Sweet potato cupcakes with pecan streusel and toasted marshmallow frosting

So I am actually a little embarrassed. I made these last year and am just now blogging them. Better late than never? At least its a couple days before Thanksgiving so maybe these can also serve as a warning for how not to toast the marshmallow frosting.  What is she talking about? you're thinking that cupcake looks perfectly toasted. Oh you just wait a few more pictures here....  

My husband works almost every Thanksgiving so I make goodies for him to take to work and share with the others that also end up working. I decided to make these sweet potato cupcakes with marshmallow frosting I found on Annie's Eats but I decided to kick it up a notch as Emeril likes to say and I added a pecan streusel topping before they were baked and I toasted the marshmallow frosting. Or burnt it. Maybe. ha

So I decided to just wing the streusel topping. I don't suggest that. It totally melted into the cupcakes and didn't have that crunchy streuselly topping I was hoping for. Still really good though

I think it was more close to pecan pie filling.

Instead of opening a can of sweet potato puree I roasted one in the oven. Well I was roasting a few anyways for us to eat so I threw in an extra one for the cupcakes. Love the orange color.

Into the batter it goes

The sweet potato makes it a thick, almost muffin like batter

plopped into the prepared pan. I used my favorite dark brown liners

 With the streusel topping ready for the oven

 See how the streusel baked in and its just the pecans? They still tasted amazing but not exactly the look I wanted.

 Marshmallow frosting is so good. Not like the tasteless, nasty marsmallow fluff you can buy in a jar at the store, but light and vanillaey and creamy.

So then its time to toast them. Um. I don't own one of those cute little creme brulee torches that totally would have toasted these to perfection. I need one. Hint hint, Santa. So instead I decided to broil. Ummmm. Yeah

 Dude. oops

 Like this actually reminded me of the lava flows you see on TV on volcano specials.  Cool looking but totally not appetizing. Except when I make s'mores I totally set the marshmallow on fire and it looks like this and I eat it. ha ha. 

I lost more than half my cupcakes. I tried scraping the frosting off and starting over but they just smelled burnt and I had no more frosting left and didn't feel like making more

 So I watched them a little closer this time. Some still burnt a little but not too bad.

 This is how they were all supposed to look. Well like the one in the middle. Not the slightly burnt ones

 Perfect!

So yummy

Sweet Potato Cupcakes with Toasted Marshmallow Frosting
slightly adapted From Annie's Eats
Ingredients:
For the cupcakes:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
¼ tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
16 tbsp. unsalted butter, softened
1½ cups sugar
3 large eggs
17 oz. sweet potato puree
½ tsp. vanilla extract

For the frosting:
8 large egg whites
2 cups sugar
½ tsp. cream of tartar
2 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350° F.  Line two cupcake pans with paper liners.  In a medium bowl combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon; stir together with a fork and set aside.  In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter and sugar on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes.  Beat in the eggs one at a time, scraping down the bowl after each addition. Mix in the sweet potatoes and vanilla extract, beating just until combined.  Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the dry ingredients, mixing just until incorporated.

Divide the batter evenly between the prepared cupcake liners.  Bake for about 18-20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Let cool in the pan for 5-10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

To make the frosting, combine the egg whites, sugar and cream of tartar in the top of a double boiler. (Note: I just set my clean, dry mixer bowl over simmering water, to avoid dirtying two bowls.) Heat the mixture, whisking frequently, until it reaches 160° F with an instant-read thermometer. Transfer the mixture to the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Whisk starting at low speed and gradually increasing to medium-high speed until stiff, glossy peaks form. Mix in the vanilla until combined. Frost cooled cupcakes as desired.

Brown with a kitchen torch NOT in the oven under a broiler

For the pecan streusel I used a mixture of all purpose flour, brown sugar, butter, cinnamon and pecans.
I don't remember the exact amounts which is because I made it up instead of following a recipe. Next time I will follow a recipe. And not broil them.

New Cupcake Pans and cupcake baking tips

I have been doing some cupcake baking research lately since I had a recent batch of cupcakes ( to be blogged soon!) that didn't puff up with the nice dome that I normally strive for. So I tried to figure out why this happened. Was it because I didn't fill with enough batter? Did I over mix? Were they under baked and shrank when cooling?  So I decided to look around online and see what people had to say about how to achieve the perfect dome on scratch baked cupcakes.

One of the first items I found was ingredient order. Some sites said to not do the typical creaming of the butter and sugar at first, if you are using a butter sugar method. One of my favorite sites, Cake Journal has an excellent tutorial HERE about this method. I have recipes which do the creaming butter and sugar first method, some add melted butter later and some are with oil and no butter at all. The recipe that instigated this research was a butter and sugar creaming first recipe.

Another method is oven temperature. How long the oven is preheated. Not just get it to 350 Deg F and pop in the pans but really heat the oven for a while. Is there an oven thermometer inside the oven to ensure that the oven is indeed at that temp? Are there hot or cold spots in your oven?  Some people rotate pans halfway through baking to make sure the cupcakes bake evenly but opening the oven door can cause cupcakes to fall flat. At least doing so before 15 min of baking and a lot of my cupcake recipes are done at about 15 minutes. 

One the subject of oven temperature I found on Cake Central message boards that many bakers start out with a higher oven temp for preheating and then lower once the cupcakes are in either immediately or after 5 minutes of baking. Some bakers start at 400 deg F and drop to 350 deg F, other bakers start at 375 deg F and drop to 325 deg F. And it depends on the oven too. Electric tend to take longer to drop down in temp than gas do - but it depends on the oven

Another factor could be your leavening agent's age. How old is that baking powder/soda? Older powders might not be effective anymore. Try to keep as fresh as possible. And when a recipe says to have ingredients at room temp have everything out of the fridge and measured out and on the counter for a while. Maybe a couple hours ( unless in the middle of a 100 deg summer!)  And when the batter is ready have it sit 15-20 min to let that baking powder start its magic. Once that time is up bake the cupcakes and see if that helps.

And another factor I found out about is pan color. I read that lighter colored pans don't produce cupcakes with the nice dome as well as darker pans do. The darker pans heat quicker and keep the heat more even. So you know what I did today??  That's right. I bought NEW cupcake pans. I have two sets of cupcake pans. One pair is a darker metal that is from Baker's Secret that I have had FOREVER, and the other is a lighter aluminum from Wilton. The Wilton pan's cups are smaller than the Baker's Secret pans so I have more issues with my cupcake paper liners buckling. The Baker's pans are larger cups and take more batter. So for a recipe yielding a dozen cupcakes I would get 9 maybe 10 out of that pan.

Baker's Secret pan on the left, Wilton on the right

I have been discussing this with my friend Stephanie over at Sweet Creations by Stephanie and she sent me a pic of her pans she had. They are Wilton pans, but darker than the ones I have. She raved about them so I ran to Bed Bath and Beyond today and picked some up. 4 of them to be exact. With coupons of course. And I cannot WAIT to bake with them.

I like how there is more of an edge on each side to grab the pan without sticking a hot mitt right into  a freshly baked cupcake ( or batter if heading in to the oven) and these are heavy too. Heavy is good.  Plus they just look nicer than my old ones. My old pans are being retired and I will use them as flower formers for my gumpaste and fondant flowers. 

The pans can be found HERE . I just so happened to have time to run to Bed Bath and Beyond today to get them and was stoked they had them. But obviously they can be ordered online as well. I will be experimenting with the other techniques I mentioned above and will report back soon with my results. I have lots of fun things I have been making lately and will be blogging a lot more soon.

Kakes by Kristy

A friend of mine and co-worker has recently started baking cakes and cupcakes and has been making some amazing creations. She started out wanting to make her kid's super cool birthday cakes that not only look good but taste great too ( she makes everything from scratch including her own marshmallow fondant aka mmf) and has ventured into making cakes for friends, family and other co-workers. So please "add" her to your blog list and check out what she is making. 

She is self taught for the most part and I think for the short time she has been creating cakes she is doing an AMAZING job!!

You can check her out here:

Kakes By Kristy

Coconut Lime Snowball Cupcakes

I am a bona fide coconut-aholic. I seriously love anything and everything that has to do with the coconut. And with the exception of the sugary shredded coconut and the uber sweet coconut cream used in Pina Coladas, coconut is amazingly healthy. The oil alone has numerous health benefits, and even though it has gotten a bad rap in the past for being a saturated fat its a GOOD fat, an essential fat, one that I consume daily. But not in cupcake form although I wish it was a cupcake a day keeps the doctor away. But it could very well be some coconut a day keeps the Dr away. But until that happens for sure lets just concentrate on these little goodies. Coconut lime snowball cupcakes. A few bites of tropical cupcakey goodness during the rainy cold dreary winter almost soon to be spring season.

 I think I might have been a south pacific islander in a former life because of the flavors and foods I love. Coconut and lime is one of my favorite combos and the two ingredients is in many island dishes as well as south east Asian such as Vietnamese and Thai, two cuisines I adore. I recently discovered an Asian superstore here and have found some awesome ingredients that aren't at a normal American grocery.

 Chaokoh is my favotrite brand of canned coconut milk and the super store carries the Chaokoh coconut cream which is awesome for Thai green curry. This is the full fat coconut milk. I don't use the light when baking.

 I love my lime squeezer. Like really. I am a kitchen gadget freak and my drawer is getting very crowded. I might have to renovate my kitchen just for all my gadgets.

 Making the lime curd. Lime zest, freshly squeezed lime juice, sugar, egg yolks and butter

 My curd ended up a little lumpy before straining because I had the pan on my back burner while cooking so my kiddo didn't reach up to a hot burner on the front since she was trying to help me and some of the egg scrambled which I couldn't see until I pulled the pan off the heat to add the butter. So it is very important to be able to SEE inside the entire pot when stirring the curd to make sure none of the egg is sticking to a side you can't see and end up scrambled.

 Straining it out to make sure none of the scrambled egg made it in

 The egg yolks and butter made this look more like lemon curd since the lime is such a light green

 Stirring in the zest. I think I had a wee bit more than what the recipe called for.

 Now it looks more like lime than lemon curd

 The recipe says to chop the shredded coconut even more. I was busy trying to take a cool pic and then I realized I just dumped the coconut it, I didn't chop. Oops

I use organic evaporated cane juice instead of regular white sugar. I like the flavor better and I try to keep my ingredients organic and minimally processed as possible. This type of sugar doesn't yield the nice light fluffy mixture when whipped with butter as regular white sugar does but that never affects the texture or taste as far as I can tell.

 So my toddler wanted to help "bake" and to keep her slightly out of trouble I give her a bowl with flour and water and this time she wanted some oats. She makes a fantastic mess and can seriously stay busy for an hour this way. Also I told her if she wanted to help me she needed to put her apron on like mommy has on and she was all excited to wear it. And make a mess.

I have no idea where my kid learns to make messes from

 I am on the hunt for thicker white cupcake liners. Mine are so flimsy and the always buckle like this when I fill them with batter. Makes me mad. Well not too mad but still. Its annoying

You can see that a few of the paper liners buckled.

 All baked up. The coconut smell was so awesome and you can see the little pieces of coconut.

 I used my trusty apple corer to cut out the middle to fill with the curd

 All filled with the lime curd. The curd is awesome, tangy and not too sweet. Perfect match for the sweet coconut cupcake and frosting

 At first I was going to attempt the nice smooth big BLOB of frosting and after several failed attempts ( I swear I am going to figure it out one of these days) I decided to just smooth it out a little with a spatula because I was going to be covering them in coconut anyway

 Lovely coconut lime cupcakes

Now you know why they are called snowball cupcakes. They look like snowballs ready for a fight. Except I wouldn't throw cupcakes just snowballs

 These aren't the fanciest cupcakes I have made. But they are so tasty that simple is better

You can see the coconut in the cake. I like the texture of the shredded coconut and am totally willing to make these again with chopping it even finer to do a comparison.

I had to snap this picture before all the curd oozed out!!  These were great freshly made and just as good if not better chilled to firm up the curd and then thawed slightly to soften the frosting.

Yum!! 

Coconut Lime Cupcakes with lime curd filling and coconut swiss meringue buttercream frosting.

From Shelly Kaldunski's "Cupcakes”

 Coconut Cupcakes

Makes 12 cupcakes

Ingredients:
1 cup all purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter ( 1 stick) at room temp
1 teaspoon vanilla extract ( I used coconut extract instead for extra coconut flavor)
1/2 cup coconut milk
1/3 cup shredded coconut roughly chopped ( can be sweetened or unsweetened)
1  large egg plus one large egg white at room temp

Directions:
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees line a standard muffin pan with paper or foil cupcake liners. In a bowl whisk your dry ingredients including the coconut.  In an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar for 2 to 3 minutes until light and fluffy.  Add egg, egg white and extract and beat until smooth.  Add flour mixture in three additions alternating with 2 additions of coconut milk.  Beat on low and scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.  Divide the batter into the cupcake pan filling 3/4 of the way up each liner.  Bake 18-20 minutes. Cool in pan for 5 minutes and then carefully turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely for at least an hour before filling and frosting.

Lime Curd

4 egg yolks
6 tablespoons lime juice
1/2 cup of sugar
2 teaspoons lime zest
pinch of salt
4 tablespoons of butter cut into 4 pieces

In a saucepan, whisk together the egg yolks, sugar, lime juice and salt and cook over medium high heat stirring constantly so it doesn’t boil.   When it is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon take it off the heat. Whisk in each piece of butter one at a time until it is melted in. Pour into a mesh strainer over a bowl and scrape the curd through leaving and solids behind. Some of the egg yolk does end up cooking so this way you don’t have pieces of scrambled egg in the curd. Stir in the lime zest and place a piece of plastic wrap over the curd to keep a film from forming and chill in the refrigerator for at least an hour.

 

Coconut Swiss Meringue Buttercream

Makes 2 cups enough to pipe on 12 cupcakes or spatula on 16 cupcakes

Ingredients

3 egg whites

¾ cup sugar

pinch salt

2 sticks of butter at room temp cut into 16 pieces

2 tsp coconut extract

Using the bowl of your stand mixer add the egg whites, sugar and salt and set the bowl over a pan of simmering water on the stove. Make sure the bottom of the mixer bowl isn’t touching the water. Whisk the mixture until it feels slippery to the touch( all the sugar has dissolved) and is 160 deg f on an instant read or candy thermometer. This takes about 2 minutes. Remove the bowl and place on mixer immediately start whisking the mixture using the whisk attachment and slowly go from low to high speed. Whisk until the bowl is cool to the touch( room temp) and the egg white mixture is fluffy and hold stiff peaks. The mixture should not look dry. It will be glossy like meringue. This takes about 6-7 minutes. Stop to scrape down the sides. With the mixer on medium add the butter in 1-2 pieces at a time until all the butter is incorporated. Scrape down the sides and get any stuck pieces of butter out of the whisk. Beat on high until the frosting comes together. If it gets soupy looking just keep whisking. Stop to scrape down the sides and bottom of bowl. Optional switch to the paddle attachment for this step and beat on low to get rid of any air bubbles. Add in the extract and beat again until fully mixed in. Keep at room temp if using that day. If not keep in fridge for 3-5 days and thaw about 30 min at room temp and beat slowly for about 5 minutes before using.

This recipe can easily be doubled, tripled whatever. Just depends on the size mixer you have. If you have a commercial Hobart then you can make a TON of frosting. Also you can customize to any flavors you want. Instead of coconut you can add vanilla or any other extract you like, melted and cooled chocolate for a chocolate buttercream using milk, white or dark chocolate, add in caramel and some sea salt for a salted caramel buttercream. Really the possibilities are endless!!

Butter Almond Tea Cakes

 

 Most of the goodies that I bake are recipes I have been wanting to try that are in my ever growing list of recipes  and I mostly make them and share with my hubby's co-workers so I don't end up eating more than my share. Once in a while I take requests from friends.  A good friend of mine's husband was telling me about a local restaurant that had these AMAZING almond tea cakes at the brunch they went there for a while ago. And he wanted ME to make them for him. So I first called the restaurant thinking maybe, just maybe they would share the recipe or maybe give me a hint at what they are. I left a message and a manager was nice enough to call me back and tell me that the pastry chef would get back to me with the recipe. I can tell you I am glad I didn't  hold my breath. I had a feeling I wouldn't hear back. But it never hurts to try. 

So I was flipping through recipes in one of my cupcake books after looking online and not really seeing anything that he had described to me and I found the Butter Almond Tea Cake recipe in my book, Cupcakes! by Elinor Klivans. I am not sure if these were exactly what he was wanting but I thought they came out pretty dang good and all I can say is mini cupcakes are dangerous. You can eat them like popcorn. I mean shove them in by the handful. Well. Almost. Maybe in the privacy of your own home.

 First I toasted up some sliced almonds. I toasted a bunch since I sort of carelessly poured them into my pan and a bunch broke. They're very fragile.

 I really wanted to bump up the almondness ( yes that is a word. I say so) so I subbed a little of the all purpose flour with almond flour. All I had was almond meal so I put some in the trusty magic bullet blender and ground it up to a more flour like consistency. Don't grind too long or you end up with almond butter. Mmmm almond butter..

 Butter and almond paste mixing together. Almond paste comes in tubes or cans. Make sure you get almond paste NOT marzipan. Marzipan is much sweeter.

 There is just something pretty about cake batter plus t with the almond paste and extract made it smell so good.

 I have two mini muffin pan that bakes 24 cupcakes each so I was able to bake the entire batch at one time

 At first I was a little bummed they came out so flat but then realized that since they were getting just a swipe of glaze that flat would work better

 Wheeeeeee!!   I dumped them out because my oven mitt is a little thin in one area and it burnt my hand so I spazzed and almost dropped the muffin pan.

 I experimented a little with glazing some while hot and some while cool. I decided I liked the look of them glazed while cool a little better because the glaze sort of disappeared on the ones that were iced warm

 Aren't they cute?  They ended up being a very fragile cupcake, the crumb wasn't very dense, and they stuck to the wrappers. I think next time I will try a different recipe and look for a denser cake. Almost like a pound cake texture. These tasted great though and were liked by the friend that requested them

Butter Almond Tea Cakes

Adapted from cupcakes! By Elinor Klivans

 

Tea Cake Ingredients:

1 cup flour

¼ cup almond flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature

3/4 cup sugar, plus

1 tablespoon sugar

3 1/2 ounces almond paste, at room temperature

2 large eggs at room temp

1 tsp almond extract

1/2 cup buttermilk at room temp

Glaze

1 cup powdered sugar

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

1 1/2-2 1/2 tablespoons milk

1/4 teaspoon almond extract

Topping

Almond slices lightly toasted

Directions

1.  Preheat oven to 325. Line 48 mini muffin cups with non-stick spray OR paper mini cupcake papers
2.  Sift the flour, almond flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt into a medium bowl and set aside.
3. In a large bowl, using an electric mixer on medium speed, beat the butter, sugar and almond paste until smoothly blended, about 1 minute.
4.  Add the eggs one at a time, mixing until each is blended into the batter.
5.  Add the almond extract and beat for 2 minutes or until the batter is smooth.
6.  On low speed, add the flour in 3 additions and the buttermilk in 2 additions, beginning and ending with the flour and mixing just until the flour is incorporated and the batter looks smooth.
7. Fill each cup with a slightly rounded tablespoon of batter. Bake just until the tops feel firm and a toothpick comes out clean, about 15 minutes. Cool in pans for 5 minutes.
8. Remove from pans and cool on a wire rack.
9. 9To make the glaze, in a small bowl, whisk the powdered sugar, melted butter, 1 1/2 tablespoons milk and almond extract until smooth. Add up to 1 tablespoon more milk if needed for the proper consistency.
10.  If spread on warm cakes, the glaze will melt and become shiny. If spread on cooled cupcakes, the glaze will be white and opaque. The glaze will become firm as it sets.
11. Top each mini cupcake with one or two of the toasted sliced almonds.