Maple Bacon Cupcakes (birthday brunch cupcakes)

Do you have that friend? You know, the one you love and that will stand beside you no matter what? The one that asked you for a special cupcake for her special day 2 years ago...but you put it off because she will always be there and you will get to it eventually.
Eventually came knocking on my door and it was time for me to bake. I was not thrilled about baking these little gems as the idea of bacon on a cupcake never really thrilled me... But today I ask; why the hell did I wait so long?!?

350
18-22 minutes
24 cupcakes

The recipe:
3 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup maple syrup (the real stuff)
1 1/2 sticks butter
1/4 cup bacon grease (luckily the hubs keeps this on reserve in the fridge)
4 eggs
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp vanilla

Sift flour, soda, powder and salt - set aside.
Cream butter,Bacon grease, brown sugar and sugar in mixing bowl fitted with paddle.
Combine buttermilk, vanilla and syrup - set aside.
Add eggs 2 at a time to butter/sugar mix.
Alternate adding dry ingredients and wet ingredients to butter/sugar mix starting and finishing with dry ingredients.
Fill cupcake tins (with liners) 3/4 full, bake for 18-22 minutes

The icing:
1/2 cup butter
4-6 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cups maple syrup (again the real stuff)
1 tsp vanilla (good stuff if you have it...I like the paste)

The Bacon - the yummy, wonderful bacon.
I have to hand it to my husband who suggested the addition of heat to this recipe...it made all the difference in the world. Due to the maple syrup and brown sugar, this Recipe is a little on the sweet side. The bacon adds a wonderful spicy salty goodness!

Line cookie sheet with parchment paper. Top paper with a metal cooling rack.
325 - 20 minutes
Broil 2-4 minutes

6 slices of thick cut bacon
1/3 cup brown sugar
1tablespoon cayenne pepper

Combine bacon, pepper and sugar in mixing bowl until bacon is covered. Space bacon out on cooling rack - bake then broil. (perfect crisp bacon)

I didn't have a camera the day I was baking, so I didn't get a chance to take photos as I baked. Final product below (and yes that is a mimosa in the photo...perfect birthday brunch cupcake).

Hope you enjoy! I know that our group did!

Pink Champagne Cupcakes

As the rest of the working world sat in traffic this morning and eventually made it to their prospective places of employment, I baked!  I do love when we get a random Monday off for a holiday, especially when everyone else heads to work.* 

I have a birthday lunch to attend on Wednesday (as mentioned in previous post, I am the resident cupcake baker for my coworkers) and needed to try a new recipe.

I typically give the birthday girl or boy their choice of flavors for their birthday cupcakes, but on certain occasions (depending how well I know the intended cupcake receiver) I choose for them.  I happen to know that this certain birthday girl has an affinity for champagne!  Who doesn't you ask?!?!  Well, that is how my choice of flavors came to be, the birthday girl loves champagne and so do I.  Win, win for me! 

My mother was absolutely fabulous enough to send me a cake cookbook for Christmas called, BOOZE CAKES!  Yes, really it is called Booze Cakes!  The book comes complete with a Booze Meeter to measure if your recipe will leave you feeling like; a Lightweight, Feeling It or Totally Tipsey.  Today's recipe will leave you Feeling It as about 35 - 40% of the alcohol is retained in the recipe after baking.

Was it necessary to give the champagne a pre-tasting before I began the recipe?  Definitely!  I find that there is truly nothing better than a perfectly colored mimosa to really get the day moving in the right direction!

Pink Champagne Cake

3 cups all purpose - flour (why not cake flour, I guess we will live to learn this on another day)
3 teaspoons backing powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 sticks unsalted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (for my special friends, I use Madagascar vanilla)
6 egg whites
3 drops red food coloring
2 cups (yes that is cups) Champagne ;-)
 

  The sugar was apparently a little camera shy today.

Combine dry ingredients, set aside.
Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy - about 4 minutes.
Add vanilla to butter mixture.
Beat in egg whites, one egg at a time.
Add drops of food coloring (batter will be dark)
Beat in the flour mixture and champagne in three alternating turns starting with the flour mixture.

The cake batter is the perfect shade of pale pink!  I love it!
Scoop batter into lined cupcake pans and bake for 18 - 22 minutes in a preheated 350 degree oven. 

I have found that a standard ice cream scoop (1/4 cup) is PERFECT for filling cupcake tins.  The scoop fills the liners about 3/4 of the way.  Your cupcakes will come out the perfect size every time!

Look at that color!!!  The cupcakes came out light and fluffy and tasted a little boozie!  I plan to refrigerate these little gems overnight and frost tomorrow night when I return from the grind.  No need to waste the batch!  I was not sure if I would like the booze added to cupcakes, ugh, what was I thinking?!?!?  Booze and cake, a match made in heaven!

Champagne butter cream recipe also found in the Booze Cake cookbook...can't wait to try it!

*I apologize to my husband and dear friends that worked today, I thought of you while I was not working today.

Golden Almond Cake with Raspberry Buttercream Frosting

I, like many amateur bakers resort to the classic cupcake butter cream frosting.  You know the one; butter, a TON of confectioners sugar, vanilla and milk.  Super sweet, a crowd pleaser - kids LOVE it!  Hell, I love it!  The question is, is it stable enough to stack cakes...the answer is NO.  Unless you plan on serving cake immediately after frosting the cake.  You will find that the frosting settles with the with of the cake on it's shoulders.  The frosting has no where to go...but out the sides.

I have tried the Classic Butter cream frosting (found in many cookbooks) multiple times and find that the frosting either; A curdles or B is just too dang soft to stand up to a cake.  After all, how can one whip 6 eggs and add super hot sugar and not mess it up??!  I think that there is still sugar mixture on my ceiling from the last time I tried this little butterlicious adventure.

Lesson #1 (for me) Butter cream frosting!!!  After my fist attempt I feel that I may give up and go back to the sugar heaven that is cupcake frosting! 

Today I took on the Golden Almond Cake - page 37 of the Cake Bible with the Neoclassic Butter cream.  Rose (my new hero) swears that since she has perfected this recipe, she has never gone back to Classic Butter cream.  I have a sense that I need to go back to the drawing board!

The Cake:
2 Large Eggs
2/3 cup Sour Cream
1 tsp Almond Extract
1/4 tsp Vanilla Extract (always pure...don't even think about imitation)
1 2/3 cup sifted Cake Flour - why cake flour...I still have not learned this yet, stay tuned I will figure this out!
1/3 cup toasted, sliced almonds, finely ground.  - Oh and yes, I did burn the first two batches!  After that, I am an almond toasting genius!!!
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp baking power
1/2 tsp baking soda (yes both...not sure why, YET!)
1/2 tsp salt
1.5 sticks unsalted butter

Learned a new method today.  Mix all dry ingredients then add the butter and 3/4 of the sour cream.  Weird because I had always read to cream the butter and sugar first.  Oh the places you go when you read the bible!  The wet stuff (1/4 sour cream, eggs and extracts) are added a third at time.   Batter looks so good you just want to eat it right out of the bowl!  Seriously!!!!

Bake for 35 minutes (or in my case 24 minutes) at 350.  The cake will start to "shrink away from the sides only after the cake is removed from the oven" or in my case, over bake and shrink rapidly away from the sides as if the cake was scared of the pan!  Ouch...I will be trying this recipe again.  Hey, they say that practice makes perfect right?


Neoclassic Butter cream

6 large egg yolks
3/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup corn syrup
2 cups butter (soft soft soft)
optional flavor...I opted for raspberry!  Oh how I love raspberry!

Sugar and corn syrup...having a party!

Making the puree...the frozen raspberries need to thaw for several hours!  Several!

All looks good so far!  Oh and it tastes REALLY good too!  I just can't seem to get the consistency that I am looking for!

How to make the raspberry puree:
2 12 ounce bag of frozen raspberries (no sugar added...we will add later, I promise!)
2 tsps lemon juice (fresh!)
optional...Is sugar really an option, NO! 
2/3 cup sugar

Well that is it...my cake adventure for the day!  Almond cake with raspberry butter cream.  A really short cake with a really thin butter cream, sigh!  I live to bake another day. 

I have made some REALLY good cakes!  I can't wait to share my chocolate cake recipe with you, best damn chocolate cake I have ever tried!!!

I hope that my cakes may rise and my frosting may not fall in the near future. 

Heard this is a fantastic recipe...I will try again. Let me know if it works for you.

 HAPPY CAKING!

Caking!

I have been baking since I was a little girl, mostly cookies during the Holiday season with my mother and sister.  It was always my favorite time of year, listening to The Nutcracker and baking away!  We would bake 10-15 different types of cookies a year!  That was when I still lived in Massachusetts, sadly I moved away 9 years ago.  My baking stayed at home with the fam...then I found my love for CAKES! 

About a year ago, my husband suggested that I get a hobby.  (he has multiple hobbies...multiple!)
I took a class at my local craft store and found that cake decorating was just the outlet that I had been looking for!  I have decorated about 15 cakes in the past year, and am now the resident cupcake baker for all of the work, birthday lunches that I attend. 

This was the first cake that I tackled.  A cake for a dear friend's baby shower.  (I made the cake 3 times before I was happy with the final result)  The cake looked good, but didn't taste that great...sorry Rebekah (and Emmy - now almost 1).  I guess that I just didn't understand what made a cake, a great cake!

Over the year, I have made some really good cakes (if I do say so myself!)  Peanut Butter Cup Cupcakes and Chocolate Mint Cupcakes top my list of favorite recipes.  I read a lot, watch a LOT of Cake TV and spend a ton of time looking at photos of other cake decorators cakes online. 

mmmmmm....peanut butter cupcakes!

The link below will show you all the cakes that I have conquered this past year.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Confetty-Cakes-Confections/144319988917428

Now...I want to know what makes a recipe tic!  I mean really, why do use baking power or baking soda as a leavening agent???  Why is the use of all egg whites better then a whole egg?  Why do you use cake flour instead of all purpose?  I HAVE NO IDEA!  I just read the recipe and bake away (sometimes the results are great, other times I could use some help!)  I figured it was time to find out! 

Join me as I cake, one recipe at a time attempting to find all the secrets to the best recipes.

Qu'ils mangent de la brioche!!!!  or "Let them eat cake!"