Nutella Buttercream

I had to make cupcakes the other day on sort of short notice with little time to do anything really fancy. I settled on the old go to - vanilla bean cupcakes and chocolate frosting - but decided to throw the chocolate icing a little twist.

I added nutella.

Is your mouth watering now?

There was enough of the stuff left over after piping it onto my cupcakes that I saved it in the fridge.  And, lucky for me, a little low blood sugar later and I was able to dive right into that frosting for a quick boost of glucose.

It tasted like fudge.  On ecstasy.

Absolutely divine I tell you.

Go ahead and make some for yourself today.  Just make a basic chocolate butter cream but add 1/2-3/4 nutella into the mix.

A little bit of baking

May was a big month for baking in our house. Here are a few of the tasty treats.

First up, pink lemonade cupcakes for a friends, daughters birthday. After a lot of tasty experiments, I ended up using a white cake mix, doctored up with my secret doctoring concoction, with an additional ingredient of almost an entire can of pink lemonade concentrate into the batter.

And the frosting, a basic butter cream with about 1/3 cup of thawed pink lemonade for extra pucker.

For my mother-in-law's birthday I went with a chocolate caramel cake. The trick to making this one absolutely delish....almost 24 hours in the refrigerator. There is just something about a chilled cake that makes it so much more dense and wonderful. Try it next time, you'll be absolutely amazed.

Next up, the husband's birthday. For this we went with a rich vanilla cake and milk chocolate frosting. Holy cow it was yummy.

The most fabulous creation was next, for my birthday. I wish that I would have taken a picture of the inside of this cake, it was gorgeous. I wanted a cake that tasted like a chocolate malt so that's just what I fixed. I started with a yellow cake mix and added about 4 tablespoons of malt powder. Then I divided the mix evenly and added about 4 tablespoons of cocoa powder to one half, making it chocolate. I cold have added some melted chocolate chips, too but I didn't think about that until later.

So, the cake was a decadent chocolate malt marble cake. And such a cake wouldn't be complete with out chocolate malted frosting as well. This was an absolute bomb of a cake and may have been the tastiest thing I've ever made or eaten. And, I made it really small, a 6" round which was perfect because once my guests and I were served, there wasn't anything left. This was not something that my waistline needed a second helping of, even though after several glasses of milk, my taste buds were craving more.

And finally, the baking ended this past weekend. My brother earned his Eagle Scout award and my mother commissioned me for 100 Eagle Scout cupcakes to serve as refreshments. I found an eagle scout candy mold and made the little cakes as patriotic as I could muster. They were vanilla with chocolate frosting, milk chocolate with chocolate frosting and chocolate chocolate chip with vanilla bean frosting.

Phew!

I gained 5 pounds just writing this post. If you want more details on cakes and recipes, just send me an e-mail.

Chocolate Frosting

There are a lot of good recipes out there for homemade chocolate frosting. I've definitely taken the best the web has to offer and modified it to my own recipe. Not only is this good on cake, I'm sure it would be good on cookies and I know it's especially tasty when pretzels are dipped into it.

Milk Chocolate Icing:
2 sticks softened butter
4 tablespoons good cocoa
1 and 1/2 cup milk chocolate chips, melted in the microwave and cooled a bit
4 cups powdered sugar
2-4 tablespoons of milk

Mix the butter and the cocoa until you have cocoa butter. Add 2 cups of powdered sugar and 2 tablespoons of milk. Mix well. Add more sugar and milk. Add melted chocolate chips. Add more sugar or milk until you get the consistency you're looking for because it's frosting....not exact science.

This is enough to frost about 28 cupcakes or a decent 9" cake.

It also looks pretty pipped like little stars on a cake.

Chocolate Cake with Salted Caramel Icing and Chocolate Ganache

This recipe called for a made from scratch chocolate cake that was sort of a mousse/souffle type thing.  I made that version and it didn't work so I ended up with just a basic chocolate cake.  No worries though because the joy of this cake is in the frosting.

Salted Caramel Butter cream Icing

1/2 cup sugar

4 tablespoons water

1/2 heavy cream

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 sticks room temperature butter

3 + cups powdered sugar

1/4 teaspoon good sea salt (or kosher salt, whatever you've got on hand)

First, you've got to make the caramel.  In a good and sturdy small sauce pot put the sugar and water over medium heat.  This is the base for your caramel.  You'll want to leave it alone (do not stir under penalty of law) and let it boil and bubble away until it is a nice medium amber color.  Remove from the heat and slowly whisk in the cream and vanilla.  Set the caramel aside and let it sit and cool at leas 30 minutes.

Once the caramel is cooled, you can make the icing.  Cream two sticks of butter with a hand mixer.  Next add the sea salt and half of the powdered sugar.  Mix until combined and then add the caramel and the rest of the powdered sugar.  Depending on the consistency you're going for you might need to add a little milk or some more powdered sugar.

Chocolate Ganache

6 oz bittersweet/milk chocolate combination (mix it however you'd like.  I went 4 oz bittersweet and 2 oz milk)

6 oz heavy cream

dash of vanilla

While the caramel is cooling, make your ganache.  Heat the heavy cream over the stove on medium low heat.  As soon as the cream starts to boil pour it over the chocolate (made sure your chocolate is in a heat proof container).  Let stand about three minutes and then whisk the mixture until the chocolate is all melted.  Set the ganache aside.  If it doesn't thicken up enough on the counter top then put it in the fridge for five minutes at a time.  Check it because you don't want it to thicken up into a truffle consistency.

**

When you put the cake together, layer some butter cream and ganache between the two layers of the cake and add another layer of ganache to the top of the cake once you do your basic icing job.  Then drizzle some remaining ganache over the cake once it's all iced and ready to serve.

You'll have enough ganache to eat out of the bowl in your fridge a spoonful at a time for about three days after the cake is devoured.  That is my present to you.

Sweet 16 Cake

Right before the new year, my brother turned 16.  He wanted a parade and gangster rappers, and a masquerade ball with some llamas. He settled for 6 hours of basketball, Litza's pizza, and a homemade birthday cake.

When planning his cake, he wanted an extravagant 4 layers of chocolate and cherry chip cake with as decadent of icing as I could manage.  Once the big day came, and the basketball games got moved up 3 hours, I had to hurry.  We settled on two layers - cherry cake with cherry icing on the inside and chocolate icing with a chocolate ganache to finish it off.

Oh, it rich.  I think it gave everyone who partook a bit of a tummy ache -but it was worth it.

The interior icing was cherry butter cream.
The exterior icing was milk chocolate.  It was a basic chocolate butter cream but right at the end, you add 3/4 cup of melted milk chocolate chips to the mix.  I made extra and enjoyed it with salty pretzels the next day.
On top of that, was a bittersweet chocolate ganache.  Ganache is so simple, it's a shame people don't make it more often.

Milk Chocolate Icing:
2 sticks butter - very soft
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
mix the butter and cocoa together
alternate between adding a bit of milk (2 tablespoons) and 4 cups powdered sugar.
add 3/4 cups melted (still warm but not hot) chocolate chips.


Chocolate Ganache:
There are a lot of ways to do it, but I've always learned that you do equal parts cream and chocolate and that you shouldn't use milk chocolate.  Not sure why - but I'm sure it's because the cocoa content isn't as significant in milk as in bittersweet.

8 oz heavy cream
8 oz bittersweet chocolate

heat the heavy cream on your stove top.  You know it's ready when the edges start to bubble and there is a visible film on the top.  Remove the cream from the heat and pour it over the chocolate.  Let the mixture sit a couple of minutes and then break out a whisk and mix the chocolate and cream together.  Then let it sit.  The longer it sits, the thicker it will get.  If you refrigerate the ganache for about 8 hours you can then make truffles.  If you leave it for 10-20 then it's perfect to pour over the top of a cake.

Cupcake Weekend

We had two parties this weekend.  That meant I got to get my bake on.

Two different kinds of cupcakes were in order.

The first - Lemon with Vanilla Bean Frosting
1 lemon cake mix (replace the water with buttermilk, but leave the rest of the ingredients the same)
1 package lemon instant pudding
1 cup sour cream

The icing was just a basic butter cream but I borrowed some Madagascar Vanilla Bean Paste from a friend and oh my!  Heaven on a cloud

2 sticks butter, room temperature
2 tbsp milk
2 and 1/2 teaspoons bean paste
4 cups powdered sugar (approximate)

The finished product was beautiful and I was completely in awe of the little vanilla bean flakes. Definitely gave the treats a gourmet feel.


The second cupcake I've made before, but it was yummy as well - chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting.
The cake was also from a mix with 1 cup of sour cream, 1 package of chocolate instant pudding and buttermilk instead of water.

Peanut Butter Frosting
2 sticks butter, soft
1 and 1/2 c. peanut butter
2 tbsp milk
4 cup powdered sugar

This is enough frosting for about 30 cupcakes so you'll have left over. You can just eat it with a spoon, a spatula, or like I did...straight out of the piping bag.