Almond Cupcakes with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting

For long time readers of this blog, you will remember that at one point I regarded baking with suspicion and indifference, only taking on the task when I came across recipes I wanted to eat desperately and knew no one else was going to make for me. There's a bit of a kitchen stereotype, men are chefs, women are pastry chefs, and the idea of making cakes and cookies was an affront to my sense of artistry and feminism.  I was a chef, dammit, and was not going to be tempted in with sugar coated frilly things.

Recently, however, baking has creeped more and more into my repertoire. With Will's birthday came those complicated filled Carbomb Cupcakes, with my own birthday was the Almond Cake with Maderia Icing, and baking is quickly winning my respect. It's one of those things in life where I've realized that if baking is a task that women are often assigned, it is not because it is frilly and easy. In many ways I've had a harder time baking then with my usual cooking, it is more detail oriented, more precise, and with less room for error. In other words... David Chang can cook. Christina Tosi can do it backwards and in heels.

And so with beloved friend Stef returning to NY for another visit on a date that was coincidentally her 26th birthday, I knew cupcakes were in order. What kind was hardly up for debate. Stef is mad about almonds. Almond croissants, almond danishes, almond biscotti, the girl has not met an almond she didn't like. I briefly considered the cake I had made myself in February, but then dismissed it. It had been a fabulous cake, but I was craving new adventures. Also cake is hard to divide up, but it is easier to pack a few cupcakes for the journey home, which was a treat I felt the birthday girl deserved.

Two recent blog obsessions helped considerably. Design Sponge, an amazing blog full of home projects to make your apartment adorable and awesome, which includes some baked goods recipes for stuff that will look cute on your counter, impress your friends, and make everything smell awesome. They posted a recipe for Pistachio Fig Cake, but that wasn't what caught my interest. The author of this recipe was one Ming Thompson, who runs the website Ming Makes Cupcakes. Yes, yes she does.

The website isn't really a blog, because there is no discussion of the recipes or how she came to them, she just numbers her cupcakes and gives you a recipe in a very stark, "Here's your god damn cupcake" kind of way. No unnecessary narcissistic ideas that the world is interested in personal views and stories of a blogger. Anyway.... I immediately honed in on Cupcake 27. And luckily just like last week my friend Anne was here to assist and photograph. Will better watch his back, he's quickly losing his title of sous chef.

Almond Cupcakes with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting
Adapted (slightly) from Ming Makes Cupcakes
Makes 12 cupcakes

For the Cupcakes:

Ingredients:
- 1 cup cake flour (or 130 grams if you are a freak like me and weigh it)
- 1/2 cup almond flour
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 stick butter at room temp.
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1/2 cup milk

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400°. Whisk together both flours, baking powder, and salt. Beat in sugar and mix thoroughly. Beat in eggs, then vanilla and milk until just mixed. Pour into lined cupcake pan. Bake for 15 minutes, or until toothpick comes out almost clean.

For the Frosting:

Ingredients:
- 4 oz cream cheese at room temperature
- 1/2 stick butter at room temperature
- 1 1/2 cups of confectioners' sugar
- 1/4 cup maple syrup

Directions:
Mix cream cheese, butter, and maple syrup with an electric mixer until just combined, then slowly add the confectioners' sugar and mix at high speed until smooth and light, about a minute. Frost cupcakes. Decorate as desired.

I played a bit with a new frosting kit I bought, but mostly just decorated by making the frosting smooth and plunking an almond or three on top. Um, does that cupcake look a little dark to you? Yeah, on the website Ming recommends baking for 20 minutes, which turned out to be a little much for my perhaps overly hot oven. I made a second batch and baked for 15, which was better, but I had been a bit haphazard in mixing the ingredients so they didn't rise properly and were perhaps a little strudelly looking.

I even made a third batch (and by that point Anne wasn't here to photograph and make it all pretty) which was better, but kinda rose into weird peaks instead of a pretty dome. America's Test Kitchen seems to think you get prettier tops if you bake cupcakes at 350° for a bit longer, like 18 to 22 minutes. Someone else is going to have to have a birthday so I can test that theory.

I really liked the frosting, it was sweet and creamy. I got WAY too much, however, so I might have to cut the recipe next time. Though it was helpful when I made that extra batch. The cake, while moist and tasty, was not as almondy as I would have liked. Anne brought a cupcake book over with her, Crazy About Cupcakes (she contributed to the cupcake party by making Champagne Cupcakes with Champagne Buttercream Frosting). The book includes its own Almond Cupcake, which includes ground almonds as well as almond extract, so that might be worth a turn the next time I attempt this. Stef seemed happy though. She blew out her candle and enjoyed a cupcake the night of her birthday.

It was the next morning, though, when I got the real complement on these confections. After packing a few cupcakes for her in a tupperware, we went to grab coffee before she had to catch her bus. As we sipped our caffeinated beverages, her hand wandered into her bag. The next moment I looked up, she was happily enjoying a cupcake breakfast. A Happy Birthday treat indeed!

Boozy Cupcakes

Okay, so I haven't been 100% honest with all of you. Remember how I spent all of August cooking healthy, vegetarian food? Well the vegetarian part I was very dedicated to. The healthy part...

August 13th marked Will's 26th birthday, and what was I supposed to do, hand the boy a dish of hummus with a candle in it? Birthdays require cake. Yummy cake. And I'd be damned if he wasn't going to have some. The original idea was simple, instead of a cake that has layers that must be stacked and must be carefully wrapped if not eaten at once, I would make cupcakes. So easy to store! So easy to assemble! So how exactly did it end up a 4 hour process?

The trouble started when I decided, instead of just picking a very simple cupcake recipe from America's Test Kitchen and a very simple frosting, I would just look at the Smitten Kitchen archives, just to peek. That's when I found the holy grail of grown-up cupcakes. A cupcake with such wonderful ingredients so perfectly arranged, all I could think was that I could not be responsible for them not existing. I could not have on my conscience that I had known of these cupcakes and walked away. I discovered the Irish Car Bomb Cupcake.

Guinness cupcake. Whiskey ganache. Bailey's buttercream icing. I stared at the computer screen with my mouth agape. Will needed that cupcake.

The real complication here is that 3 separate parts must be made from scratch, and then you actually have to gouge a hole in the cake, stuff it with ganache, and then ice the whole thing without smearing the ganache into the icing and making a streaky mess. I don't do baking like this. In fact it has only been about a year now that I've even attempted baking that wasn't from a box labeled "Sara Lee". My eating a can of frosting days are not all that far behind me, but Will deserved something a bit fancy, especially after I made myself a Maderia Almond Cake for my own birthday in February.

I was a bit late getting started. Having bought Will tickets to a Phillies game that night at Citi Field, we had friends meeting us at the apartment at 5:00. "If I start before 1:00," I thought, "I'll have over 4 hours to bang these guys out." Somehow it was 1:15 before I had the first ingredients on the stove.

Step 1:
Guinness Cupcakes

Ingredients:
- 1 cup stout (you know, Guinness)
- 1 cup unsalted butter
- 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 2 cups sugar
- 1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 2 large eggs
- 2/3 cup sour cream

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350°. Line 24 cupcake cups with liners. Bring 1 cup stout and 1 cup butter to simmer in a heavy large saucepan over medium heat. Add cocoa and whisk until mixture is smooth. Cool slightly.

Whisk flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl to blend. Using electric mixer, beat eggs and sour cream in another large bowl to blend. Add stout mixture to egg mixture and beat just to combine. Add flour mixture a little bit at a time and beat at slow speed. Once all flour is added, use a rubber spatula to fold batter until completely combined. Divide batter among cupcake liners, filling them 2/3 to 3/4 of the way. Bake cake until tester inserted comes out clean, rotating them once front to back if your oven bakes unevenly, about 17 minutes. Cool cupcakes completely.

It took me a little longer then 17 minutes, probably more like 19. You want to be completely sure the cupcakes aren't mush, they need to have a bit of structure for the next step. The cooling completely also got to me, as time ticked by I got impatient. I may have rotated the cupcake tins into the freezer to expedite the process...

Step 2
Whiskey Ganache

Ingredients:
- 8 ounces bittersweet chocolate
- 2/3 cup heavy cream
- 2 tablespoons butter at room temperature
- 2 teaspoons Irish Whiskey (Jameson would be most traditional, I used a brand from Clontarf)

Directions:
Chop the chocolate and transfer it to a heatproof bowl. Heat the cream until simmering and pour it over the chocolate. Let it sit for one minute and then stir until smooth. (If this has not sufficiently melted the chocolate you can pop it in the microwave for 20 seconds) Add the butter and whiskey and stir it until combined.

Cool the ganache until it is thick but still soft (putting in the fridge for 10 minutes speeds this along). Use a 1" cookie cutter or apple corer (finally, a use for my apple corer) cut the center out of the cupcakes. You want to go 2/3 of the way down. Smitten Kitchen suggests using a small spoon or grapefruit knife to help get the centers out, I found a fondue fork worked pretty well. Put the ganache into a piping bag, or if you are like me and don't own one, a gallon ziplock bag with the bottom corner cut out. Fill the holes in each cupcake to the top.

Step 3
Bailey's Frosting

Ingredients:
- 3-4 cups confectioners sugar
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 4 Tablespoons Baileys

Directions:
Whip the butter in the bowl of an electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, for several minutes until light, fluffy, and creamy. Turn the mixer to its lowest speed and slowly add the powdered sugar, a few tablespoons at a time.

When the frosting looks thick enough to spread, drizzle in the Baileys and whip it until combined. It this makes the frosting too thin, beat in another spoonful or two of powdered sugar.

By this point it was after 4pm, and I was getting nervous. The poor birthday boy had to help me ice the cupcakes, half because of time constraints and half because I flat out sucked at it, constantly getting the ganache whipped up into the frosting in dark streaks. We developed system, Will would put a giant blob (about 3 Tablespoons) directly on top of the hole with the ganache, and then spread it down the cupcake top. At this point he would hand it off to me and I would drag a spatula around the top to make it smooth and pretty. We finally got them all iced and arranged with 5 minutes left on the clock. Just enough time to wipe the sweat from my brow and shove my hair under a Phillies cap.

On Smitten Kitchen Deb writes: Do ahead: You can bake the cupcakes a week or two in advance and store them, well wrapped, in the freezer. You can also fill them before you freeze them. They also keep filled — or filled and frosted — in the fridge for a day. (Longer, they will start to get stale.)

I probably should have worked ahead on these, unless it's a really rainy chilly day (like St. Patrick's Days can tend to be) I probably wouldn't make these all in one day again. As a treat though, they killed. Everyone who ate them raved, and a coworker who took one home to her boyfriend came back to report I had received a proposal of marriage. Seriously, these are compliment garnering cupcakes. The guests seemed a little tipsy after eating. And the birthday boy seemed happy they did not contain eggplant.

Red Velvet with that Slow Southern Style

Valentine's Day is coming up quickly--a time of flowers, red tinted everything and sweets. As I pondered what I was going to make my husband of three months and partner of seven years, it seemed like the obvious choice among the New York diet was that of the cupcake. It's a ubiquitous desert that threatens my willpower daily, working just a stones throw from both Cupcake Cafe and Billy's Bakery. My weakness lies in a popular cupcake, the Red Velvet, with its rich color and ridiculous cream cheese icing. I would have married a Red Velvet were it possible for woman and dessert to mate. With its intense red color, it is the perfect sweet for Valentine's. After digging myself out of two feet of snow in PA and returning to NY, I set out to find a recipe.

For a Red Velvet Recipe, there really is only one place to go. If you've ever turned on the Food Network and seen any episode relating to this type of cake, you've heard of Cake Man Raven. This amazing cake maker was born in Harlem but was trained in cakes in South Carolina. I make sure to stop in at his shop in Fort Green, Brooklyn every time I'm down in that area. Despite the rapid gentrification in the neighborhood, his is a no frills shop that reminds me of a suburbs strip mall bakery, not the trendy confectionaries and coffee shops that are so prevalent around it. They have what the hipster coffee joints don't however, case after case of amazing Red Velvet cake slices. He is the go-to man for Red Velvet, and luckily, not stingy with the recipe, as it appears both on his website and has been on Food Network.

His recipe, however, is for a three layer cake. That is hard to enjoy in small portions, and even harder to start giving away after you notice your scale ticking upwards for three days in a row after this cake sits there, begging you to eat it. Cupcakes, I decided, were more manageable and equally delicious. This recipe will make an even dozen, just enough for you and your sweetheart and maybe a friend or two at the office if you're looking to disperse them. If you're planning a Valentine's Day party with more people, the recipe is easily doubled. This makes a little more frosting than you are going to need, but it's so tasty I doubt you or your beloved will mind finding a use for the leftovers.

Red Velvet Cupcakes
Adapted from Cake Man Raven

Ingredients:

Vegetable oil for the pans
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon fine salt
1/2 teaspoon cocoa powder
3/4 cups vegetable oil
1/2 cup buttermilk, at room temperature
1 large egg, at room temperature
1 tablespoon red food coloring (1/2 ounce)
1/2 teaspoon white distilled vinegar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Cream Cheese Frosting (Recipe Below)

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line cupcake pan with liners.

In a large bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder. In another large bowl, whisk together the oil, buttermilk, eggs, food coloring, vinegar, and vanilla.

Using a standing mixer, mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until just combined and a smooth batter is formed.
Fill cupcake papers 2/3 of the way. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out with only a few crumbs attached, rotating the pans halfway through cooking, about 18 to 22 minutes.
Remove the pan from the oven and remove the cupcakes from the pans. Let cool completely.

Frost the cupcakes.

Cream Cheese Frosting


Ingredients:
8 oz cream cheese, softened
2 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
1 stick unsalted butter (1/2 cup), softened
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:
In a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or with a hand-held electric mixer in a large bowl, mix the cream cheese, sugar and butter on low speed until incorporated. Increase the speed to high, and mix until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. (Occasionally turn the mixer off, and scrape the down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula.)

Reduce the speed of the mixer to low. Add the vanilla, raise the speed to high and mix briefly until fluffy (scrape down the bowl occasionally). Store in the refrigerator until somewhat stiff, before using. May be stored in the refrigerator for 3 days.

Okay, so I'm still working on the whole "Pretty Frosting." But look how red they are! And even if the icing isn't spread on the prettiest, it's still amazing and you want to lick it off.