Sweet Me Up: Desserts by miVi

The story behind the recipe:

A friend of mine challenged me to create a chocolate banana cake that would rival that of a bakery in downtown Toronto. This is the result. I found a regular chocolate cake recipe and added bananas and swapped out the milk with strawberry yogurt (mainly because that’s what I had in the fridge).

I’ve since then have put it in cupcake form.

Read the rest of this entry »

Ahhh, the popular Hostess Cupcake. Growing up this was alway a special occasion treat because A) we didn’t get a lot of cupcakes as a regular dessert (we were a family that honoured the chocolate chip cookie) and B) we couldn’t justify buying a snack cake if we could just bake it.

So I decided to whip up my own version of this cupcake.

First of all for the cake part, I use my go to chocolate cake recipe. I doubled the recipe to make 48 cupcakes (I have lots of mouths to feed!). Variation to the measurement time: Fill the cupcake wells ¾ of the way so that when they rise, it’ll give you plenty of cupcake top to cut off. Bake the cupcakes for 20 minutes.

When cupcakes are cooled, use a serrated knife to cut the tops off.

Create chocolate ganache: Place 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chip into a heatproof bowl. Heat ¾ cup of whipping cream until it just starts to boil. Remove from heat and pour over the chocolate. Let chocolate melt and then stir with a whisk until ganache is smooth. Spread ganache on top of the cupcake tops. Refrigerate so the ganache can firm up.

Meanwhile, make the frosting glaze: Mix 1 cup icing sugar with 2 tbsp. milk. Add more sugar to get a pipeable consistency. Put frosting in a pastry bag and pipe a desired design on the ganached cupcake tops.

Create pastry cream: Whip 2 cups of heavy cream with ½ cup of icing sugar until soft peaks form. Dissolve 1 tsp. of gelatin in 1 tbsp. of water over a low heat. Add gelatin mixture to the cream mixture and whip until stiff peaks form. Feel free to add 1 tsp. vanilla to the mixture. Place a generous dollop of cream on top of the cut cupcakes.

Now, take those pretty little cupcake lids and place them on top of the mount of pastry cream like so…

Enjoy!

For some odd reason, I never consider my icing sugar inventory when I start a baking project. I just assume my cupboard has an infinite supply of icing sugar. So nothing grinds my gears more than it being way past midnight (me thinking that’s an ideal time to start the frosting) and discovering I do not have enough icing to make a crumb coat let alone icing the whole thing. What sucks more is I purposely made an ingredient run to the grocery store that day and still disregarded adding icing sugar to the list. 

Solution? Make my own!

What you need: blender or processor, granulated sugar (or regular sugar for you n00bs) and corn starch (1 cup of sugar : 1 tbsp. corn starch). Grind the sugar into a powder then add the corn starch. The corn starch acts as a binding agent so that the formerly known sugar can react properly with the other ingredients in your frosting recipe. 

So Iron Cupcake: Earth is underway. The challenge? Chili peppers. My personal challenge? I very seldom cook with chili peppers let alone bake with them! Regardless, I love playing with flavour combinations and bombarding my co-workers for their opinion. Will bake for feedback and compliments.

**VOTING ENDS SEPTEMBER 4! VOTE NOW AT No One Puts Cupcake in a Corner!**

Before I get into the nitty-gritty and the seductive descriptions of what became my end product, let’s give it up for the prize donors:
Cakespy, Jessie Steele Aprons, The Cupcake Courier, Taste of Home, Fiesta Products and Hello, Cupcake.

Orange Chocolate Cupcake w/ Mango-Chili Frosting

This is a light and moist chocolate cupcake dancing in orange juice and tip-toeing in spices. I didn’t want to make this cake kick you in the mouth for the sake of kicking you in the mouth. The mango frosting is a marriage of citrus and fire providing some heat and cool down.

Orange Chocolate Cupcake w/ Mango-Chili Frosting (makes 24)

Ingredients:

• 2 cups sugar
• 1 ¾ cups flour
• ¾ cup cocoa
• 1 ½ tsp. baking powder
• 1 ½ tsp. baking soda
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• ½ cup vegetable oil
• 2 tsp. vanilla
• 1 cup orange juice
• ¼ tsp. chili powder
• ½ tsp. ground cinnamon
• ½ tsp. ground cloves
• Mango-Chili Frosting (recipe below)
• Orange slices (I used red naval oranges for the colour)
• Crushed red pepper flakes

1. Heat oven to 350°F. Line two muffin tins.
2. Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder and soda in large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla and beat on medium. Slowly stir in the orange juice until it’s fully absorbed. Add chili powder, ground cinnamon and ground cloves and stir into the mixture. Spoon the batter a little over half-way full into the cupcake wells and bake for 15-20 minutes. Cool completely.
3. Prepare the frosting (recipe below). Place the red pepper flakes into a saucer. Spread the frosting evenly over the top of the cooled cupcake and delicately roll the edge of the cupcake into the crushed flakes. Top the cupcake with an orange slice.

Mango-Chili Frosting

Ingredients:

• ½ cup butter; softened
• ½ cup mango purée (one ripe mango through a food processor does the trick)
• Zest and juice of one lime
• 2 tbsp. honey
• 4-5 cups of icing sugar (varied to desired spreading consistency)
• ½ tsp. chili pepper
• Drops of tabasco sauce

1. Cream butter until light and fluffy. Add mango, lime zest and juice and honey and beat well. Mix in icing sugar one cup at a time. Mix in chili pepper and tabasco sauce to your liking.

Just purchased this fantastic cupcake book by Suzannah Blake called Cupcake Heaven (review possibly to follow though you may not need it as I’m telling you now: it’s GREAT!) Anyway, I’m used to just sticking to my basic, albeit solid, chocolate or vanilla cupcake recipes, but on one fateful day, I decided to broaden my horizons and try different flavours finally. This was one of them…

Creamy Coconut Cupcakes

Ingredients:

• 6 tbsp. butter, softened
• ½ cup sugar
• 2 tbsp. creamed coconut
• 2 eggs
• ¾ cup self-rising flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 3 tbsp. sweetened flaked coconut
• grated peel from 1 lime
• 2 tbsp. milk

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 12 cupcake wells with 12 muffin cups.
2. Beat butter, sugar and coconut together until creamy. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Sift in flour and baking powder and fold into mixture along with the coconut and grated lime peel then milk.
3. Evenly divide batter into cupcake wells and bake for 15-17 minutes. Let stand in pan for 5 minutes then move cupcakes to a wire rack to cool completely.

To make the frosting:

• 5 oz. cream cheese; softened
• ½ cup icing sugar
• 2 tsp. lime juice; freshly squeezed
• Sweetened flaked coconut

1. Beat together cream cheese, icing sugar and lime juice until creamy. Swirl the frosting onto the cupcakes and sprinkle with the sweetened flaked coconut at will.

Makes 12 summer-happy cuppies!

Superstar chef Wolfgang Puck makes an Upside Down Caramel Pumpkin Cheesecake with the help of Regis & Kelly guest co-host David Duchovny [swoon to my 90s crush] with hilarious results!

Peanut Butter Cup Brownie Bites (makes 72 brownie bites)

Ingredients:

• 8 oz. semisweet chocolate; finely chopped
• 1 cup butter; room temperature, cut into pieces
• 2 cups brown sugar
• 4 eggs
• 2 tsp. vanilla
• ¼ tsp. salt
• 1 cup flour
• ¾ cup peanut butter chips
• Peanut Butter Frosting (recipe to follow)
• Hardening Chocolate Coating (recipe to follow)

1. Preheat oven to 350ºF. Lightly grease mini cupcake pan.
2. Melt chocolate and butter together either over a double boiler or in the microwave. Stir until smooth and combined, then cool to lukewarm.
3. Transfer to a large mixing bowl. Whisk in brown sugar until well blended. Then whisk in eggs, one at a time making sure each egg is well absorbed before adding the next one. Add flour and peanut butter chips at the same time and fold into batter until there are no more flour streaks.
4. Divide batter evenly into greased mini cupcake pan. They will rise slightly and bake up with a flat top. Baking mini brownies will require baking in 2 batches (36 at a time). Bake for 11-12 minutes each batch. When done, the tops will be slightly dry and crackled but extremely moist in the center.
5. Cool in pans for 5 minutes then transfer to wire rack to cool completely. Pipe thick swirls of the Peanut Butter Frosting over the mini brownie bites; allow to harden slightly. Dip the frosting tops of the brownies into the chocolate coating. Let chocolate coating set before consuming.

Peanut Butter Frosting and Hardening Chocolate Coating after the jump…

Read the rest of this entry »

These happy cuppies resulted in a myriad of orgasmic moans in the office today. And now I bestow this recipe upon you!

Apple Raspberry Cupcakes w/ Raspberry Buttercream

Ingredients:

• 2/3 cup butter; cubed
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs; lightly beaten
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 generous cup self-rising flour
• ¾ cup vanilla-flavoured yogurt
• 1 large apple; peeled and shredded
• 2/3 cup raspberries

1. Preheat oven to 350ºF. Line 2 muffin tins (24 total) with cupcake liners.
2. Beat the butter and sugar together in a large bowl until pale and fluffy. Gradually add the eggs; beating well after each addition. Stir in the vanilla. Add flour, then the yogurt, grated apple and raspberries and mix until smooth.
3. Spoon mixture evenly into cupcake wells. Tap pans lightly on counter surface to settle the batter. Bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown and center springs back up when lightly pressed. Let cool on wire rack.

Cake recipe taken from Cakes Galore and altered to accommodate baking for cupcakes instead of a 8-inch cake.

Top with Raspberry Buttercream frosting (recipe after the jump)

Read the rest of this entry »

Very seldom do I show an unfinished product… until now:

Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes maturing.

Chocolate Cupcakes filled with a vanilla custard filling.

Dressed up cupcakes and their respective recipes after the jump…

Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »