My I Love You Honey Bunny cupcake in version XXL. This is for a gal turning 21 today. Her family treated her to a trip to Paris for this very special occasion!
This is a carrot cake giant cupcake topped with vanilla bean cream cheese frosting. It's decorated with a home-made white chocolate Eiffel Tower colored deep mauve, and sparkling "21" and fondant cut-outs. Hope the birthday girl enjoys this beautiful baby!
11 May 2010
03 May 2010
Feeling Hot, Hot, Hot! A Cinco de Mayo Cupcake Recipe
A few months back, I created a spicy chocolate Senorita cupcake for the Iron Cupcake : Earth Music Challenge. I'm just back from vacation and don't have an egg to crack or even some buttermilk in the house to get me going so I thought I'd resurrect this recipe for those of you who may be interested in taking a themed cupcake to your Cinco de Mayo parties. It's chocolate, ganache and HOT -- what more could you ask in a May 5th cupcake! Enjoy!
Senorita Cupcakes (makes about 20)
(adapted from Martha Stewart's One Bowl Chocolate Cupcake recipe)
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon (if you pair this cupcake with a simple chocolate ganache, feel free to add in up to 1 teaspoon cinnamon in the cupcake batter to make it extra spicy. I scaled mine back since I paired this with a spicy ganache. In general, I like Saigon Cinnamon for this recipe as it is rather strong and gives you an extra kick).
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
3/4 cup warm water
1/4 cup milk
1/2 cup sour cream
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners; set aside. Sift together cocoa powder, flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and cayenne pepper and salt into a large bowl. Add eggs, warm water, sour cream, milk, oil, and vanilla, and mix until smooth, about 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides and bottom of bowl to assure batter is well mixed.
Divide batter evenly among muffin cups, filling each 2/3 full. Bake until tops spring back when touched, about 20 minutes, rotating pan once if needed. Transfer to a wire rack; let cool completely.
Spicy Chocolate Ganache Frosting
4.5 ounces bittersweet chocolate (I used a Vosges Red Fire chocolate bar)
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 tsp butter, room temperature
2-3 cups powdered sugar
Break up chocolate and place in a heatproof bowl. In a small casserole, heat cream until just about boiling. Remove from heat and pour over the chocolate. Let sit for 1 minute then stir until combined. Next add the butter and stir until combined. If you want to make it spicy, add 1/2 - 1 teaspoon cinnamon.
Let cool for 10 minutes. Using a whisk or electric hand-beater, sift in powdered sugar one cup at a time beating after each addition. Continue adding sugar and beating until mixture is of good spreading consistency.
28 April 2010
New Flava Flav: Remedy
An ex's former roommate, who I'll refrain from naming outright and just use his nickname: Groovy Doovy, recently celebrated his 40th which was covered in a New York Times article. Still with me? I must have had him on the brain cause when it came time to name my new May flavor, I immediately found the Black Crowes song, Remedy, running through my head. The reason? Well, first let me tell you about the cupcake....this is a lightly flavored lemon cupcake with your choice of strawberry or raspberry buttercream, edged in lemon-flavored sanding sugar, and topped here with a hand-made fondant lemon slice and strawberry. It's essentially a pink lemonade in cupcake form.
Now back to Groovy Doovy who has spent his lifetime successfully providing comic relief. He's a musician -- he and music are like well, lemons and lemonade. One long, hot summer, when Remedy was incessantly playing on MTV and the radio, he got to singing "Can I have some lemonade? All I want is some lemonade" during the song chorus. Listen for it -- you hear it, right? To this day, I cannot think of the Black Crowes, Chris Robinson or heck, even Kate Hudson without thinking of lemonade and Groovy Doovy. So, now you know the story behind the cupcake and its name. I hope you'll be calling me soon for some lemonade....and my new just in for Spring Remedy cupcake!
27 April 2010
I'm Gonna Soak Up the Sun - A Daring Bakers' Challenge
I'm posting this during a short pitstop home between the two weeks of our current school break. I just spent a glorious week at the beach and am getting ready to head down South to Avignom tomorrow. What can I say? A Daring Baker's life is never dull; well at least when you've got blog posting deadlines to meet, people! The April 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Esther of The Lilac Kitchen. She challenged everyone to make a traditional British pudding using, if possible, a very traditional British ingredient: suet.
I have to say this was probably one of the most daring of all the challenges I have made to date. Not because it required lots of exotic ingredients (no, in fact the recipe I chose had only 5 basic items) nor fancy culinary techniques (it doesn't get much easier than melting some butter and then stirring in 3 ingredients to prepare). For me, the challenge came from the fact that I was preparing this recipe at my mother-in-law's apartment at the beach with nary a measuring spoon, kitchen scale or even proper baking tins available. There wasn't even a bar of butter in the fridge or bag of flour in the cupboard to get me started. So simplicity was key and I had no choice but to wing this challenge by guesstimating the amount of ingredients needed (which was an unbelievable task given the pudding recipe I chose asked for things like "the weight of 3 eggs in sugar," etc.). I'm telling you, I can't remember the last time I had to think so hard in the kitchen!
I was also a little bit thrown by the challenge, a steamed suet pudding. Suet? Isn't that some kind of derived animal fat, like lard? Ick! I've never even used Crisco in cooking so you can imagine my mindset. And pudding? Well heck! To me that involves boiling some water and stirring in the contents of a package you get in a small cardboard box labeled Jell-O! But Esther was kind enough to explain what she wanted -- a recipe would qualify as long as it was steamed and as long as it was called pudding, and never mind the suet if we didn't want to use it. Phew. So I surfed on over to one of the references she gave us, Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management and came across something called Canary Pudding recipe which called for only 5 simple ingredients. This was it - Game On!
Despite the measurements which I am sure I got wrong (when I'm back home from the next leg of my vacation, I aim to measure out each ingredient to see where I went wrong), this was a fairly easy recipe to pull together and prepare. The batter tasted pretty good - sweet and lemony - which gave me high hopes for a successful outcome. Next was the challenge of steaming it. The only thing I could find to cook this in was an old, deformed ring pan which I fitted with aluminum and propped up on some crumpled aluminum foil in a large covered pot that served as a makeshift steamer.
I let it steam for just under 2 hours as stated in the recipe and when I pulled it out, it was both undercooked and dry at the same time (?). The taste of the pudding was way too eggy. But inspired by the warm weather and sunny days, I decided to pretty it up in the guise of a Strawberry Short-pudding replete with fresh strawberries, raspberries and home-made whipped cream. My husband and I both agreed this pudding was an abomination. Oh well, at least we were able to enjoy the fresh berries and whipped cream on a beautiful sunny day overlooking the beach. Til next time, daring bakers, when it is my turn to host!
Mrs. Beeton's Canary Pudding:
INGREDIENTS - The weight of 3 eggs in sugar and butter, the weight of 2 eggs in flour, the rind of 1 small lemon, 3 eggs.
Mode.—Melt the butter to a liquid state, but do not allow it to oil; stir to this the sugar and finely-minced lemon-peel, and gradually dredge in the flour, keeping the mixture well stirred; whisk the eggs; add these to the pudding; beat all the ingredients until thoroughly blended, and put them into a buttered mould or basin; boil for 2 hours, and serve with sweet sauce.
Time.—2 hours. Average cost, 9d.
Sufficient for 4 or 5 persons. Seasonable at any time.
I have to say this was probably one of the most daring of all the challenges I have made to date. Not because it required lots of exotic ingredients (no, in fact the recipe I chose had only 5 basic items) nor fancy culinary techniques (it doesn't get much easier than melting some butter and then stirring in 3 ingredients to prepare). For me, the challenge came from the fact that I was preparing this recipe at my mother-in-law's apartment at the beach with nary a measuring spoon, kitchen scale or even proper baking tins available. There wasn't even a bar of butter in the fridge or bag of flour in the cupboard to get me started. So simplicity was key and I had no choice but to wing this challenge by guesstimating the amount of ingredients needed (which was an unbelievable task given the pudding recipe I chose asked for things like "the weight of 3 eggs in sugar," etc.). I'm telling you, I can't remember the last time I had to think so hard in the kitchen!
I was also a little bit thrown by the challenge, a steamed suet pudding. Suet? Isn't that some kind of derived animal fat, like lard? Ick! I've never even used Crisco in cooking so you can imagine my mindset. And pudding? Well heck! To me that involves boiling some water and stirring in the contents of a package you get in a small cardboard box labeled Jell-O! But Esther was kind enough to explain what she wanted -- a recipe would qualify as long as it was steamed and as long as it was called pudding, and never mind the suet if we didn't want to use it. Phew. So I surfed on over to one of the references she gave us, Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management and came across something called Canary Pudding recipe which called for only 5 simple ingredients. This was it - Game On!
Despite the measurements which I am sure I got wrong (when I'm back home from the next leg of my vacation, I aim to measure out each ingredient to see where I went wrong), this was a fairly easy recipe to pull together and prepare. The batter tasted pretty good - sweet and lemony - which gave me high hopes for a successful outcome. Next was the challenge of steaming it. The only thing I could find to cook this in was an old, deformed ring pan which I fitted with aluminum and propped up on some crumpled aluminum foil in a large covered pot that served as a makeshift steamer.
I let it steam for just under 2 hours as stated in the recipe and when I pulled it out, it was both undercooked and dry at the same time (?). The taste of the pudding was way too eggy. But inspired by the warm weather and sunny days, I decided to pretty it up in the guise of a Strawberry Short-pudding replete with fresh strawberries, raspberries and home-made whipped cream. My husband and I both agreed this pudding was an abomination. Oh well, at least we were able to enjoy the fresh berries and whipped cream on a beautiful sunny day overlooking the beach. Til next time, daring bakers, when it is my turn to host!
Mrs. Beeton's Canary Pudding:
INGREDIENTS - The weight of 3 eggs in sugar and butter, the weight of 2 eggs in flour, the rind of 1 small lemon, 3 eggs.
Mode.—Melt the butter to a liquid state, but do not allow it to oil; stir to this the sugar and finely-minced lemon-peel, and gradually dredge in the flour, keeping the mixture well stirred; whisk the eggs; add these to the pudding; beat all the ingredients until thoroughly blended, and put them into a buttered mould or basin; boil for 2 hours, and serve with sweet sauce.
Time.—2 hours. Average cost, 9d.
Sufficient for 4 or 5 persons. Seasonable at any time.
16 April 2010
Do the Locomotion with Me...
Well kiddies, I am hanging up my apron and taking off with the tater tots during the school break. I'll catch you back here 2 May. So I won't be baking any cupcakes during that time but if you want to place an order for a future date, I'm reachable by email: info@littlemisscupcake.fr
Til then, be sweet. I'll leave you with a few pics to tide you over in the meantime.
xxx Little Miss Cupcake
09 April 2010
Please Go All the Way
You may remember this cupcake from my Valentine's Day 2010 box. Inspired the song by The Raspberries, Go All the Way is a raspberry swirled cupcake with milk chocolate buttercream. I was recently asked to submit a recipe for an article I participated in about food bloggers in France and this is the one. That article won't come out until May or June so I figured in the meantime I'd reward all you Little Miss Cupcake fans with a sweet treat -- an advance copy of the recipe. This is the perfect cupcake to enjoy with the warmer weather we're experiencing lately. So go bake a batch, take them to the beach, park, wherever and enjoy!
You'll find the recipe in the Notes section of the Little Miss Cupcake Facebook page. You'll need to become a fan to view it.
04 April 2010
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