SF Beer Week Cupcake: Young's Double Chocolate Stout Cupcakes with Chocolate Raspberry Cider Frosting

     

     These cupcakes were baked for SF Beer Week! My boyfriend and I went to the kickoff ceremony and drank a lot of great locally brewed beers and enjoyed ourselves. I wish I could have used a local brew for these cupcakes, but the sound of 'double chocolate stout' just sounded so good to put in a cupcake. This is my first own recipe, so be nice to me!

Young’s Double Chocolate Stout Cupcakes

Yield: ~14 cupcakes

3 ounces unsweetened chocolate

½ cup unsalted butter, cut into chunks

½ cup Young's Double Chocolate Stout (or any other stout you might prefer, but trust me with this selection)

1 ¼ c sugar

1 cup flour

½ tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

¼ tsp salt

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

½ cup sour cream

Step 1

Turn on some tunes. This is gonna be a bakin, boozin, and jammin night! Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line your cupcake tin.

Step 2

Melt chocolate and butter. I use a double boiler, and it takes some time to melt… so I spent this time enjoying some of the leftover beer. I set up all my measurements in advance so I could specifically do this! Mmmm, Young’s makes for a nice dessert.

If you don't have a double boiler, I don't recommend using a microwave. It takes too long to try to melt the unsweetened chocolate. What you should do instead is make your own double boiler. Have a saucepan with water in it barely at a simmer, then take a heatproof bowl that is large enough to fit on the top of it and put it right on there. Make sure the water below isn't touching the bottom on the bowl. BAM, double boiler!

Mmm, butter and chocolate

After the chocolate butter as melted, stir in the beer until smooth. Then remove from the heat and allow it to cool. You have now created something amazing, be proud.

This is what it looks like right after the beer is poured

This is what it should look like after it is stirred until smooth

Step 3

Take the amazing thing you just made and make it more amazing (and palatable) by dumping it into a mixing bowl of sugar and MIX!

ZOMG this tastes amazing!

Step 4

Now we add in the eggs one at a time and then and vanilla. Make sure batter isn’t too warm because we don’t want to cook the eggs. Mix on medium for about a minute. Take additional sips of beer.

Step 5

Add in half of the dry ingredients, then sour cream (weird, yes I know, but it makes them cuppie cakes taste so yum), then the rest of the dry ingredients.

Step 6

Put about ½ cup of batter into each lined cupcake tin. I used one of those cookie scoopers with the release handle on it. Flippin sweet. No mess! Bake for about 20 mins. For minis, bake about 14 mins. Let the cupcakes cool in the pan on a rack for about 10 minutes and then take them out of the pan and let cool completely. After that…. Time for a perfectly appropriate frosting, chocolate raspberry cider!

Raspberry Cider Frosting

1 cup butter (2 sticks)

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa (this is an estimate as I added in the cocoa as a last minute thing and didn't measure it out... sorry!)

2-3 cups powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla

4 tbsp raspberry cider

Step 1

Whip up the butter with the cocoa powder and then slowly add in the powdered sugar until desired sweetness.

Step 2

Add in the vanilla and whip up. Then add in the cider slowly. It will make the frosting look a little weird at first but when its well blended in, the frosting will look almost normal. The bubbles in the cider make the frosting a little different.

Step 3

Frost them little cakies!

I love my new cupcake liners!

The frosting for these turned out really delicious with a 

great mouth feel. It was very light and fluffy, and very

smooth and velvety!

YUM!

I hope you enjoy these cupcakes as much as me, my boyfriend, and other friends did! 

Red Velvet Rice Krispies

     So the only reason I really like Valentine's day is because it gives me a reason to bake and put cute little heart decorations on things... And then feed them to my boyfriend and family and friends! I found this recipe on StumbleUpon and just decided to try it because it was really simple, like all rice krispie recipes!

Red Velvet Rice Krispies
(Recipe from this place!)
4 tbsp butter
3 cups mini marshmallows (or more if you prefer more gooey rice krispies like me)
1/3 cup red velvet cake mix (just the powder)
4 cups rice krispies cereal (I use the non-brand name)
1 cup chocolate chips (you can use semi-sweet, dark, milk, or the minis)

Step 1
Prepare a pan lined with parchment paper! Or grease a pan, depends on how much butter you want. Then melt the butter on medium-low.

Step 2
Add the marshmallows and cake mix to the melted buttery goodness. Be sure to stir frequently, don't wanna burn it!

Step 3
After the marshmallows, butter, and cake mix have mixed to make a beautiful fusion, add the krispies and stir, stir, stir! This will give you a nice arm workout.

Step 4
Dump your now ground-beef looking mixture into your prepared pan. Put this pan into the fridge and let it cool for a bit.

Step 5
Get out your cookie cutters and make them shapes! I added a cream cheese frosting to the top for the decorations. It was just a quick mixture of some cream cheese, powdered sugar, and milk... I didn't really measure anything out :\ Sorry. Also, I kinda preferred the rice krispie treats without the frosting because I'm not a huge sweet fan, but I do like how cute it made them!

My next posting will probably be something V-day related or SF beer week related... we'll see what happens first!

Chocolate Chip Cupcakes with Dark Chocolate Frosting

Sorry the picture is a little blurry... Nighttime baking

doesn't provide great lighting

     Yes, I am still alive. Yes, I am still baking. Yes, I am incredibly busy now. Yes, I am still looking for a job as an RN. But let's get back to the yummy stuff! So I decided to veer away from my normal chocolate cupcake go-to's and try a new white cupcake recipe... but I still needed some chocolate on there thus the frosting and those cute itty bitty chocolate chips (which I've always wanted to use).

Chocolate Chip Cupcake
(Recipe taken from good ole Martha Stewart)
Yield: ~15 cupcakes**

1 1/2 cup + 2 tbsp sifted cake flour (not self-rising)
2 1/4 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 tbsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup + 1 tbsp milk
1/4 cup + 3 tbsp unsalted butter, room temperature!
3/4 cup + 2 tbsp sugar
3 large egg whites, rooooooom temperature
1 cup semisweet mini chocolate chips

**NOTE: I halved the recipe. For some reason Miss Stewart likes to have recipes that yields WAY too many cupcakes.**

Step 1
Get that oven fired up to 350 degrees, yee haw! Then line yer cupcake tin with those dern paper lienrs! (Don't ask where that came from)
Then whisk up the cake flour, baking powder, and salt. Also, dump the vanilla into your milk, let's just prepare everything!

Step 2
Now take your room temperature butter and cream cream cream on medium-high speed until smooth. Then slowly add in the sugar until the mixture is a pale fluffy buttery cloud, well not really a cloud, but you get what I mean!

I wish I had a way to doodle 

clouds on here easily...

Next, we get to destroy our heavenly cloud of butter and sugar and make it look even more heavenly. At a low speed (to prevent a flour cloud), slowly add in the flour mixture in 3 batches, alternating with 2 additions of the vanilla/milk. Only beat until combined.

Flufffffyyyyyy

Step 3
So now in another bowl you gotta whisk your egg whites on medium speed until it forms stiff peaks. Be sure not to overwhip these little guys. You can tell when you have overwhipped them when they start to separate. I wish I had a picture to share, but I got a little excited about our next step... you can just google what stiff peaks look like for now.

Our next step needs to be done with a spatula, spoon, or whatever utensil you prefer. We are going to fold the egg whites into the batter. To fold, put the whites into the middle of the batter and then gently scoop from the outside to the inside... I hope my explanation is decent, sorry if it isn't :\ After folding, you're gonna fold in those cute tiny little chocolate chips!

Step 4
Divide the batter evenly among the cups, which will be about 3/4 full. Martha Stewart says to bake for 22 minutes, but I stopped at 18 since the tops were starting to brown and they looked cooked. Put the cupcakes on a rack to cool and remove them from the tin.

I think they're missing something...

Dark Chocolate Frosting
(Adapted from Martha Stewart)
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 cup boiling water
1 1/8 cup (2 1/4 sticks) unsalted room temperature butter
6 tbsp powdered sugar, sifted
1/8 tsp salt
~ 1lb of semi-sweet chocolate (I like chocolate, you can have less if you please), melted and cooled

Step 1
Combine the cocoa and boiling water until sewper smoooooth. I like to do this in a coffee mug because its easy to heat the water in there too.

Step 2
Get your electric mixer out and put your room temp butter, powdered sugar, and salt in there. Beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it, all you got to do is beat it...until fluffy. Then slow down the speed to low and add the melted and cooled chocolate, mix until combined, and then add the cocoa mixture. Be sure to scrape down the sides as needed.

Step 3
Get a small spatula or a knife, or your hands if you really want to do things that way, and put the frosting on those little cakes! Feel free to add sprinkles or some of the leftover mini chocolate chips to the top. You can store these cupcakes in the fridge in an air tight container for a couple of days and bring to room temperature before eating (or just eat them cold like my boyfriend likes to do).

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to message me or post it!

In the next couple of weeks I will be doing Valentine's themed baking stuff! I'm not the hugest fan of V-day, but what's cuter than little heart shaped sprinkles?

Oreo Cake Pops!

I now need a cake pop stand...

     This is my first time at attempting cake pops! I first was wondering how Bakerella (the inventor of cake pops) got the cake to bake in a perfect circle, cake just doesn't work that way! Then I decided to read through the book and found out that they are made by combining already baked cake and frosting, amazing!

Recipes:
Yield: about 48 cake pops
Difficulty: Moderate

Cake
Used my Chocolate Peppermint Cupcakes recipe except I replaced the peppermint extract with vanilla extract. I also baked the cake in a 13x9 glass pan with 14 minutes added to the time at the same temperature.

Frosting
1/2 cup unsalted room temperature butter
2 cups powered sugar (fyi, I am never exact on my sugar measurements, I always add until I like the flavor)
1 tsp vanilla
2 tbsp milk
1/2 cup oreo crumbs

Decorations
Dark cocoa melting chocolate
Vanilla flavored white melting chocolate
Oreo crumbs
White candy sticks

Step 1
     Bake the cake! I'm no expert at taking a cupcake recipe and turning it into a cake recipe, but for me, luckily it all turned out fine. I kept the temperature the same and lengthened the time. If you want to take the easy route, you can definitely used boxed cake mix, in fact, thats what the cookbook recommended. After the cake is done, let it cool completely before turning it into crumbs.

Step 2
     Make the frosting. Whip up the butter until it is smooth and then slowly add the powdered sugar. Whip it up until it looks nice and fluffy. Then add in your milk and vanilla until combined. Lastly, add in those yummo oreo crumbs! Also, the easy way out for this step would be to just buy some store-bought frosting and add your own oreo crumbs.

Step 3
     Turn your cake into crumbs! You can do this by a food processor, blender, or by rubbing two pieces of cake together. Break up any large crumbs with a fork.

Step 4
     Now take that bowl of frosting and dump it right into that bigger bowl of cake crumbs, then mix mix mix it with a spoon. If you're doing the easy way, only use 3/4 of a can of frosting.

Mush!

Step 5
     Now that you have mixed alllll this up and made a lovely mush consisting of cake and frosting, you now need to get down and dirty using your HANDS. Pick up a nice portion of cake mush and then roll it into a 1 1/2 inch ball. I'm terrible at estimating size, so I just rolled them into a size that people wouldn't mind shoving into their mouths. Since I was making these late at night, I just put all of my cake balls into a bowl and let them chill overnight so I could dip them in the morning. If you want things to go faster than leaving them in the fridge for a couple hours, then you can put them into the freezer for about 15 minutes so they are firm, not frozen.

I couldn't stop singing Chef's song "Chocolate Salty Balls"

Step 6
     After my cake balls were sufficiently chilled, I set up my work station. Cake balls, sticks, melting chocolate, and crushed oreos. To melt the melting chocolate, you can put it in the microwave at 30 second intervals, stirring between each heating session. Or you can put it in a double boiler. Just be sure the chocolate doesn't get too hot, otherwise it will burn and you will have icky chocolate.

My itty-bitty work station

Step 7
     So now we need to turn these chocolate cake balls into pops. This magical transformation happens by putting a stick in them! But first, you should dip that stick into the chocolate and then about halfway through the cake ball, we don't want to be stabbing through these little guys, now do we? So now that we have a cake pop, we gotta dip it into the chocolate. This is where I got kinda messy.... I had to add 2 tsp vegetable oil to help thin the chocolate and then I kept a toothpick handy to help scrape off extra chocolate. Sorry I didn't get any pictures of this, but its a little hard when both hands are busy, haha. The technique is to dip it, cover the entire ball, let some drip off, and then hold it sideways while twisting it to let more drip off (this is where I used my toothpick).
     Immediately after dipping, sprinkle the pop with crushed oreos and then stick it into some styrofoam to let it dry. I had to use some oasis, which is what florists use for flower arrangements... thanks mom. If you don't have any styrofoam, then just stick the pops upside down on a pan covered with wax paper (for easy removal). You'll end up with a flat edge, but whatever, it all ends up in the stomach anyways :)

Good thing I had my taste-tester around!

     So there's my post about cake pops *whew*. Sorry if it was confusing in any way. If you have any questions, just ask! Oh, and by the way, I made these cake pops about a week ago and they are STILL moist and delicious. I've kept them in a zip-lock bag. I can't guarantee moistness if you went the boxed cake mix and frosting way though... I guess you just gotta get all domestic and go the homemade way!