Ginger and Molasses Cupcakes

I have baked with ginger before, but not fresh ginger. I've baked with the kind of ginger that's dry, comes from a small container and costs about $7 (why are spices so expensive?). Fresh ginger is not ground up and dry, it doesn't come from a small container and doesn't cost $7... unless you buy a lot of it. I will say that due to the amount of work fresh ginger requires I prefer the $7 container, but I was happy to finally try using fresh ginger in a recipe.

When shopping for this recipe fresh ginger was the only thing I needed to buy (hooray!). Though I'm a fresh ginger novice when it comes to baking or cooking with it, I know what it looks like and felt confident I could find it at Stop and Shop and not have to make a bunch of trips to various grocery stores. I was right. Yeah me. The recipe said to buy about 2 6-inch pieces of ginger to yield what I would need. I bought 1 large and 2 small pieces thinking it would equal what I needed. I probably could have weighed it to see if it was the number of ounces the recipe specified, but that would have been a smart decision. Smart decisions are things I don't always make.

When it came to prepping these ginger and molasses cupcakes I started with the ginger. First I peeled all the pieces and tried to remove the "nubs" to make it easier to peel. Then, I minced. I actually looked up the difference between mincing, chopping and dicing (love me some Google) so I would now exactly how small the pieces of ginger were supposed to be. I assumed mincing was the smallest because I didn't think having giant chunks of ginger in these cupcakes would be very good. I was right again. I am on a roll. And, in case you're curious in terms of size of the pieces of whatever you're working with, from smallest to largest it goes minced, chopped, diced. You're welcome. Back to mincing. It was fairly easy to do, some of the pieces of ginger were harder to chop than others, not sure why, but overall it was a pretty painless, though sticky process. In an exciting not normal turn of events my eyes proved to be great measuring cups this time around because I got the perfect amount of ginger that I needed for the recipe. Chances of that ever happening again... 1 in never.

The rest of the recipe was easy, except for one minor hiccup. Before going grocery shopping I checked my molasses supply to make sure I had the 2/3 cup that was necessary. I looked in the cupboard, and the jar looked to have enough molasses. Of course when it came to measuring out the molasses while preparing the batter it turned out that I didn't have enough. Using my perfect measuring-cup eyes I concluded I was a little less than 1/4 cup short. Crap. I was tired and now annoyed, I had already worked all day and I didn't feel like making a trip to the store for one thing. I did think about it for about a minute and then decided that being roughly 1/4 cup short of molasses was not a crisis and couldn't possibly make that much of a difference.

During the baking time I added 2 minutes to the total time since these weren't quite done after 20 minutes. When I poked them with the toothpick after 20 minutes I still had batter on the toothpick and the middles sunk in a little. After a little more time in the oven they were fine. When I tasted them I didn't notice anything missing due to the small amount of molasses that I didn't have. Then again, this was the first time I tasted them so I didn't really have anything to compare them to. Ignorance is bliss!

As many of the cupcakes so far in this project have been, these were topped with whipped cream. I made the whipped cream while the cupcakes were baking since it's so easy and put it in the fridge in a Ziplock bag until I was ready to frost the cupcakes. When it was frosting time I noticed that the whipped cream had become a little liquidy (may or may not be a real word) even though I left it in the fridge. I decided to re-whip it in my stand mixer to get it back to the consistency that I wanted. Worked like a charm and I was proud of my head's-up thinking. I did forget one thing. To garnish the cupcakes with the $7-container ginger before I served them and took their pictures. Next time I'll remember the garnish and I'll have the required amount of molasses... unless I forget.

Date-Nut Mini Cupcakes

Miss me last week? If you did, my deepest apologies. We were in Florida basking in the sun and sand (and also shopping for wedding dresses with mom... we have a winner!). But now we're back, and we're baking.

I don't know much about dates, but I do know they look like giant slugs. I discovered this when opening my recently purchased container of Sunsweet pitted dates. I was going to taste one since I've never had one before to see what they were like, but once I saw what they look like I couldn't make myself do it. To me they just looked like a giant slug or some other type of creepy crawly creature that I couldn't put in my mouth. Even after I chopped them up I couldn't make myself try one. All I could think about was how they looked in their original unchopped form. Not pretty.

I set my expectations low when making these date-nut mini cupcakes (recipe not available on Martha's website) because I didn't know how I felt about dates at the time I first read the recipe, and I'm not a big fan of walnuts. Since those 2 things were the main components of these cupcakes I didn't think they stood a chance. Truthfully I wanted to skip this recipe entirely and move on to the next one for that reason. And, because ground cardamom is $14 for a 2 oz. bottle which just seems utterly ridiculous. While I did briefly contemplate skipping the recipe, I'm not a quitter so I sucked it up, spent $21 on ground cardamom and walnuts and started getting to work.

As has become my practice I "prepped" everything before I started to really get to work. I chopped the slugs... make that dates, toasted the walnuts and turned on the tea kettle to start boiling water. My timing has become quite impeccable if I do say so myself. I have always loved mini cupcakes because they're cute, as are all mini things. But, filling mini cupcakes is not cute, not cute at all. There's no good way to do it. I didn't use my glass Pyrex measuring cup like I normally would because I knew that once I started pouring the batter into the liners I would almost have to immediately stop pouring since mini cupcakes are so small. Which meant that stopping the momentum of the batter would be difficult, the batter would probably overflow and make a mess. I wasn't willing to deal with all of that. So, I used a teaspoon and carried a small measuring cup underneath it to catch any batter that might fall. This wasn't the best method and I still made a mess, but it wasn't the worst method either.

These cupcakes were supposed to be baked for 15 minutes with a turn halfway through the total baking time. I started with 7 minutes, then turned the cupcakes and baked them for 7 more minutes. With the toothpick test I thought a little more baking time was needed so I added 2 more minutes and did that for the remaining 2 batches of cupcakes. In the end each batch was baked for 16 total minutes. The nice thing about making mini cupcakes is that I have 2 mini cupcake pans, so I could have a batch ready to go into the oven as soon as the batch before it was done. Eventually I will invest in a second regular-sized cupcake pan... eventually. Maybe I'll put one of the wedding registry!

For the first time in this project I didn't have to make a frosting/topping for the cupcakes. I almost didn't know what to do with myself. The recipe said to add creme fraiche to these cupcakes. Confession... I have no idea what creme fraiche is and I didn't Google it to find out. I assume it is French and in French it means fresh cream. I could be incorrect. As we learned earlier, I studied Spanish, not French in high school so my vocabulary is limited. Lo siento (I'm sorry in Spanish). I guessed that creme fraiche didn't mean whipped cream, otherwise Martha would have told me to make it. So from the picture in the book I took it to mean something along the lines of a Cool Whip. I'm sure Martha would gasp in disgust if she knew that's what I purchased (lo siento, Martha), but I didn't know what else to do. I taste tested the cupcakes without Cool Whip because I like a "naked" taste test to see how much the frosting/topping helps or hurts a cupcake. The cupcakes sans Cool Whip were good. Turns out slugs (dates) aren't too bad, and I didn't mind the walnuts that much. With a dollop of Cool Whip the cupcakes were slightly more delicious. Though Martha might disagree with me, I find absolutely nothing wrong with Cool Whip. It's delicious, and I could, and have eaten it by the teaspoonfuls. Judge me if your must.

Tres Leches Cupcakes

No, your eyes are not deceiving you, these pictures are not the best, that's what I get for not being patient and taking them when the lighting wasn't so good. There's only so much Photoshop and my Photoshop skills can do.

Tres leches... that means 3 milks for all of you non-Spanish speaking readers. For the first time in awhile I finally had a recipe where I didn't have to search for an ingredient I didn't have! It was nice for a change. Scavenger hunting for ingredients isn't always fun. My streak of reading through the entire recipe before starting to bake is still alive (the same cannot be said for the Patriots 15-game win streak against the Bills... go Bills!), even for a recipe as easy as these tres leches cupcakes (the link provided is for tres leches cake, that's all Martha had on her website).

I'm particularly proud that before I started baking I did all the prep work. I started melting the butter and while the butter was melting I separated the eggs that I had left out during the day so they were at room temperature. While the butter was cooling I used my beloved stand mixer to whisk the egg whites until they formed soft peaks and then whisked in the egg yolks and sugar. Once the butter had melted and cooled I folded that into the batter and then folded in the flour. At that point the cupcakes were ready to be baked. The recipe said to fill the liners halfway, and while I tried to do that, I think I filled them a little too full since after all the baking was said and done I got 5 less cupcakes than the recipe said I was supposed to. Oops. It could also be that I ate some of the batter... it happens.

I baked the cupcakes for 24 minutes with a turn halfway through the total baking time. The recipe said 25 minutes, but as I've stated before, my timer only works in whole minutes so I always go less because you can't un-bake something. While the cupcakes were baking I whisked together the tres leches so it would be ready to brush on the cupcakes when they were done. As soon as the cupcakes were baked to golden-brown perfection I took them out of the oven and immediately poked them with a skewer, make that toothpick. Because Martha told me to, I kept the cupcakes in the tins and brushed on the mixture. I gave each cupcake 10 brushes and then placed the cupcakes in the fridge for 30 minutes so the cupcakes could absorb the mixture. In hindsight I wish I had stopped at 10 coats per cupcake, but I'll get to that in a minute.

After the first batch of cupcakes had set for 30 minutes I took them out of the tins and baked the second, very small batch. When that batch was done I repeated the brushing process. Now that each cupcake had been given 10 coats of the tres leches mixture I continued brushing the cupcakes until the mixture was gone because that's what Martha said to do. I stopped after each cupcake had been given 20 coats because I didn't want the cupcakes to become soggy. They were already extremely heavy, and I also figured that since I didn't get 20 total cupcakes, I should account some of the mixture that I had left for that cupcakes that I didn't have.

These cupcakes were to be topped with whipped cream, which I have made several times up to this point with these rhubarb cupcakes and these blueberries-and-cream cupcakes. It is very easy to make and I like using a Ziploc bag to pipe the whipped cream on top so I did that again this time. I also garnished the tops with cinnamon (tigers love pepper, hate cinnamon... name that movie!). While taking the pictures for these cupcakes (which I'm unhappy with as previously mentioned) I gave them a taste test and they were too soggy for my liking. I wish I had stopped at 10 coats each. Even though that wouldn't have used all of the milk mixture I feel like they would have been more enjoyable. They tasted fine, I just wasn't happy with the consistency. Perhaps they would have been better if I had eaten one immediately after taking it out of the fridge. But, I wanted to bring the cupcake to room temperature for photographing purposes and Martha also said to serve them that way. Maybe she doesn't know everything (still love you Martha!).

Blueberries-and-Cream Cupcakes

I'm finding myself caught in the same conundrum (I spelled that right on the first try!) I was when I made the banana pecan cupcakes. Though the fruit in this case is a blueberry as opposed to a banana, the question remains the same... when does a muffin become a cupcake? I'm still going to maintain what I said before, that it's the frosting that turns a simple muffin into a cupcake. But, in the instance of these blueberries-and-cream cupcakes (no link on marthastewart.com) they were much more cakey than your average muffin. This could mean it's more than just the frosting that transforms a muffin into a cupcake. Jury's still out.

I still haven't learned to read through an entire recipe before I start baking, but in this case, it didn't matter. This was a fairly simple recipe, nothing too tricky involved. I was surprised though, that I didn't have to toss the blueberries in flour before folding them into the batter (like I did with these chocolate chip cupcakes) to help them "float" in the batter so they wouldn't all sink to the bottom. But, I didn't. Turns out blueberries are less dense than chocolate chips, who knew?

Like I said, nothing too tricky about these cupcakes, the batter was done relatively quickly and ready for the oven. I filled the liners about three-quarters full and for the most part was happy with the size of the cupcakes when they came out of the oven. Only a few were a little larger that I normally like, and they were all flat. Not the rounded beauties that I strive for. Martha said to bake these cupcakes for 25 total minutes with a turn halfway through the total baking time. Since my oven timer only works in whole minutes I baked in 12-minute intervals and the cupcakes came out perfectly, with a lovely golden hue.

While the cupcakes were baking I made the whipped cream that was to accompany them. Normally I wait a little while to give myself a baking break before making the cupcake's topping, but since whipped cream is very easy I found the energy to get everything done at once. It took less than 5 minutes (thank you stand mixer with whisk attachment) and it was done. I put the whipped cream in the fridge to keep cool while the cupcakes continued baking, and then cooled.

The last time I made whipped cream was for these rhubarb cupcakes and for those cupcakes I piped the whipped cream onto the cupcakes directly from the Ziploc bag I stored it in. Since I liked how those cupcakes turned out so much I did the same thing with these cupcakes. Unfortunately my piping this time around wasn't as good as the last time. I think I cut the hole in the bag a little too big this time. The cupcakes looked fine nonetheless, just not as good as the rhubarb cupcakes. Like the rhubarb cupcakes these cupcakes also got a little garnish, naturally blueberries would make the most sense and that's precisely what the garnish was. I had a good amount of blueberries left over, turns out my eyes are not very good measuring cups, so I liberally gave each cupcake 4 berries. I thought 5 might be a little overkill. The garnish on top definitely gave these cupcakes a little something extra, but my favorite part of these cupcakes was the blueberries that you can see through the cupcake liner. Like a pretty little secret.

Tiramisu Cupcakes

I'm not a big coffee fan, in fact, I'm not a fan at all. I don't drink it. Ever. If I feel the need for a warm beverage in the morning I go with tea, or hot cocoa. But usually tea because it has less calories. The ladies understand. In my younger days I never wanted to try tiramisu because of my dislike for coffee and anything that tasted like it. As I grew older (and perhaps a little wiser) I decided to give it a go. I mean, it is dessert, and I LOVE dessert. I think the first time I ever tried tiramisu was at Olive Garden and it was almost as delicious as their endless salad and breadsticks... almost.

Needless to say, a younger me wouldn't have been as excited to make tiramisu cupcakes as the current older, wiser version. However, had I read the recipe beforehand my excitement level probably would have decreased. I hadn't anticipated this recipe being so much work. It wasn't that it was hard, there were just a lot of steps, that involved a lot of dishes, that I would have to later wash. And, to be honest, it was hot, I was tired and not in the mood for something too complicated that I could potentially ruin if I wasn't focused. I mustered up all my strength and energy and got to work.

The most time and energy-consuming process was whisking the egg and egg yolks to be fluffy and a little stiff. I knew this was important to not mess up because the cake was supposed to be a sponge cake, light and airy. I whisked the eggs until I thought they were about the right consistency and folded in the rest of the ingredients. The batter was pretty stiff/thick, but fluid enough to pour into the muffin tins (it was also tasty). I filled the tins a little fuller than necessary, not on purpose, but because I couldn't contain the batter flow and some of them turned out a little bigger than I wanted. However, they didn't puff up too much. They turned out to be a pretty flat cupcake.

While the cupcakes cooled I worked on the coffee-marsala syrup. Despite my dislike of coffee I do own a coffee maker and there is a canister of Folgers in the fridge. You never know when company might want coffee. Truthfully, my parents bought the coffee maker as a housewarming gift for themselves, so that when they come to visit they can have coffee in the morning. Aren't they sweet? I digress. The syrup was very easy. I was only concerned that the Marsala cooking wine I bought at the store wouldn't be sweet enough. I did a little research about what kind to buy, and everything I read said to be wary of Marsala cooking wine sold in grocery stores as it tends to not be the best quality. But, I didn't want to spend a fortune on a good wine when I only needed an ounce of it for the recipe. In fact, I still have a giant bottle left which means I will probably be making Chicken Marsala in the not too distant future.

After the syrup had cooled I brushed it on the cupcakes repeatedly until I was out of syrup. I'm not sure how many coats each cupcakes got, in hindsight I probably should have kept count. I'm thinking it was at least 5, but not as many as 10. Once the cupcakes were syruped (that's a very technical term) they had to absorb the syrup for 30 minutes before they could be frosted with the mascarpone frosting.

First of all, it took me forever to find mascarpone cheese in the grocery store. I was starting to get concerned that it wasn't going to be in my local store and I'd have to go on a mission to find it. Of course, it was in the last place I looked. But, conveniently for me it was in a lovely 8-ounce container, which was just the amount I needed. Winning! While the heavy cream was becoming whipped cream I mixed the mascarpone cheese and confectioner's sugar. As previously mentioned here, it has been extremely hot lately. For that reason it took the heavy cream a little longer than I expected for it to become whipped cream. Once it became whipped cream it didn't hold up very well when folded into the mascarpone cheese mixture that was room temperature. I thought I was going to get a nice smooth, whipped frosting, but I didn't. It wasn't actually lumpy in texture, it just looked that way. The whipped cream started to melt back into it's original heavy-cream consistency. I tried putting it in the fridge and freezer in the hopes that it would solidify and not be so watery. No luck. So before it completely melted I globbed it onto the cupcakes and quickly popped them into the fridge so they wouldn't become a soggy mess. It worked, the cupcakes held themselves together. Granted they aren't the most beautiful things I've ever made, but they sure do taste good. It's what's on the inside that counts anyway... right?

What the Heck is Rhubarb... Cupcakes

Have you ever tried a rhubarb cupcake? Scratch that... have you ever heard of a rhubarb cupcake? Me neither, but Martha has. She even has a recipe for them in her cookbook. I was not excited about this rhubarb cupcake recipe (unfortunately Martha's website does not have the recipe, but if you want it just let me know and I'd be happy to send it), not even a little bit. I know nothing about rhubarb except that it looks like pink celery. I like pink, but I don't like celery... it's the strings. I've never tasted rhubarb, I've never cooked with it, I've never even touched it. I have walked past it in the grocery store on numerous occasions, but that's the extent of my relationship with rhubarb... until today. Today, I got up close and personal with rhubarb. We took our relationship to a whole new level. If you want to take your relationship with rhubarb to a whole new level you can make these cupcakes, or click here.

My grocery store doesn't have a wide selection of rhubarb. In fact when I purchased the necessary amount of rhubarb for this recipe (3/4 pound) I wiped out their supply. Hopefully no one else was planning on making anything with rhubarb tonight. I stood for a few minutes just staring at the rhubarb and thinking that it wasn't the best selection. I don't really know what constitutes good rhubarb, we've already covered my lack of knowledge on the subject, but this rhubarb was rubbery and looked a little beaten up. I wasn't going to drive all over town looking for rhubarb. I probably wouldn't have found any anyway. So, I took what I thought I needed and was on my way.

I got my rhubarb home, washed it (I don't know if I was supposed to do that, but it felt like the right thing) and started to dice. I knew right away that I wasn't going to have enough. I was right (yeah me!). Instead of getting the 3 cups the recipe called for, I ended up with 2. I wasn't heartbroken. I figured less rhubarb in the cupcakes couldn't be a bad thing, especially if I didn't know if I would like them. Instead of putting 2 cups of diced rhubarb in the batter like the recipe called for, I just put in 1. I reserved the remaining cup for the syrup that would top the cupcakes later. I thought about putting more than 1 cup into the batter, but I didn't want to compromise the amount of rhubarb I would need for the syrup for the cupcakes.

I baked the first batch of cupcakes for 24 (Martha said about 25) minutes, turning them halfway through the baking process. I probably could have taken off a little baking time. They came out a little more golden than I normally like, but overall they were fine. I let them cool for a few minutes in the pan on a cooling rack before I removed them. Once the next batch was safely baking in the oven I performed my first taste test sans any topping. I wanted to try them when they were still a little bit warm. I thought it might enhance the taste so I would hate it less. I was apprehensive to say the least, but I was pleasantly surprised. They weren't horrible. In fact they were pretty good. The crunchy rhubarb that went into the batter, came out soft and had a very nice flavor to it. The rhubarb turned to a lovely pink color and the cupcakes were nice and soft.

Then came the rhubarb syrup. It was relatively easy to make, the hardest part was being patient and letting it cool before I could proceed. Luckily I kept myself occupied with making the whipped cream that would accompany the rhubarb syrup on top of the cupcakes. However, making the whipped cream took up almost no time, my stand mixer did all the work. That thing is amazing... gotta love the whisk attachment. After the whipped cream was prepared I put it in a Ziplock bag, placed it in the fridge to keep cool and got back to my rhubarb syrup.

After my rhubarb was done boiling, then cooling to room temperature, then simmering, then cooling again I was ready to "decorate". Martha put a dollop of whipped cream on the cupcake, but since my whipped cream was stored in a Ziplock I just cut a hole in the corner of the bag and piped the whipped cream onto the cupcake. I thought it looked nicer than a dollop. Lastly I put a spoonful of the rhubarb syrup on top of the whipped cream. The final result was a thing of beauty, maybe even museum worthy. My favorite part was the little beads of vanilla (from the vanilla bean) that you can see in the syrup.

Overall this cupcake is my favorite so far, simply because of how pretty it looks once it's completed. There's a lot to be said for a nice presentation. On Iron Chef America presentation is worth 10 points (I think). The fact that it's also very tasty isn't hurting its cause either. But, no matter how pretty (and yummy) the cupcakes were, it was difficult to get rid of them. For some reason people just don't come running when they're offered rhubarb cupcakes. I can't imagine why.