Watermelon Cupcakes

Summer is sort of coming to a close, so I'm a little tardy in posting this recipe. But if you really like watermelon, you might want to bookmark it for when watermelon is back at its peek in season. I personally am not head over heels for watermelon myself, but the idea of a watermelon cupcake seemed like a fun challenge. I used fresh fruit that I pureed and made into a pastry cream filling, and topped the cupcake with a light meringue frostings, one that wouldn't over power the flavor of the filling.

Watermelon Cream

Patience was the death of me on this recipe. You have to let the gelatin mixture set up for a couple hours, but can't leave it all night because you need to whip in the cream at the point where the mixture is just turning gelatinous. I thought I had screwed it up the first time, so made 2 batches of watermelon gel, one of which over set, making watermelon jello. I'm sure it was delicious, but as I mentioned before, I'm not THAT crazy about watermelon, so it didn't appeal to me so much. 

- 2 1/4 cups, divided, seeded, watermelon, pureed

- 1 envelope unflavored gelatin

- 1 cup sugar

- 1 tablespoon lemon juice

- 1/2 cup whipping cream, whipped

Combine gelatin and 1/4 cup watermelon puree; set aside. 

Bring remaining 2 cups puree to a boil in a small saucepan. Remove from heat; add gelatin mixture, and stir until gelatin dissolves. Stir in sugar and lemon juice, and chill mixture until consistency of unbeaten egg white (2 hours or so, check on it though).

Fold whipped cream into chilled watermelon mixture. Keep chilled until ready to use. 

White Cupcake

- 12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

- 1 1/2 cups sugar

- 2 cups all purpose flour

- 2 teaspoons baking powder

- 1/4 teaspoon salt

- 3 large eggs

- 3/4 cup milk

Preheat to 350 degrees. Line cupcake tins (makes 18-24). 

In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside. 

With mixer or in stand mixer, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time until incorporated, scraping the sides of the bowl as needed. Gradually add the flour mixture to the butter mixture alternating with the milk mixture until all mixed together. 

Pour the batter into prepared tins. Bake 20 minutes, then cool completely. Hollow out each cupcake making room for filling, and then pipe filling into each. 

Italian Meringue Frosting

- 3/4 cup sugar

- 1/4 cup light corn syrup

- 1/4 cup water

- 4 egg whites

- 1/8 teaspoon salt

- green food coloring

Beat egg whites at high speed with an electric mixer until foamy; add salt, and beat until stiff peaks form. Let sit while you cook syrup:

Cook first sugar, corn syrup and water in a heavy saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly, until sugar dissolves. Bring to a boil, and boil until a candy thermometer registers 248° (about 5 minutes).

With mixer running, gradually whisk hot syrup into egg whites, whisking until stiff peaks form and frosting is of spreading consistency.

I added a couple drops of green food coloring to the whole batch and put half the frosting in a pastry bag, then added a few drops more to the remaining frosting and filled another bag with the remaining frosting. 

Once cupcakes are filled, pipe a stripe of the darker green frosting across the tops of the cupcakes, then go back with the lighter frosting to make the alternating stripes, similar to how a watermelon has stripes. I felt like the look of the cupcakes was only so-so, as the frosting was a little aerated, so had a really bubbly texture, versus a watermelon that is rather firm. But, everyone who tried them liked them! I usually don't refrigerate cupcakes, but since these had the gelatin filling, I didn't want to change them melting. Apparently the side effect was that the filling had a delightful chill, perfectly capturing the summer refreshment of watermelon. 

Chocolate Marshmallow Cream-filled Cupcakes

I was about to call this a "Fauxstess" cupcake, but realized that the name is reserved for the more vegan alternative to our dear "Hostess" cupcakes. These are not vegan, not even kind of close, so I guess I'll have to relegate them to simply "Hostess knock-offs." A rich chocolate cupcake filled with a homemade marshmallow filling and topped with semi-sweet ganache and the classic white swirl. Growing up, these were some of my favorite "bribes" my dad would offer in order to get us to go with him to walk the dog each night. I mean, I don't think I really disliked taking the dog for a walk, but the extra incentive was always appreciated.

So, these are definitely a little more "real" tasting. I haven't had an actual Hostess Cupcakes in a many years, mostly because I am afraid to know what's in them. Not to suggest that these homemade versions are "good" for you, but at least I know the ingredients that go into them are not chock full of preservatives.

A quick note about the filling. Today a couple friends and I got together to work on prepping for some Easter goodies. We decided to make homemade Peeps (a later post), which are basically molded marshmallows. Having made what I thought was French Meringue once, I noted that it was super similar in flavor and texture to marshmallows, so thought it would work very well as a marshmallow frosting which could be piped into little chick shapes. What I didn't know, was that I was actually making Italian Meringue. I found a very helpful article about the difference in Meringues here, via Martha Stewart. I think this is also called boiled frosting, and any number of other code names. In any case, the texture is lighter and stickier than marshmallows, but it worked for its purpose.

Make Ganache First:
Semi-sweet Ganache

1 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup corn syrup (this can be optional, see below)
8 oz. semisweet chocolate, chopped into small pieces (or chips)

Heat cream and corn syrup until they reach a boil. Pour over chocolate and let set approximately 2 minutes. Whisk together until fully incorporated. Set aside to cool (do not refrigerate as it will get too hard).
So, you don't really need to add corn syrup to ganache, but it really does smooth out the texture and add a really nice sheen to the chocolate which is very appealing. If you have dietary restrictions or just don't like to use corn syrup more than you have to, you can skip it. Maybe just up the cream by a couple tablespoons or so, and add a tablespoon or so of butter to help the texture. You can also add vanilla, if you're so inclined.


Chocolate Cupcakes
Whisk together:
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

In large heat proof bowl, melt:
6 tbs butter
Whisk in
1/3 cup cocoa powder
then
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla

In small heat proof bowl or saucepan, heat until almost boiling:
1/4 cup milk
1/2 -3/4 cup water

Alternating between flour mix and water mix, beginning and ending with flour, mix together with sugar/cocoa mixture until incorporated. The batter will be a bit on the runny side, which you can control with how much water you put in. I think somewhere between 1/2-3/4 cups water in addition to the milk make an excellently moist, but still stable cupcake.

Bake for 20 minutes. Cool.

Italian Meringue

3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
1 1/2 tablespoons light corn syrup
3 large egg whites, room temperature
Pinch of salt and cream of tartar
Directions

Bring sugar, water, and corn syrup to a boil in a small saucepan, stirring until sugar dissolves. Cook, undisturbed, until syrup registers 248 degrees on a candy thermometer.

Meanwhile, whisk whites with a mixer on low speed until foamy. Add salt and cream of tartar. Increase speed to medium, and whisk until soft peaks form, about 8 minutes.

Reduce speed to low, and pour hot syrup down side of bowl in a slow, steady stream. Increase speed to high, and beat until mixture stops steaming, about 3 minutes. Fill piping bag with frosting - fit it with any large circular tip you have on hand.

Once cupcakes have cooled, cut out the centers either with a melon baller or apple corer (you probably want a larger hole to cram as much fluff into the cupcake as possible). Fill each cavity with the marshmallow cream filling. Dip each cupcake in the ganache and swirl slightly to coat the top completely. If your ganache got a bit too hard to do this with, defrost in microwave for no more than 10 seconds and stir until smooth.

Let the ganache set for a bit. So, I happened to have a bit of leftover buttercream so I could easily pipe on the little swirls. It would kill me if I had to make a whole batch of it just for decorating the tops of these, but if you must do it, here's the recipe for a small batch of frosting:

Vanilla Buttercream Frosting
Beat at medium speed until creamy
1/4 cup butter, room temperature
Add in 
1/2-3/4 cup powdered sugar
until mixture is crumbly. Scrape down the sides, then add
1/4 tsp vanilla
Beat until mixture comes together. Beat in 
a few drops of milk
to smooth it out. 


Fill a small pastry bag fitted with a small circular tip with the frosting and gently pipe out the swirls on top of each cupcake. They are a little tricky to make look consistent. Good luck!