Pineapple Upside-Down C*O*W

This was fun - at least the first batch! Cute pan, isn't it? And mine came out exactly like the ones on the advertisement photo. The pan makes 6 little cakes at a time. I needed 24. So - the fun wore off after the second round of washing the pan, regreasing, and repeating 4 times. After the obligatory 24 were baked, there was still batter left, so I really ended up doing 30. But after I was all done, they looked so cute, all those little pineapples on my counter! I now await comments . . .

What my friends said . . .

I can't believe how many people said pineapple upside-down cake is their favorite cake! Who knew?? The cute little pineapple shapes were a big hit too - made the price of the pan worthwhile afterall!

Cookies 'n Cream C*O*W

It's finally here! Tuesday, June 2, on my doorstep courtesy of Amazon.com's preorder opportunity, was my brand new, just released copy of Martha Stewart's Cupcakes book. YAY! So many cupcakes - so little baking time. We need more weekends. :-}
I had aleady decided that for this week I wanted to do a cookies 'n cream cupcake so I went with those, but I decided to try a new frosting. I have read about this in alot of different places, so I decided to make vanilla Swiss Meringue Buttercream. Yum! it tastes like ice cream. Really smooth. I added crushed Oreos to it, to match my flavor of cupcake. I can't wait to try other flavors, and more of the recipies from the book. And, what you can't se from the picture - they are wearing cute zebra print cupcake papers!

I did make something for me, this weekend (since I rarely keep any cupcakes home). Rhubarb! I just made a simple rhubarb sauce, since I didn't want to mess with a pie crust, or making cookie bars. This way I get straight rhubarb, anyway.
Did I mention I bought the ice cream freezer attachment for my KitchenAid mixer? I also bought a used copy of the Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream and Desserts cookbook online, and made a batch of New York Super Fudge Chunk ice cream for Scott. Tasted just like theirs! My next recipe will be a sorbet for me, I think. If I remember, I'll snap a photo next time he's eating.
Well, till next week . . . . .

What my friends thought . . .

. . . have you secretly taken out an insurance policy on our lives? these are really decadent!

. . . Fabulous, as always. I especially liked the cookie surprise at the end!

Rhonda hated the frosting. But, Julie and Carol both loved the frosting!

Seems overall consensus is the Hot Cha Cha Cappuchino Chip cupcakes are still the favorite.

Cappuchino Chip C*O*W

This week I snagged a cupcake from a friend (you'll know who you are!), but as it should be, they pale in comparison to hers - at least in the decoration department. I do love the cupcake wrappers, though. Unfortunately, I didn't have enough to tase one, myself. That is probably a bad idea, actually - I really should try them, shouldn't I?? Oh well.

I'm calling these Hot Cha Cha Cappuchino Chip with Mocha Buttercream, from the Cupcake Doctor book. I decorated them with little chocolate fondant flowers. The fondant tastes just like Tootsie Rolls - yummy!

What my friends thought . . .

. . . Up until today, the lemon was my favorite. I'm partial to coffee flavored things and this was fantastic!

. . . Delicious. You are a super baker and a super person!

Lemon Meringue C*O*W

This week’s COW is a lemon meringue cupcake, from the new Martha Stewart Cupcake book, coming out June 2nd.
The lemon curd is what makes this cupcake, in my opinion. I didn’t think the cake was very lemony tasting at all, and the 7 Minute Frosting is a little too airy for me. It holds up better than traditional meringue, which is good. I really don’t know when else I’d ever use it though. I certainly wouldn’t use it to frost an entire cake, although I see Martha recommends it over and over again. The recipe for everything is here.

I was afraid that the frosting might jiggle itself off the cupcake during the ride to work, but it stayed in place. I think traditional meringue would have slid off. This frosting didn’t collect the little drops of condensation on top, either.

It must be me – this is the second recipe for lemon curd I’ve made which seemed to remain  too runny – like a lemon sauce. Still good, but not firm enough to hold up as a pie filling. I did watch Martha demonstrate these cuppies on her show, and her lemon curd was much thicker. Wonder what I’m doing wrong? It made a lot, though – much more than I needed for this recipe. Same with the frosting! That’s a shame, because you need to use that immediately, otherwise it firms up and is like trying to spread marshmallow cream. I wasted it all.

What my friends thought . . .

One comment echoed my own - that cake wasn't very lemon-y, but it was very moist.

Everyone loved the lemon curd.

They all also thought they were bee-u-tee-ful!

All in all - rave reviews!

Chocolate Birthday C*O*W

This week is a chocolate birthday cake for someone I don't know - my husband requested one for work. It's a boxacana, but I did make the chocolate frosting from scratch. I just love Hershey's recipe! It is my go-to.

As mentioned a week or 2 ago, I also make a birthday cake for my friend Rhonda. She requested lemon cake with "wedding cake icing". You know - the surgary buttercream icing most people don't like - however, we both love it. I made fresh lemon filling, but I am afraid it is going to dissolve into the cake. Ir seemed a little runny to me, but boy did it taste good! I am ashamed of the way the cake looks - very amaturish, but, I'm an amature, so you get what you pay for, I guess. I am posting a lilttle size picture in hopes of saving myself a little embarrasment.

Cinnamon Ripple Angel Food C*O*W

No decorating on this one. It is just a simple angel food cake with a few ripples of cinnamon running through. It is topped off with a dollop of cinnamon whipped cream. Very light and tasty cake!

Chocolate Wrapped C*O*W

I dropped in on my friend/decorating teacher’s class last week, Dawn, from Desserts by Dawn. They were doing a really cool cake. A chocolate wrapped cake! It looked simple enough. So I tried it, but of course hers was much better than what I ended up with. My stenciling was all smeared and terrible looking – don’t know if I’ll be trying this again!

At least the cake tasted good. I made a strawberry cake, and filled it with home made strawberry filling. It was frosted with the Hershey’s Famous Chocolate Frosting recipe that is my favorite. It was wrapped in dark chocolate stenciled with white chocolate, and then topped with chocolate covered strawberries. Sounds much more impressive than it looked. I think I will do something simple next weekend. The following weekend will be a lemon cake for Rhonda’s birthday, so I’ll rest up for that one.

Chocolate Caramel C*O*W

This week's COW is a Hershey's Chocolate Caramel cupcake. A little bit of the center of this lucious chocolate cake is scooped out and then filled with homemade caramel, and chocolate bits, which get all all melty and gooey. Then I frosted them with a generous swirl of homemade Hershey's chocolate frosting, and sprinkled with sugar. YUM!

Very time consuming, about 3 hours! The caramel was fussy. It was a recipe from the old Not Bashful About Butter blog, and I am sure there was an error on the instructions. The blog no longer exixts - so I did my best! It tasted good, more like an Almond Roca toffee taste than caramel, but I liked that part. It was just a strange consistency.

I made a double batch of "Hershey's Perfect Chocolate Frosting" so I could frost liberally, and still could have used more.

So, they are packed up for sharing tomorrow with 2 offices . . . we'll see how these rate!

Black Bean Brownies . . . .

. . . really!

If you've been following along, you might remember that I said for this week I had something "interesting". I had to try them . . . almost all of the reviews I read raved about them. Brownies made with a can of black beans! Yep - that's it!

One box of brownie mix and one can of black beans. I used a Duncan Hines Dark Chocolate Fudge brownie mix. Drain one can of black beans (appx. 15 oz, can), and refill can not quite all the way with water. Blend in a food processor until smooth and add to a bowl contianing the brownie mix. Don't follow the directions - meaning don't add water, oil or the egg. I did, though, add walnuts . Stir until everything is incorporated. Bake in an 8x8 inch pan for 50 minutes at 325 degrees, and voila!

Very tall brownies, moist and sort of fudge-y, and no taste of beans!

Then I tried one from a Splenda cook book and wasn't quite as thrilled. They were very short, maybe half an inch tall. I didn't care for the taste of the Splenda, but if the choice was to do without of eat one, I for sure eat one. Let's see what Jane thinks . . . .

** Taster's Follow Up **

The sugar-free Splenda brownies got 2 thumbs up! After thinking about this, though, I wonder if the cocoa I used has sugar in it? Does all Dutched cocoa? Hmmmmm . . . this in my mind would make them not sugar free. More research needed.

The other batch was very well received, too, and no one has complained about any bean flavor. "Moist", "chewy", and "fudgey" were the comments I heard. No "other" sounds noted, either .

I had debated about telling people there were beans in the recipe, but I decided to mention it (note: it did not seem to stop anyone from tryng them!) - and it was a good thing. One taster said it causes gout to flare-up. I am really glad I came clean with the ingredients.

Italian Cream C*O*W

This cupcake-of-the-week is called Italian Cream, from the book Cupcakes: From the Cake Mix Doctor. So, still a Boxacana cupcake. It is a vanilla cake lovingly blended with coconut and chopped pecans, frosted with coconut cream cheese frosting and topped with sprinkled coconut and a pecan half. These were tasty! “These are your best yet!” was one of my taster’s comments.

I have in interesting idea for this next week - stay tuned . . . .