A sign and a recipe
First: A current sign up in the pantry at work:
Evidently there's a competition going on at work:
(click to embiggen)
I am glad that there are some pushpins that refuse to conform to the gender binary. Also, I think that one on the right is a diva.
Second: The recipe, more or less, for the gingerbread-pumpkin cream cheese- caramel cupcakes.
I am probably my father's daughter when it comes to recipes- I started out with 'well it's not that complicated' but then found that explaining everything generated a long list. There's really only three parts, and they're all fairly simple. Spices are all 'to taste', although I think that usually means 'as much as you can get away with'.
The very short version:
Make yummy cupcakes
carve a hole down the center of the cupcake and fill with something else yummy
top with yet another something else yummy.
(inspired by the car bomb cupcakes I made last spring, which were fabulous)
So, here's the recipe, more or less.
1- the gingerbread cupcakes:
These were actually from a box mix, Hodgson Mill Whole Wheat gingerbread mix, http://www.hodgsonmill.com/, which I felt okay using because everything on the ingredients list is things I could have bought myself elsewhere in the store, but I didn't. I went with the two egg variant on the mix, and of course added more fresh grated ginger, nutmeg (a bit more than half a nutmeg) and a lot of fresh ground cinnamon. The box of mix made one tin of muffins.
I may try making them from scratch next time, just for the experimental value. And because I can only imagine that using proper molasses would make them that much richer. If you have a good gingerbread recipe, feel free to share it in the comments.
Anyway, it had:
1 box gingerbread mix
2 eggs
1 cup milk
2 tbsp butter
fresh cinnamon, grated - at least as much as seems like a good idea, and then some more
fresh ginger, grated- about a tablespoon
fresh nutmeg, grated - about half a nutmeg
you will also need:
apple corer
Bake (I'd say about five minutes less than the bread recipe, because they are smaller and more at risk to burn. I just poked mine till they seemed done). Let cool ten minutes in pan, then remove to a rack and let cool completely (fridge is also good, as you want them a little stiff for the next part).
Take out the center of each with an apple corer, leaving enough cupcake at the bottom to retain structural integrity. I'd like to find something like an apple corer with a wider bore, so I could put in more filling, but I haven't yet. Suggestions welcome.
Save the cupcake cores for snacking, testing for edibility, or using in things like bread pudding, pie crusts, etc.
I'd recommend putting them back in the baking tin for the next steps, as it's easier than trying to keep cupcakes upright on a plate while you do things to them. Just a suggestion.
2- the pumpkin cheesecake filling
(I am really guessing on this, since I was very much making it up as I went along, adding a little more here and a little more there.)
1/2 can of pureed pumpkin
1 packages cream cheese
1/3 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup brown sugar
Whip up the cream first, then add the other ingredients and whip it together some more (cut the cream cheese into sections to reduce splatter). Should be light and airy, stand on its own without clumping or oozing.
spices (in vague order of relative amounts)
cinnamon
nutmeg
ginger
cloves
mace
vanilla
all of which were "add a lot. No, more than that. Stir, taste, add some more. Got enough? Good. Add some more. Repeat." until I was quite certain that no, really, it tastes like pumpkin pie spices. I like all of these spices a lot, prefer them fresh (I used about another nutmeg, and ground cinnamon until my wrists ached) as much as possible, and can't even guess at home much I used- if you can't see them in the mix, it hasn't been enough yet. You should have flecks of brown and red and other lovely spice colors. Remember, this has to be able to stand out against the cupcake and the frosting.
Fill the bore holes with the filling. A cupcake decorator (looks like a caulk gun) is indispensable for this- my current favorite kitchen toy.
Put in the fridge and let cool until the centers are set.
3 - caramel frosting
Basic recipe was from Epbot, although amounts are a bit of a guess- these are their amounts, which I increased by half again for unknown reasons, and ended up with twice as much frosting as I needed. So you really want about 60% of this. Or just make this much and have extra frosting, the horror (you can use it as a dipping sauce for those cupcake cores up in step one, as a suggestion!).
The original recipe had half the sugar as dark brown and half as light brown- I went dark brown all the way because I like dark brown a lot more. I also tripled the vanilla, in acknowledgment of the fact that I didn't actually measure it, but just poured a bunch in because I regard vanilla as usually being 'little good, lot better', which is pretty much the theme in my cooking, in case you hadn't noticed.
1 stick butter
1 cup dark brown sugar
melt butter in small saucepan over a mild heat- do not brown. Add sugar, stir thoroughly. Bring to a boil and continue stirring to keep mixture from scorching and to incorporate butter thoroughly. I only just let it boil at a low simmer for maybe two minutes- this shouldn't end up as a hard candy, so don't overdo it.
Also, as a warning- boiling sugar mixtures are very hot, and you should not taste test them until they have cooled. No matter how nice they look on a spoon. Not that I've ever done that. Ow. Actually, at this point I've learned to keep a cold plate next to the stove so I can drizzle some of the lovely hot stuff onto it and then taste it once it has cooled, and have only burned my fingers doing that a few times.
Take off the heat, let cool slightly (keep stirring!), and then slowly add, stirring continuously:
1/4 cup whole milk
Heat it up and return to a very brief boil over medium heat (I hate phrases like this. It should be boiling around the edges, but you don't want to subject it to a sudden heat-and-boil or you'll just scorch the milk, which is a sad, sad thing).
Okay. You're done heating it. Move it off the heat, and add:
3 tsp vanilla
2 cups confectioner's sugar
and blended with a whisk until it is even. Whisk like mad. It's a bit easier if you add the sugar in stages, and it dissolves in a very pretty fashion. While warm the icing will be soft and easy to spoon over the cupcakes. It will stiffen rapidly as it cools. It is very delicious but you will (eventually) regret having too many taste testing spoonfuls. Maybe. If you are a better person than I am.
If it becomes too hard to apply to the cupcakes, warm again to soften. You should be able to spoon it over the cupcakes without it either running off the cupcakes or clinging like death to the spoon.
Once each cupcake is drenched with frosting, put in the fridge to cool so that the frosting will stiffen enough to stay put.
Share, or not, as you see fit. They're your cupcakes, what you do with them is your business and not mine.
This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth. You can comment here or there, using OpenID if you don't have a Dreamwidth account.
If you have never posted at Dreamwidth, you may need to authenticate your OpenID account to comment there.
Commenting on LJ will eventually be disabled.
Evidently there's a competition going on at work:
(click to embiggen)
I am glad that there are some pushpins that refuse to conform to the gender binary. Also, I think that one on the right is a diva.
Second: The recipe, more or less, for the gingerbread-pumpkin cream cheese- caramel cupcakes.
I am probably my father's daughter when it comes to recipes- I started out with 'well it's not that complicated' but then found that explaining everything generated a long list. There's really only three parts, and they're all fairly simple. Spices are all 'to taste', although I think that usually means 'as much as you can get away with'.
The very short version:
Make yummy cupcakes
carve a hole down the center of the cupcake and fill with something else yummy
top with yet another something else yummy.
(inspired by the car bomb cupcakes I made last spring, which were fabulous)
So, here's the recipe, more or less.
1- the gingerbread cupcakes:
These were actually from a box mix, Hodgson Mill Whole Wheat gingerbread mix, http://www.hodgsonmill.com/, which I felt okay using because everything on the ingredients list is things I could have bought myself elsewhere in the store, but I didn't. I went with the two egg variant on the mix, and of course added more fresh grated ginger, nutmeg (a bit more than half a nutmeg) and a lot of fresh ground cinnamon. The box of mix made one tin of muffins.
I may try making them from scratch next time, just for the experimental value. And because I can only imagine that using proper molasses would make them that much richer. If you have a good gingerbread recipe, feel free to share it in the comments.
Anyway, it had:
1 box gingerbread mix
2 eggs
1 cup milk
2 tbsp butter
fresh cinnamon, grated - at least as much as seems like a good idea, and then some more
fresh ginger, grated- about a tablespoon
fresh nutmeg, grated - about half a nutmeg
you will also need:
apple corer
Bake (I'd say about five minutes less than the bread recipe, because they are smaller and more at risk to burn. I just poked mine till they seemed done). Let cool ten minutes in pan, then remove to a rack and let cool completely (fridge is also good, as you want them a little stiff for the next part).
Take out the center of each with an apple corer, leaving enough cupcake at the bottom to retain structural integrity. I'd like to find something like an apple corer with a wider bore, so I could put in more filling, but I haven't yet. Suggestions welcome.
Save the cupcake cores for snacking, testing for edibility, or using in things like bread pudding, pie crusts, etc.
I'd recommend putting them back in the baking tin for the next steps, as it's easier than trying to keep cupcakes upright on a plate while you do things to them. Just a suggestion.
2- the pumpkin cheesecake filling
(I am really guessing on this, since I was very much making it up as I went along, adding a little more here and a little more there.)
1/2 can of pureed pumpkin
1 packages cream cheese
1/3 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup brown sugar
Whip up the cream first, then add the other ingredients and whip it together some more (cut the cream cheese into sections to reduce splatter). Should be light and airy, stand on its own without clumping or oozing.
spices (in vague order of relative amounts)
cinnamon
nutmeg
ginger
cloves
mace
vanilla
all of which were "add a lot. No, more than that. Stir, taste, add some more. Got enough? Good. Add some more. Repeat." until I was quite certain that no, really, it tastes like pumpkin pie spices. I like all of these spices a lot, prefer them fresh (I used about another nutmeg, and ground cinnamon until my wrists ached) as much as possible, and can't even guess at home much I used- if you can't see them in the mix, it hasn't been enough yet. You should have flecks of brown and red and other lovely spice colors. Remember, this has to be able to stand out against the cupcake and the frosting.
Fill the bore holes with the filling. A cupcake decorator (looks like a caulk gun) is indispensable for this- my current favorite kitchen toy.
Put in the fridge and let cool until the centers are set.
3 - caramel frosting
Basic recipe was from Epbot, although amounts are a bit of a guess- these are their amounts, which I increased by half again for unknown reasons, and ended up with twice as much frosting as I needed. So you really want about 60% of this. Or just make this much and have extra frosting, the horror (you can use it as a dipping sauce for those cupcake cores up in step one, as a suggestion!).
The original recipe had half the sugar as dark brown and half as light brown- I went dark brown all the way because I like dark brown a lot more. I also tripled the vanilla, in acknowledgment of the fact that I didn't actually measure it, but just poured a bunch in because I regard vanilla as usually being 'little good, lot better', which is pretty much the theme in my cooking, in case you hadn't noticed.
1 stick butter
1 cup dark brown sugar
melt butter in small saucepan over a mild heat- do not brown. Add sugar, stir thoroughly. Bring to a boil and continue stirring to keep mixture from scorching and to incorporate butter thoroughly. I only just let it boil at a low simmer for maybe two minutes- this shouldn't end up as a hard candy, so don't overdo it.
Also, as a warning- boiling sugar mixtures are very hot, and you should not taste test them until they have cooled. No matter how nice they look on a spoon. Not that I've ever done that. Ow. Actually, at this point I've learned to keep a cold plate next to the stove so I can drizzle some of the lovely hot stuff onto it and then taste it once it has cooled, and have only burned my fingers doing that a few times.
Take off the heat, let cool slightly (keep stirring!), and then slowly add, stirring continuously:
1/4 cup whole milk
Heat it up and return to a very brief boil over medium heat (I hate phrases like this. It should be boiling around the edges, but you don't want to subject it to a sudden heat-and-boil or you'll just scorch the milk, which is a sad, sad thing).
Okay. You're done heating it. Move it off the heat, and add:
3 tsp vanilla
2 cups confectioner's sugar
and blended with a whisk until it is even. Whisk like mad. It's a bit easier if you add the sugar in stages, and it dissolves in a very pretty fashion. While warm the icing will be soft and easy to spoon over the cupcakes. It will stiffen rapidly as it cools. It is very delicious but you will (eventually) regret having too many taste testing spoonfuls. Maybe. If you are a better person than I am.
If it becomes too hard to apply to the cupcakes, warm again to soften. You should be able to spoon it over the cupcakes without it either running off the cupcakes or clinging like death to the spoon.
Once each cupcake is drenched with frosting, put in the fridge to cool so that the frosting will stiffen enough to stay put.
Share, or not, as you see fit. They're your cupcakes, what you do with them is your business and not mine.
This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth. You can comment here or there, using OpenID if you don't have a Dreamwidth account.
If you have never posted at Dreamwidth, you may need to authenticate your OpenID account to comment there.
Commenting on LJ will eventually be disabled.