Cupcakes, Two Ways

This week I made two cupcakes I had been dreaming of for a looong time. YUM YUM YUM

First up, carrot cupcakes. Last year, I thought of the perfect cupcakes for Jeanette's birthday:carrot cakes!

I hate nuts in my baked goods. I find it infuriating when they eek into chocolate chip cookies or are hunked into cakes. I do love their flavor, however, so if I must use them, I chop them up reaalllllyyyyy tiny. That way you wind up with a subtle crunch throughout rather than a patch of "Dear God! Frigging pecan!

The wet team here includes brown sugar, canola oil, and an egg. It gets all smooth and caramely when you whisk it together before adding the nuts and pouring the whole shebang into the dry ingredients. Lovely.

So here's where it gets a bit interesting. John, Jeanette, and I are fans of comedian Patton Oswalt, and he has a funny bit about feeling overweight and being presented with a buffet at a fancy Hollywood party. In the end of the bit, encouraged by Brian Dennehy, Patton pretty much says, "Screw it! Sprinkle some fries on those cupcakes!" An idea was born: cupcakes with fries sprinkled on them would be Jeanette's birthday cupcakes. Then I had to figure out how to make them, but also how to make them yummy. Then, I had it: carrot cupcakes already have a vegetable in them. So why not use a waffle-cup sweet potato fry to top the cupcake! Yaaasssss.

So that is exactly what I did. And let me tell you: it was an amazing combination. Between the sweet-but-nutty cake and the sweet cream cheese frosting, the fry on top really kinda married the flavors perfectly. I figured the concept would frighten and would be lost on our colleagues in the office, and so I brought only two fries to top my and Jeanette's cupcakes. We definitely got a few raised eyebrows,  but as everyone watched us clearly enjoying them, I sort of wished I had brought enough for everyone to try if they wanted to. The cupcakes got such rave reviews, and in fact, were demanded to make a repeat appearance, so maybe next time I'll do just that.

     

 

Here's my fully assembled cupcake, which I photographed on Jeanette's windowsill at work. I then realized the lighting is perfect there, and I want to do ALL my food photography in front of these ivy-covered windows!

My next cupcake adventure involved packing up a mobile bakery and heading down to Tara's house. She is quasi-confined to her house while caring for her dog, who recently had emergency surgery last week. The pup is doing just fine, but is still on pain medications and antibiotics, and so we didn't want to leave her alone in the house for more than a little while (we did pop out to Wawa to get some salads for lunch. Salads, knowing we'd be inhaling cupcakes.).

After getting the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook, I'd been fantasizing about their green tea cupcakes. Tara is the biggest green tea drinker of all my friends, and so I knew they'd be a perfect treat to share with her. And what better time than when we were planning a hermit kind of day to be with the canine patient?

The cake is chocolate and infused with milk-steeped green tea. The resulting taste was very nearly chocolate ice cream! It wasn't quite brownie-ish, and it wasn't quite regular-chocolate-cakeish. Then Tara hit it on the nose: chocolate ice cream!

I also decided it would be more fun to make tiny cupcakes rather than a dozen regular-sized ones, so I packed up my mini-tin and my piping bag. The batter came together in a rather interesting way. I had to cream together the butter and whatnot as usual, but then I had to add in half of the milk-and-tea mixture and beat the dough until creamy and smooth. Then I added in the rest of the milk-tea and beat it until smooth, loose, and without lumps. I've definitely slowly added in the wet ingredients before, but can't recall doing two separate and full incorporations. Would it have come out differently had I added it all at once? I doubt it would have, but hey--the directions are there for a reason!

And here's where I need to credit myself: we totally forgot to set a timer. After chatting at the kitchen table for a few minutes, we realized this. I then had to go based on looks alone--and wouldn't you know it, I grabbed them just in time. I do think I let them go just a few minutes too long, as the cake did get a bit dry by the time I got home with the leftovers. But all things considered, at least I didn't set the oven on fire for forgetting them completely!

After filling all 24 mini molds, I had a little batter leftover, so Tara grabbed a 6-muffin tin, and I was able to get 4 regular-sized cupcakes in addition to the minis. As you can see, they baked up just fine!

While the cake had 3 teabags' worth of tea in them, the frosting is really where the green tea flavor came out--starting with a run-of-the-mill buttercream recipe, you then add in a healthy dose of matcha powder, which gives both a beautiful soft green color (no food dye needed!) and an incredibly grassy flavor and aroma.

I used a large star tip to frost them, which made them look like adorable little Christmas trees. Unintended bonus festive points!

Thanks to Tara for providing the fresh ingredients and her kitchen to this production! For anyone who thinks we upped our counter game, sorry, Charlies: it's still all fake butcher block over here at the Cottage. haha

Later this week, I'll have a breakdown of my mega-baking for Christmas (ye gads, I need to down to business on that!), as well as a breakdown of our first week of cooking Blue Apron meals: we've done two, and have one more to go, which we will probably do on Monday or Tuesday evening.