I will keep baking and posting about what I make...so feel free to make suggestions on things you would like to see :) Thanks for reading!

Week 11: Fruit Flan Tart

This week was fruit flan tarts.  The class ran a little differently since we had a substitute instructor.  Our instructor for the day usually teaches apprentices and ran the class on a much stricter schedule.  She had set times for demos and was very particular that our tarts look professional.  Here's how it went...

We actually started this a few weeks ago during cookie week.  We made the tart crust in advance so it would have time to chill.

A trick the instructor taught us is when you are going to put anything in the freezer that you want to eventually defrost, flatten it out first so that it'll thaw out quicker.

While the crust was thawing, I started on the pastry cream.  I boiled the milk, sugar and vanilla bean for a while.  To start, I used a rinsed saucepan since the water helps the milk not to burn.

I tempered the eggs and cornstarch with the hot milk then brought everything back to a boil while continuously whisking.  Once it had thickened, I cooled it in the fridge and started rolling out the dough for the crust.

I rolled it fairly thin and placed it into shells.  I covered it with plastic wrap and filled them with navy beans.  The navy beans could be replaced with almost anything dry.  They are there to make sure the tart shell doesn't collapse on itself while baking or puff up too much.

Once the shell had finished blind baking for a few minutes.  I removed the beans and chilled the shells briefly and then coated the insides of the tart with melted white chocolate.  The white chocolate helps prevent the bottom from becoming soggy.

I whipped the chilled pastry cream again and filled the tarts.  After slicing fruit, I arranged them on the top then brushed some apricot glaze on the top.  There was an option for sliced almonds as well, but I decided to go simple this time.




 

Toronto Blue Jays Birthday Cake

I was asked by a friend to make her birthday cake and she requested a Toronto Blue Jays Cake!






So, I attempted my first frozen buttercream transfer.  After watching a lot of youtube videos...here's how it turned out:










I printed out a mirror image of the Blue Jays logo, covered it in wax paper and started to trace it in icing.  The layering or order of colours needs to be done so that the details aren't lost when doing larger sections.










If attempting to do this, it is important to use a buttercream that is at least 50% butter to shortening or it will not freeze solid, making it difficult to remove from the wax paper and transfer to the cake.






The cake was 3 - 9 inch layers of swiss chocolate cake, filled with an italian chocolate buttercream and covered in an italian vanilla buttercream.  The buttercream was made by whipping egg whites to stiff peaks, slow adding sugar that has been cooked to a soft ball stage and then whipping in butter once the temperature has come down.  The timing in making this icing is critical as you don't want to over whip the whites as you are waiting for the sugar to cook.

After the cake was torted, filled and masked.  I covered the sides in some coloured sugar.  Then it was time to take the frozen buttercream transfer out of the freezer and place immediately onto the cake.  It is important not to let the transfer sit out more than a few seconds as it will start to melt and may warp the image as you take it off of the wax paper.

I finished with a simple shell border around the logo and bottom and that was it :)

Week 10: Chocolate Swiss Roll

It was another busy week with the chocolate swiss rolls.  I had a substitute partner this week, who was there from another class, so it was nice to share the workload.


The cake part of this recipe was fairly simple with only 4 ingredients: eggs, sugar, cocoa and flour.  We started by making an egg foam with the eggs and sugar, this was whisked until it really increased in volume.  The flour and cocoa was folded in by hand to ensure the egg foam didn't deflate or over mix.

With an egg foam batter, it is important to work quickly as the batter is continuously deflating until it is in the oven.

The batter was baked on a large sheet pan covered in parchment paper.  Baking a thin cake allows for easy rolling but I also think it leads to the cake baking slightly dry, but this can be fixed with lots and lots of simple syrup.

Next was the chocolate glaze.  We boiled some heavy cream with glucose and added that to dark chocolate.  The glucose was added to make the chocolate glossy.  This was set aside to cool while we made the Italian chocolate buttercream to go inside the roll.

The buttercream was my favourite part!  I'm never going back to the standard American Buttercream made with just butter and icing sugar again.

With Italian buttercream, since the sugar is cooked and slowly added to the whipped egg whites, the icing turns out much smoother.  Adding lots of butter, makes it very silky.

Before spreading the icing, I brushed a heavy amount of brandy flavoured simple syrup over the entire cake to keep it moist.  The buttercream was spread fairly thinly over the cake, but next time, I will spread it even thinner since it makes the rolling much easier.

I sprinkled a few raspberries and toasted hazelnuts inside, then rolled up the cake.  Once I made the rolling as tight as possible, I masked it with more buttercream :)  Last step was to drizzle chocolate glaze on top and decorate with chocolate accents, raspberries and hazelnuts.

Since I made the mistake of piping buttercream onto chocolate glaze that wasn't fully cooled, my buttercream rosettes slipped off of one of the swiss rolls and I had to redecorate.  This is how it turned out...