Browned Butter Cupcakes

I didn't lie; I told you this year's theme was browned butter.

I have made browned butter cupcakes a few times this year, but my favorite iteration has to be the one with the rosemary infused maple syrup and toasted pecans. It was inspired by a very delicious ice cream I had at a lovely restaurant in Oakland. Vanilla ice cream studded with salty pecans and topped with this rosemary maple syrup drizzle. Outstanding combination of salty and sweet, and very rich. I thought it would work very well with a browned butter base, so turned it into cupcakes.

Browned Butter Cupcakes
Makes about 2 dozen

1 1/2 sticks butter, browned (instructions below)
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 large eggs
3/4 cup milk
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup chopped, toasted pecans (optional)

Directions
Preheat oven to 350˚.

First off, toast a handful of raw pecans. Spray them very lightly with some oil and sprinkle with some kosher salt, roasting from anywhere between 200˚-300˚ for about 10 minutes or until you smell the nutty aroma. Don't burn them, so keep an eye, and toss them around halfway through if needed. Set aside to cool.

Then make a quick infusion of rosemary into maple syrup. I don't think I did a good job of measuring out how much syrup or rosemary I used here. Let's say 1/4-1/3 cup and a 4" piece of rosemary. I do recommend trimming the rosemary into small clusters first (versus sticking the whole stock in the syrup) so that you have small pieces to top each cupcake with. In a small pan, bring the syrup with rosemary in it to a boil, then remove from heat and let it steep until it's cooled off on its own. Oh, just in case it's not a given, you should only be using real maple syrup for this - not the fake stuff. 

Next is the batter, starting with browning butter. In a medium size sauce pan, melt butter slowly over a low heat. Keep a close eye on it and stir frequently. The butter will probably try to boil or sizzle, so don't let it do that. Stir frequently, scraping up any bits from the bottom as you do. First it will foam up and be hard to see what's going on underneath the foaming. Then the foam will subside and you'll start to see little "bits" floating in the butter. That's the good stuff. Keep your eye on those bits and when they start getting to a caramel color and the aroma is nutty, remove from heat. This all takes between 5-10 minutes depending on how much butter you're browning, width of your pan, and how low your heat is.

Set that aside for a minute, and in a medium bowl whisk together your dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, and salt (and nuts if using in batter).

Mix brown sugar into the browned butter (in the sauce pan is fine), then quickly whisk in the eggs one at a time until combined. Add vanilla, then alternate adding the flour mixture with the milk (typically 1/3 flour, 1/2 milk, 1/3 flour, 1/2 milk, ending with remaining 1/3 of the flour). Try not to over mix.

Pour batter into prepared baking tins (1/4 per cupcake works great for me) and bake for 20 minutes.

While cupcakes bake, make frosting.

Rosemary Maple Buttercream
Side note: I have found that 1 stick of butter to ~2 cups of powdered sugar is just enough frosting for a dozen cupcakes. Consider it a good rule of thumb if you decide to start experimenting. Likewise, you can gauge how many cupcakes you'll get out of recipe (roughly) by following the formula that with every 1 cup or so of flour in a recipe you'll get about a dozen cupcakes. Give or take. Anyway...

2 sticks butter, softened (1 cup)
3-4 cups powdered sugar (depending on your sweet tooth and the consistency of the frosting you like - more sugar = stiffer and will form a kind of crust once it's set for a while - great for making shapes/flowers, less sugar = less stiff and creamier.)
2-3 tbs of infused maple syrup
dash of kosher salt
1-2 tsp milk as needed

Whip butter, adding powdered sugar until blended. Drizzle in syrup and dash of salt and beat until it gets fluffy. Add a little milk to smooth out the consistency. You're now ready to decorate.

Another side note: I didn't do it with this recipe, but if you're REALLY loving the browned butter flavor and want to make it really pop, you could make a little extra browned butter and scrape some of the nutty caramelized bits into the frosting at this point as well. I did make just browned butter cupcakes with browned butter frosting once and they were delicious, albeit extremely rich.

Pipe your frosting onto the cupcakes and top with a pecan or two and LIGHTLY drizzle with the remaining maple syrup. You don't want to put too much because it will just drip off the cupcake and make a sticky mess. Do try to include a little piece of rosemary that was infused in the syrup on the top of each cupcake though. And if your nuts didn't hold onto their salt while roasting, definitely make sure you sprinkle a little extra onto each cupcake. It makes all the difference.

Browned Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

On New Year's Eve, we went to a friend's house and someone had brought salted browned butter rice crispy treats and my will power instantly crumbled. I know brown butter is amazing, but don't often think to use it. So, even though I'm not really into resolutions, I am now resolved that 2014 will be the year of brown butter.  

I will be making the rice crispy treats next, but first, since I had all the ingredients on hand, I made these chocolate chip cookies instead. Based on Alton Brown's "the Chewy" chocolate chip cookie recipe (which is solid), I modified it slightly (mostly based on the ingredients I had, so if you say, don't have molasses, just stick the original recipe) and browned the butter instead of just melting it, and added sea salt on top. 

Ingredients

2 sticks butter

12 oz flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

4 oz sugar

5 oz brown sugar

~1 oz molasses (about a tablespoon)

2 eggs

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

12 oz chocolate chips

(If you don't have a scale, brown eyed baker has included measuring cup equivalents for the ounces in her recipe.) 

Directions

Melt the butter in a large saucepan over low heat. Keep a close eye on it and stir frequently. The butter will probably try to boil or sizzle, so don't let it do that. First it will foam up and be hard to see what's going on underneath the foaming. Then the foam will subside and you'll start to see little "bits" floating in the butter. That's the good stuff. Keep your eye on those bits and when they start getting to a caramel color and the aroma is nutty, remove from heat and pour into a stand mixer bowl (or large bowl, whatever you are using). 

Sift together the flour, salt, and baking soda and set aside. Add the sugar, brown sugar, and molasses to the butter, and beat with the paddle attachment until all is incorporated, about 2 minutes. 

Meanwhile, whisk together the whole eggs and vanilla. Reduce the mixer speed and slowly add the egg mixture. Mix until thoroughly combined, about 30 seconds.

Gradually pour the dry ingredients, scraping down the sides of the bowl a couple times. Here's the part where you add the chocolate chips, but be warned, if your butter is still really hot, the batter will also still be hot and melt those chips. I actually realized this by doing it, so I'm giving you the advanced warning now. If you didn't let your brown butter chill enough, then I'd recommend taking a break at this point to let it come to room temperature. Or if you're impatient like I can sometimes be, go ahead and dump the chips in now, but don't stir more than is needed to just combine and then quickly throw the bowl in the fridge and chill for about an hour (something you should do even if you've waited for your butter to cool down first). 

When ready to go, preheat the oven to 375˚.

I used an ice cream scoop that gave me about 1-1/4 inch balls of dough (Alton says 1.5 ounces of dough) and I was able to get about 24-26 balls of dough. Place your scoops on a parchment or silpat lined baking sheet with about 2-3 inches between each for spreading. Sprinkle each with just a dash of sea salt (you may have to press the salt into the dough, versus literally sprinkling it). Bake for 10-15 minutes, depending on your oven and how chewy and melty you like your chocolate chip cookies. I did the minimum 10, just when the edges were beginning to brown, but the top gave way a little when you touch it. They will fall, and they will be devoured after you've let them cool for maybe 5 minutes. Maybe. 

Closing the Business

Well, it's been well over half a year since I posted anything on my baking blog. It's not that I haven't been baking anything since, but admittedly, after the baking boom of December Twenty Twelve, I was a little burnt out. Here's the last thing I posted on my company facebook page, the day after completing the Holiday Tin orders:

"A little ridiculous: 750 cookies, 775 truffles, 1200 marshmallows, 550 chocolate covered caramels, 8 lbs of almond roca, 31 lbs of peanut brittle, 650 pieces of fudge, plus some caramel popcorn, and a couple batches of mixed nuts. Done. Time for bed." 

This was not a solo operation, but my poor friend and I were severely understaffed, underslept, and she was sincerely underpaid for her efforts (a thousand thank you's again to Blair for all her help these past few years at the holidays).

There comes a point in a person's business venture where it becomes evident that you either need to scale back or ramp up. I reached that fork this past season, and have decided that my future is to continue to love to bake, but will be scaling it back to just baking for fun, friends and family again. Not to say that it hasn't been fun, but with changes in my life in the last 9 months or so, the time, effort, and logistics of pursuing a full-time job or company based on baking is not where I am going to be taking my career.

I will continue to post recipes, etc, and if anyone needs any advice, or maybe some cupcake liners (I have thousands), just let me know and I'll be happy to share.

Thanks to everyone who helped me get this business off the ground, and kept it going for the 4 and half years I poured myself into it. It really was fun, and was happy to have given it a shot.

Stay tuned. Hopefully I will get back into the swing of posting in time for the wonderful fall and winter treats that I love to make so much. 

Bacon S'mores - First Annual Porktober

My roommate and I hosted our first annual Porktober Party this past weekend, and for the occasion I whipped up a gourmet variation of s'mores that featured bacon.

First step is removing graham crackers and making a crust of bacon in its place. Then you melt rich, bittersweet chocolate over the bacon strips, forming a solid sheet of chocolate covered bacon, and top that with homemade marshmallow cream, and voila! Cut that into squares and torch until crispy and caramelized. No harm in using only the good stuff. We made a special trip to Fatted Calf for the occasion and bought a couple packs of their thick-cut bacon for the purpose. Be sure not to choose a bacon that is seasoned with anything like pepper - the applewood smoked or similar varieties are best for this purpose.

So here's how you do it. I am personally a big fan of baking bacon. I like how I can just pop it in the oven and not mess with it for 30-40 minutes (for thick cut bacon - at 375˚), flipping it only once halfway through. I also like how when you say baking bacon out loud, you sound redundant. Make sure your bacon is super crispy; you don't want chewy, wilted bacon for this. For the full recipe, you'll need 12-14 pieces of bacon, depending on how big it is and how much it cooks down. Seems safe to always have more than you think you'll need.

While the bacon cooks, chop up some nice, high quality dark chocolate. Or milk chocolate. Whatever your preference, just make sure you use a good one. I featured some Scharffen Berger bittersweet in this recipe (70%). I sort of eyeballed the quantity here, but I'd say it was about 8 ounces of chocolate altogether. You can always add more if it doesn't look like enough.

Place a sheet of aluminum foil along the bottom and up the sides of (2) 8x8 or 9x9 inch baking pans and lightly spray with oil or spread with butter on all sides. Once the bacon is finished, and cooled slightly, layer along the bottom of the pans as close-knit as possible, filling in gaps with pieces of bacon if you want full coverage. Then sprinkle with chopped chocolate as evenly as possible and pop back in the oven for 1-2 minutes until the chocolate has started to melt and is easy to spread with a spatula. Be careful not to work too hard to spread it so that the bacon stays in place on the bottom of the pan. I aimed to have a roughly 1:1 ratio of bacon and chocolate, focussing mainly on the chocolate acting as the mortar holding the wall of bacon together. I'm sure there are some who would have had no problem with more chocolate. Your call. 

You can let this set up at room temperature while you make the marshmallow, or if you're an excellent multi-tasker and will have the marshmallow done before chocolate normally sets, you can pop it in the fridge until firm. 

Bacon before and after chocolate spread. 

Now to make marshmallow. I just used the recipe I found ages ago on Smitten Kitchen and have had great success with. I would disclaim that it's not a vegetarian friendly version of marshmallow, but as you have read this far into my post about bacon s'mores, I'm guessing you don't care. Marshmallows are actually one of the easier candy items to make, in my opinion. They don't require getting the boiling sugar up to that high of a temperature, and if you have a stand mixer, they basically just whip themselves for most of the process. A note about the recipe: the only thing you don't need to do is dust these with powdered sugar, so you can skip that ingredient. 

Once you have your marshmallow fluffed and ready, spread it over the tops of the bacon chocolate bars until smooth (or as smooth as you can get considering it's difficult to work with). You need to let it set up in the fridge for about 3-4 hours, at which point it will be ready for torching. 

Lift the aluminum foil out of the pan and cut into roughly 1 inch cubes. A trick with cutting marshmallow is to have your knife blade be slightly wet. This means getting it wet in between each cut, so might as well keep a tall glass of water to dip the blade in by your workspace as you are cutting to speed up the process. Once your squares are cut, they're ready for flame. I happen to own a lovely creme brulee torch which does the trick better than anything. I am sure a more resourceful person could come up with a way to use a regular cigarette lighter, or the oven on "broil," but I enjoy having more control over the toasting process. After all, marshmallow can go from perfectly caramelized to carcinogenic in seconds. 

These were not universally enjoyed, but most people who liked them loved them, so if you're into the sweet, salty, savory flavor combo, I'd say they're worth trying at least once. 

Strawberry Cheesecake Cupcakes

I never cease to be amused by transforming things into cupcake flavors. I am actually rather backlogged in showing off some of the things I baked lately, but long story short, I made a cupcake a couple weeks ago that was an homage to cheesecake, and it made me think that it could really go one step further.
Utilizing the always dependable Smitten Kitchen's epic recipe stash, I incorporated her black bottom cupcake cream cheese filling (with some adaptation) into a honey and graham flour cupcake base, and then topped with freshly sliced strawberries and a homemade strawberry glaze, with a decorative cream cheese frosting border (intended to add structural support in case the glaze decided to get slippery). I am happy to report that everything seemed to work out swimmingly, even for a first experimental try. Love it when that happens.

Honey and Graham Cupcake
- 6 tbs butter, room temp
- 1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
- 1/4 cup honey
- 1 egg and 1 egg yolk
- 3/4 cups all purpose flour
- 1/4 cup graham flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/3 cup milk

Preheat over to 350˚. Line baking tins. This recipe should make just over a dozen regular sized cupcakes.
Whisk together flours, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl. Set aside.
With electric mixer on high, beat butter and brown sugar until fluffy. Add in honey until incorporated, followed by eggs. Beat until the point of being fluffy again, then turn mixer down low and in batches, mix in flour and then milk until incorporated. Do not over mix.
Dollop mix into cupcake tins to just about half full (aren't we so optimistic). Set aside while making cream cheese filling.

Baked-in Cream Cheese Filling
- 8 oz cream cheese
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 tbs cornstarch

Beat cream cheese and sugar together until smooth, then add in egg and beat until smooth, then add in vanilla and cornstarch until smooth. This is more filling than you will need (go ahead and double the cupcake recipe then!)

Dollop a spoonful of filling into the cake battered cupcake tins. Since the batter is actually kind of thick, I took a spoon and sort of hollowed out the inside of each cup before adding the cream cheese filling. I think it helped keep the filling mor or less in the middle versus resulting in being a top layer of the cupcake.

Bake for 20 minutes.

Cupcakes and filling will rise very nicely, but will fall a little when you take out of the oven. The filling may seem a little giggly while it's still warm, but once they get to room temperature, everything solidifies nicely. Sort of a typical cheese cake reaction, so don't freak out and over bake them.

Strawberry Glaze
So I happened to have about a half a cup of strawberry puree in my freezer from some previous strawberry project, so used that. If I had to guess, I'd say it was about the equivalent of a dozen large strawberries. Maybe 6-8oz. Give or take. To it, I added some undetermined amount of water... let's say 1/2 a cup, and 1/3 cup of sugar. I let that boil until it started foaming up, then strained out the chunks and seeds and put back over low heat and added a surrey of about 1 tablespoon water and 2 teaspoons of cornstarch. Once that started boiling again, I just whisked it all together to make sure it was incorporated and removed from the heat and let set for a couple minutes.  Should coat the back of a wooden spoon easily. And yes, another case of having too much glaze for the number of cupcakes I made. This made a lot of glaze... Enough for maybe 3-4 dozen cupcakes. I will find out how well it freezes and report back in a few months.

Cream Cheese Frosting
This (again) will make way more frosting than you need for this project, but I'm sure you can think of other things to do with leftover cream cheese frosting. You own a spoon, right?
- 8 oz cream cheese
- 8 oz butter, room temperature
- 3 cups powdered sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla
Beat cream cheese and butter together until smooth. 1 cup at a time, add in powdered sugar until mix is fluffy. Add in vanilla and continue to beat (scraping down the sides as needed), until the whole thing is fluffy and elastic.

Once things have cooled down a bit, gently wash off as many strawberries as there are cupcakes (1 per cupcake for medium sized berries - if they are particularly large, 1 strawberry can top 2 cupcakes). When presenting berries, I typically don't drown them under running water, but instead dab them with a moist paper towel to clean them. Otherwise, I guess you could rinse them off earlier in the process so they're are dry again once you're ready to slice them - basically, you just don't need a bunch of excess water ruining your set up at this point.

You then top each cupcake with a splayed strawberry, then using a pastry brush, dollop and spread glaze over it.

With a small tip on a pastry bag, pipe frosting around edges. You can be as decorative as you please, my only goal was to encase the strawberries in an attempt to contain them. The glaze wasn't runny though, so in the end, the frosting ended up being purely decorative (oh, and tasty). 

Homemade Vanilla Extract

I think it's safe to say I go through a LOT of vanilla extract with all the baking I do. About a year ago I decided to look into making my own extract. After perusing a few sites, I found that it was actually ridiculously easy to do, and could be mildly cost effective, too; just takes time.

Someone actually went through the bother of calculating the cost difference, but basically I was spending $5 for each bottle of Bourbon Extract at Trader Joe's which only took me 1-2 months to polish off. Making it yourself doesn't save you a ton of money in the long run, but at least I have 1 liter batches to work with at any given time.* And you can say you make your own extract. I think it's worth the 6 months wait time just to say that.

So, basically, get a bottle of vodka (I've tried 3 different brands so far, not sure if the price/quality of the vodka has a huge effect on the flavor, but I try not to get the cheapest stuff, just in case) and remove about 1/4 of liquid from the bottle first. What you do with that, I won't question. Next, take about 10-12 vanilla beans, split lengthwise, and plop them into the vodka jar. Seal the jar, then give it a good shake, label the bottle with the date, and let it set somewhere safe for about 6 months. Be sure to give it a good shake every couple of weeks. Sediment will collect at the bottom, which you can strain out when you get to it, or just leave it.

The other fun part about making your own extract is that you can play with the different varieties of vanilla. I've bought and blended Tajitian, Madagascar, Bourbon, & Mexican varieties so far. I am fairly clueless about what makes them different though. I've been baking with a blend of Tajitian, Mexican and Madagacar beans and think it tastes as lovely as anything, but would fail a deciphering taste-test for sure. Might be worthwhile to make separate batches of each some time just to taste test.

The other beauty of this plan is that you can make however much you want. A recipe from Simply Recipes gives you a 1 cup option. As much as it is technically science, I don't think you could really screw it up however you decided to mix it up. Just don't add simple syrup. You just don't need it, and I think it detracts from the extract if you do add it.

* If you're curious about my calculations, I spend approximately $20 on a bottle of vodka, plus about $10 on the vanilla beans (including the cost of shipping). So, $30 that is then split into approximately (8) 4 oz. batches makes them about $3.75.)

Also, I bought the beans at beanilla.com

Flan, Chocolate Tiramisu, Strawberry Shortcake & Almond Cupcakes

For a combination of reasons, a friend came over to have a bake date last Saturday and we made 4 varieties of cupcakes. It was amazing how much quicker it went with the extra help! And the input and feedback was great. We had a couple genius breakthroughs that wouldn't have happened if I were working through it on my own.

I think the highlight of the day was the Flan cupcake. I had been experimenting with custard frosting before, with less than enthusiastic success, so was determined to get it really good this time. I had a recipe I swiped off the interwebs that went something like:

• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 heaping tbs of flour
• 1 egg
• 1 cup milk
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 cup butter
• 2 tbs p. sugar

It sounded believable. The first time I ever made it, I was trying for a mocha frosting and thought that custard would be a really nice way to richen it up. I should have taken better notes on how thin and runny the result was the first time, but I hadn't figured out the science of why, so blazed on.

The instructions for this custard frosting:
mix sugar and flour, then add egg and milk and mix together with vanilla. Heat until thickened, then cool completely. Then, whip together the butter and powdered sugar, gradually adding this custard to the butter.

STOP.

Don't do it. I don't know why. I almost don't care how. Just DON'T do it.

Separation. If you want your custard look like grits, yes, use butter. If you want your custard to be a runny mess, then yes, powdered sugar is the answer.

Is it because the milk in the custard is JUST too liquidy? Too much for the powdered sugar to compete with that it turns your delightfully firm and gelatinous custard and whips it down into a confectioner's icing instead? Does the liquidy milk fight with the fatty butter?

So after 2 batches of custard were basically wasted, we figured out that just piping cooled custard straight on to our caramel cupcakes was good enough, that's just what we did. And quite a delightful texture it was. In our excitement, we piped up a bunch of cupcakes, mini and regular alike, and set little pools of highly viscous caramel into the custard cup. Merrily we worked until I realized: wait. The custard is breaking! Literally cracking apart under the weight of the caramel. Slowly, all our efforts began to look like remnants of some ancient cupcake culture as they crumbled to their decripit fate.

So now what? Is this project supposed to fail miserably? I want so badly for it to work because the potential is so high. One batch of custard more and we realized that patience was the only ingredient we were missing. Custard, like most milk-based products, once heated develops a sort of protective skin. We simply hadn't waited long enough for that skin to form in order to load the heavy caramel onto it. Once the custard had set, this experiment finally received the seal of deliciousness.

Neopolitan Cupcakes

Can't decide what flavor you want? Why not have them all-in-one!?

I made cupcakes for a birthday at the office tomorrow and was given liberty to choose the flavor.
*drunk with power*

I saw an image for a Neopolitan Cupcake recipe in one of the many cupcake cookbooks out there, and was disappointed in how the cupcake itself was merely a marble cake that completely disregarded the strawberry flavor altogether. Feeling like it was an issue I should fix, I created the complete Neopolitan Cupcake, from batter to frosting - through and through.

I decided to use my standard "off-white" cake recipe (not quite white, not quite yellow) and double it. I creamed the butter and sugar all together, then separated it into 3 bowls. I then specialized each batch by adding cocoa powder to one and a couple tablespoons of strawberry jam to another and finished mixing the batters. (Admission of guilt: I wanted to leave my cupcakes all natural, and as nature intended and all that, but couldn't help the marketing person inside me who was not convinced that the strawberry looked very flavorful, so did add a dab of good ol' red concentrate to liven the batter up).

To prepare them, I actually ended up cupping each liner in my hand and quickly dropped a spoonful of each flavor into the liner, while carefully using gravity to keep the strawberry batter on the far edge of the liner while I hurried to fill the rest with chocolate and then vanilla. The vanilla in many instances ended up more or less resting on top of the chocolate scoop, but once I put the liner into the pan, it seemed to smooth out and look more even.

I baked them for just under 20 minutes, and made a cream cheese based frosting for them. I did similar to the batters by simply adding cocoa powder and jam to make the second and third flavors. The only thing I would do differently next time is create each batch of frosting completely separate (instead of creaming the butter, cream cheese, and powdered sugar altogether and then separating them into 3 bowls at that point). I think the differences will be that the cocoa powder will be sifted in with the powdered sugar from the start, making it smoother, and the jam to frosting ratio will be better proportioned, as this time, I felt like the strawberry frosting was a bit runnier than the others.

But all that considered, I think it worked out well. It was a bit more labor intensive than most cupcakes simply because I decided to frost them all by spatula in 3 separate batches as opposed to using 3 separate pastry bags. But I thought it would have a nice effect to look more like ice cream than to have some fancy decorative tip.

I'm ready for another taste-test right now :)