I once wrote an ode to coconut on my blog because what’s not to love about coconut.

Unbelievably, for every person that I know who loves coconut, I know one more that hates it.

I don’t get it. How can you not love coconut?

I have a theory that much of the coconut-dislike relates to the dried or dessicated forms of coconut that you find in the baking section in most supermarkets. Sweetened shredded for sweetened flaked coconut can be a bit much, especially if it’s of poor quality.

I, however, have no such issues. I will eat coconut in pretty much any form in both sweet and savoury dishes.

When I saw the recipe for Vanilla-Bean Coconut Cupcakes with Coconut Frosting in the April 2009 issue of Bon Appétit, I was particularly intrigued because the recipe calls for reduced coconut milk, which is coconut milk that is cooked down until it’s thickened.

First of all, reduced coconut milk is now my new favourite thing. Secondly, the reduced coconut milk gives these cupcakes both a moistness and an extra boost of coconut flavour. I cannot recommend them highly enough!

As you know, this is my Magazine Mondays post. I don’t always go into the details but basically if you’ve posted a recipe on your blog from a magazine, send the link to me and I’ll include it in my next Magazine Mondays post.

This week I’m joined by Tamy of 3 Sides of Crazy who made Pineapple Cider Brine Pork Chops with Root Beer Pineapple Barbecue Sauce, Broccoli Green Almond Sauté and Strawblackberry Shortcake Topping.

Have a great week, everyone!

Ciao!

I had the opportunity to speak to someone recently about the pleasure of blogging and as I explained, one of the greatest pleasures are the friendships.

Early on in my blogging career, I met Jasmine and consider myself blessed to know her.

In May, she contacted me asking if I’d do her a favour by baking some cupcakes for one of her coworkers. Naturally I said yes and the photo above is the result.

I love baking for people like Jasmine because she is adventurous, whimsical and trusting. When I asked her what sort of cupcake she was looking for her answer was, surprise me.

I love that. I love it because there are so many baking choices out there beyond chocolate and vanilla (not that there’s anything wrong with chocolate and vanilla, mind you). But I also love it because as a baker, it’s your time to shine and try new things.

So I went to the groaning, creaking bookshelf that holds all my cookbooks and flipped through a variety of books before I settled on a recipe for Rose Water and Raspberry Cupcakes. I’ve mentioned this a few times but rose water is THE ingredient of 2009 for me. I’m using it in everything and loving it.

These particular cupcakes were a pleasure for me. They’re what I would call a very “adult” cupcake. Not overtly sweet, the crumb of the cupcake is tender and subtle and the ganache adds just enough sweetness. The rose water and raspberry give the cupcake a very elegant edge.

The nice thing about this sort of baking work is that the pleasure is always all mine.

Ciao!

The recipe for these cupcakes is from the book Cupcakes: Luscious Bakeshop Favorites From Your Home Kitchen by Shelly Kaldunski.

Greeting Cream Puffs in Venice readers,

If you are awake and/or own a computer, you will already know that today is the reveal day for the February 2009 Daring Bakers’ challenge. The individual known to you as Cream Puff is unable to post today so she has arranged for the delivery of a text message from her cell phone via this blog and the autmated blog posting team she has set up for just such emergencies. Please see below for the text of her message:

Hi all my BFFs! Can’t post 2day. Workasaurus attacking again. Help! Send George. Or Brad. Or 007. Didn’t make cake. Made cupcakes 4 u. Yum! Was so good & … oh … wait … Workasaurus on prowl. Hav 2 go. No … wait … wasn’t Workasaurus. That was stomach growling becuz was hungry. LOL!!! OK … TMI … BTW … want 2 thank Wendy & Dharm. Cupcakes EZ to make and delish. Ice cream soooooo good! GRATZ on gr8 challenge! OK now really have 2 go. Luv u 4ever! Will b back when Workasaurus gone. Ciao!

Cream Puff has advised our team to inform you that she prepared Chocolate Valentino Cupcakes with Wendy’s version of the ice cream with the addition of coconut and caramel. Cream Puff has further advised us to tell you that she will provide a recipe when she returns to her regularly scheduled blog posts.

Thank you Cream Puffs in Venice readers. This is an automated post. Please do not reply.

Regards,

Cream Puffs in Venice Automated Blog Posting Team

Note: The February 2009 Daring Bakers’ Challenge was hosted by Wendy of WMPE’s Blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef. They chose a Chocolate Valentino with ice cream on the side. They provided two versions of a basic ice cream recipe for adaptation. Thank you so muhc to Wendy and Dharm for a fabulous challenge!.

I will never forget the first time that I saw a container of Marshmallow Fluff in a grocery store! I was taken aback with mixture of fascination, excitement and disbelief with a little revulsion thrown in. So this is the stuff that goes in Twinkies!!! Now I’ve eaten my fair share of Twinkies over the years but I have to be honest, I’m always mildly horrified by what’s in them. Not that it stops me from eating them, mind you.

We all have our vices, I suppose.

Something made me buy a container of that Fluff stuff so it was only a matter of time before I used it. That happened to be a few weeks ago when I was perusing my magazine pile and came across a recipe that I’d bookmarked from the November 2002 issue of Food & Wine for Chocolate Cupcakes with Cream Filling.

The recipe turned out very well although some of my cupcakes didn’t have a lot of filling as I was afraid that I might actually burst my cupcakes by overfilling them. Overall, though, they were yummy and should I ever be in possession of another container of Marshmallow Fluff I’d try these again.

This is, of course, my Magazine Mondays entry. Here are some other entries for the week from people who have tackled their magazine pile!

Allison at Bake Your Heart Out made some pretty cupcakes from the February 2008 Martha Stewart magazine.

The prolific Wandering Coyote of ReTorte made an Olive & Sun-dried Tomato Spread from Clean Eating magazine.

Remember, if you post a recipe from a magazine, let me know and I’ll link to it in a Magazine Mondays post.

Have a great week, everyone!

Ciao!

Je suis en retard.

I am late.

Sweet (and I mean SWEET) Fanny of Foodbeam was the host for this month’s edition of Sugar High Friday. The deadline was September 26.

But today is September 28.

Hmmm …

Since her theme is cupcakes, I am hoping (quite shamelessly) that I can entice Fanny to include me by bribing her with Cinnamon Cupcakes with Caramel Cream Cheese Frosting.

Here’s hoping it works.

S’il vous plaît, Fanny?

Ciao!

Cinnamon Cupcakes with Caramel Cream Cheese Frosting

For the cupcakes:

I used a basic yellow cake recipe to make these cupcakes. The recipe I used comes from Tish Boyle’s The Cake Book, but you can find great yellow cake recipes all over the web. Try this one, for example. I altered my recipe by baking half of it in mini paper cups and the other half in a 9-inch cake pan.

For the frosting:

1 pckg. cream cheese (8 ounces), at room temperature
1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/4 cup caramel sauce
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup icing sugar

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the cream cheese and butter together at high speed until light (about 2 minutes).

Lower the speed and add the vanilla extract and caramel sauce. Mix well.

With the speed on low, add the icing sugar until incorporated and then increase the speed to high and whip the frosting for 2 minutes.

Apply liberally to the base of your choice. Or eat with spoon.

Enjoy!

There was a time when nary a butterfuly was seen in these parts.

I think it had a lot to do with the widespread use of pesticides which, thankfully, has been curtailed.

In my opinion, the sight of a butterfly flitting around a garden is surely one of Nature’s most beautiful sights.

So when I opened the book Hello, Cupcake! by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson and saw a baking project involving butterflies resting prettily on cupcakes, I knew I had to to try to recreate them.

I received a copy of this book thanks to a lovely person at Houghton Mifflin Company and I couldn’t have been happier to welcome it into my cookbook family.

This is one of those books that makes you want to take a week off work just so you can spend it in your kitchen building cupcake penguins and aliens, among other things.

Seriously. You have to look at this book!

Divided into chapters that focus on different themes likes April Fool’s or Nightmare Before Thanksgiving, the book has numerous baking projects that all use cupcakes as building blocks. Literally.

A thorough introduction that explains the basics of baking and frosting cupcakes is augmented by lots of colour photos and step-by-step instructions for some of the more involved projects. Don’t be intimidated, however. The book teaches you how to use all sorts of everyday treats to make the most incredible things. For example, you can learn how to make perfect little cabbages out of … cornflakes!

I know. I know. It’s earth-shattering.

I think a huge part of the book’s appeal is that even the most inexperienced baker would have a grand time trying out any of these baking projects. The book closes with a variety of recipes for cupcakes and frosting. While there are recipes that call for baking mixes (I’m not a fan), the book does also offer recipes for entirely homemade cupcakes and frostings. Either way, there are options for those who might normally be intimidated by this sort of thing and those that think, “Make a dog out of cupcakes? Why not?!”

I thought the book was fabulous and am very happy that I had the chance to review it. If you have any budding bakers (young or old) in your life or any cupcake fanatics for that matter, this is a book they’d love.

I made my cupcakes with a very basic chocolate cupcake as the base. I used a vanilla buttercream that I tinted yellow as the frosting and a base for butterflies that I had piped and filled using dark chocolate (for the outline) and coloured candy wafers (for the interior of the butterfly).

Believe me when I say they look more complicated than they are. I followed the book’s template for the outline of the butterfly wings and after getting used to (attempting) to pipe in a straight line, I was able to produce them quickly. I filled the interior of the cupcakes and then used a toothpick to swirl the dark chocolate and pink candy coating together. I let the wings set in the refrigerator before placing them atop the cupcakes.

After seeing all those pretty butterflies on the cupcakes, I can’t wait to see all the pretty butterflies in the garden!

Ciao!

What is life without a little bit of the whimsical? The magical? The fanciful?

I think that is perhaps what I love most about the idea of decorating a wee cupcake: it’s an opportunity to let your creative heart out.

Call me silly, but I just can’t help but feel a bit of whimsy these days. Life is crazy as ever and the world is as strange as ever but some things never change.

I can smell spring in the air.

The other day I saw a few brave daffodils insistently pushing their way through the soil.

Today I saw the most perfect pair of summer sandals.

Ah, whimsy!

But whimsy also comes in other forms, namely a cookbook by the name of Little Cakes from the Whimsical Bakehouse: Cupcakes, Small Cakes, Muffins, and Other Mini Treats by Kaye and Liv Hansen.

A very sweet and kind person sent me a copy of this book after reading about my experience baking cupcakes for the wedding of a coworker. I was so touched! I made a promise to myself that I’d take a look at the book and post about it and then work and life got in the way.

Happily, over the past few weeks I had some time to finally look through this book and I have fallen in love with it.

It’s just adorable. Not to mention the fact that it’s filled with some very good recipes for baking basics like buttercream, as well as numerous recipes for all sorts of cakes and treats. The book is organized into a series of “baking projects” that are all accompanied by detailed decorating instructions. Through the miracle of the Internet, those instructions are augmented by The Whimsical Bakehouse’s web site, which has a number of useful videos on how to create various decorative accents.

While I was tempted by many of the projects in this book, the one that drew me in was the “Flower Power” project that features lemon coconut cupcakes decorated with buttercream in the form of a variety of flowers.

For the cupcakes, I adapted the recipe because while I love lemon and I love coconut, in a very strange twist I do not love those two ingredients together. Instead, I created dulce de leche coconut cupcakes by adding a blob of dulce de leche to the base of each of my cupcake liners. I replaced the lemon juice in the recipe with buttermilk to create a very tender crumb. For the buttercream, I used a recipe from the book called “Kaye’s Buttercream” and added coconut extract to augment the coconut flavour.

To decorate the cupcakes, I couldn’t resist trying the rose decoration and the hydrangea decoration. I’m not sure how successful the hydrangea was, but I was very proud of the rose.

This is such a sweet little book. I hope that as spring approaches and everyone’s thoughts turn to lighter days and warmer weather, you’ll take a moment to let some whimsy into your life and perhaps bake a cupcake or two!

Ciao!

Dulce de Leche Coconut Cupcakes
Adapted from Little Cakes from the Whimsical Bakehouse by Kaye and Liv Hansen.

Note: I used mini paper cups to bake these cupcakes. The recipe yielded 36 mini cupcakes. You can also make 12 regular-sized cupcakes. Be sure to grease a muffin tin and line with cupcake liners if you’re making the regular-sized ones. I used a buttercream recipe from the book but I didn’t adapt it in any way so I’m not going to post it here. For a really good buttercream recipe, try this one.

Ingredients:

1-1/2 (12 tbsp.) sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 tbsp. coconut extract
1-1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup buttermilk, at room temperature
1 cup sweetened shredded coconut
1 cup dulce de leche

Method:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Line paper cups on a baking sheet. Place a dollop of dulce de leche in the bottom of each paper cup. Set aside.

In a bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream together the butter and sugar for 3 minutes. The mixture should be pale and fluffy.

With the mixer on low speed, add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Be sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl.

Add the coconut extract and mix well.

Add the dry ingredients to the mixture in three stages, alternating with the buttermilk in between each stage.

Be sure to scrape down the bowl to ensure that the batter is well mixed.

Remove the bowl from the mixer and stir in the coconut.

Spoon the batter into the waiting paper cups. They should be halfway to three-quarters of the way full.

Bake for 20 minutes and check for doneness. If a cake tester doesn’t come out clean, bake for a few more minutes.

Remove the mini cupcakes to a wire rack and let cool completely before frosting.

Enjoy!

Hope the Easter Bunny hops on by!

Ciao!

Easter Egg Nest Cupcakes

Note: If you can’t find superfine sugar (also called fruit sugar), simply put regular sugar in a food processor and process for a few minutes until very fine.

For the cupcakes:

1 stick (8 tbsp.) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup superfine sugar
1 cup all-purpose flour
1-1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

For the chocolate frosting:

1 tbsp. heavy cream (35% cream)
1/2 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
sweetened shredded coconut (for garnish)
mini chocolate eggs (for garnish)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. and lightly grease the top part of a 12-cup muffin tin (but you will only be using 9 of the cups).

Line 9 of the muffin cups with paper cup liners and set the tin aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, using the paddle attachment, combine the butter, sugar, flour, baking powder, salt, eggs and extract. Mix on low speed for a minute until the ingredients start to come together.

Increase speed to medium high and beat for three minutes.

Spoon the batter equally among the 9 muffin cups.

Bake for 20 minutes and check that the cupcakes are done by inserting a toothpick into the centre of one. If it comes out clean, the cupcakes are done. They should also be quite springy to the touch.

Remove to a cooling rack and let the cupcakes cool in the tin for 15 minutes. Carefully remove the cupcakes from the tin and let them cool completely before making the chocolate frosting.

For the frosting, place the heavy cream and chocolate chips in a small pan. Melt the chips over low heat until the mixture is smooth. Remove from the heat and let cool for a couple of minutes.

Spread the frosting equally over the cupcakes and then garnish with coconut and mini eggs, or however you wish.

Enjoy!

Technorati tags: Easter, Pasqua, cupcakes

For those of you that visit often you’ll know that last year I had my first experiences baking and being paid for it and those experiences sowed the seeds of a goal of mine: to start a baking/catering business from home.

While those were heady experiences, they didn’t really amount to anything and that’s mostly my fault. After the initial euphoria faded, I became busy with other aspects of my life and didn’t focus on my goal to begin creating a business plan that included this blog.

I put aside important items on my “business to-do” list like creating proper business cards, working out a fee schedule and figuring out how I could use my blog to advertise what I want to do.

So in early December, a wave of guilt hit me. This was quickly followed by a sense of hopelessness as I wondered where my next opportunity would come from. And then, into this baking gloom, wandered my dear coworker L. who made me an offer I couldn’t refuse: bake 50 cupcakes for her wedding!

Half of the cupcakes L. ordered were to be a citrus flavour and the other half were to be mocha or chocolate. The cupcakes, to be baked in silver liners, were to be decorated with icing flowers, half with yellow flowers and the other half with blue.

And that’s it. The rest was up to me!

At first this terrified me. At one point I started inundating L. with questions about icing … did she want a traditional buttercream or a swiss buttercream? How about an Italian meringue icing? Or did she think her guests might like a cream cheese icing? When I saw the glazed look in her eyes, that’s when I knew that it was time to stop being a wimp and step up to the baking challenge!

Summing up my own baking experience in the little Cream Puff kitchen, I first decided that the best flavour combination would be orange cupcakes and chocolate cupcakes. For the orange cupcakes, I used a very basic butter cake recipe to which I added orange zest, fresh orange juice and a bit of Grand Marnier to make the cupcakes a bit more appropriate for the occasion. For the chocolate cupcakes, I went with a basic chocolate cake to which I added Frangelico, which is a hazelnut-flavoured liqueur. I think chocolate and coffee make a marvelous duo (this is for a wedding after all) and thought the Frangelico would be a nice touch.

Deciding what to make for the base of the cupcakes was the easy part. The icing was a bit more challenging. L. specified that she was looking for a light-coloured icing for both sets of cupcakes. I settled on what has become my new all-start favourite icing in the world: the buttercream icing from Nick Malgieri’s Perfect Cakes. I was introduced to this icing about a month ago in the Daring Baker’s December challenge.

This buttercream starts off with egg whites, sugar and a pinch of salt that are heated over hot water. The mixture is then transferred to a mixer and beaten until the egg whites thicken and cool. At that point you begin adding the butter … lots o’ butter. After another almost 10 minutes, you have a buttercream that is thick, silky and a joy to work with. For the orange cupcakes, I flavoured the buttercream with vanilla extract and a drop of orange oil. For the chocolate cupcakes, I used vanilla extract only. I briefly toyed with the idea of adding some more liqueur to the icing for the chocolate cupcakes but decided against it.

Having navigated the cupcake and icing waters, it was time to turn to the final obstacle: decorating the cupakes. Yikes!

My decorating skills are mediocre at best. I try to make things look interesting and like to use embellishments that strike my fancy, but I realized that if I’m going to make a business out of this, I’ve got to work on some basic decorating skills.

Thanks to a gift from my cousin, I took some basic Wilton cake decorating courses a while ago. So I pulled out the little kit that came with the course, logged on to the Wilton web site, and launched my decorating career.

I knew that L. wanted yellow flowers for the orange cupcakes. At first I thought I’d do something simple that wouldn’t cause me too much heartache but then I came across the pattern for sunflowers. After reading the directions I decided that at the very least, I could give this a try. I made up a batch of royal icing, tinted most of it yellow (petals) and some of it brown (flower centre) and off I went. While my first few “sunflowers” were laughable, over the course of the next few hours, they got better. In fact, I made quite a few pretty sunflowers so that I actually had enough to decorate 30 cupcakes. My hand was ready to fall off from squeezing the piping bag, mind you, but no one ever said success came easy!

For the chocolate cupcakes, L. specified that she wanted blue flowers. I decided to go with a very pretty and elegant flower, the Forget-Me-Not, which I tinted blue. After conquering the sunflowers, these were considerably more straightforward.

When it came time to ice the cupcakes, I decided go for two different looks. While I’ve never met L.’s partner, I’ve known L. for many years and know her to be a very funny person with a very unique outlook. With this in mind, I wanted the orange cupcakes to bring a smile to everyone’s face. So I started with a thin icing base to which I added an icing mound (or mountain as I like to think of it). I planted the sunflower at the base of the mountain and added some leaves. I crowned the “mountains” with some orange peel.

I wanted to give the chocolate cucpakes a wintry feel as well. I iced the cupcakes with a layer of rosettes and then piped a large rosette in the centre on top of which I carefully lay the blue flowers. I wanted to take a better picture of the chocolate cupcakes but when I removed the lid for the orange cupcakes, it broke, and I was afraid the same would happen with the chocolate cupcakes. So I took a picture through the lid as best I could.

Okay. So I’m never going to win cake decorator of the year. But I certainly tried my best. And in the end, I thought the cupcakes looked great if I may say so myself.

I have to tell you … I’m exhausted. There’s a coat of sugar on pretty much everything in our kitchen. I think I’ve been to about 20 stores in the last three days looking for various items for the cupcakes. And I’ve also discovered that gel food colouring stains. Badly.

But you know what, I’m thrilled, too. I’m exhilarated, in fact. I feel like I climbed that icing mountain!

Ciao!

After a three-week hiatus, Magazine Mondays returns! I’m happy to put another magazine that has been languishing in what I now affectionately call, “the basket where magazines go to die,” to rest.

When it comes to recipes, I am nothing if not melodramatic.

This time around it’s the December 2006 issue of Food & Wine magazine and the recipe for Devil’s Food Cupcakes with Espresso Meringue.

Oh, baby!

Excuse the ineloquence but hot damn … these were good!

Densely rich and chocolatey (that’s how I like my cupcakes thank you very much), the meringue was light and not too sweet thanks to the touch of espresso powder.

I wanted to eat them all but bearing in mind that in a few short days I will be making an appearance on the beaches of Miami in a bathing suit, I limited myself to one.

I don’t want to frighten the good people of Miami anymore than necessary. They’ll be scared enough as it is.

On another less frightening note, I’ve noticed that some of you have put up Magazine Mondays posts of your own. If you let me know about them, I’ll happily link to them in my own posts.

Have a great week everyone!

Ciao!

For the cupcake recipe, click here.

Magazine Mondays on Other Blogs:

More Than Burnt Toast featured some Ranch Mashed Potatoes.