Buttercream | I Can Cook That

Maple Bacon Cupcakes

Note: I received a bottle of Nielsen-Massey’s Madagascar Bourbon Pure Vanilla Extract in order to write this post. All opinions are mine alone. #BetterYourBake

How is it already nearly October? Every fall, time seems to speed up and the months for the rest of the year just fly by! With so much happening in the fall, it makes sense that it feels like things are in fast forward. But it’s important to take the time to step back and do something you enjoy amid all the chaos.

Nielsen-Massey was nice enough to remind me of that, and sent me a bottle of their Madagascar Bourbon Pure Vanilla Extract to do what I love: bake! Recent studies have shown that creative activities, such as baking, help people feel more relaxed and happier in their everyday lives.

But in order to benefit from the mindful nature of baking, basic techniques must first be mastered. To help learn some new baking tricks, Nielsen-Massey has developed “Better Your Bake,” which delivers technique-based videos, tips and tools to help home bakers learn and master the basics of baking with the help of Nielsen-Massey products.

I was asked to show off my newest learned skill after watching some of Nielsen-Massey’s videos: how to temper chocolate. It takes some effort, but it’s easier than an initially thought!

Tempering chocolate is typically used for special occasions and results in a smooth, glossy chocolate coating that dries shiny and has a crisp snap
The process involves divvying and melting a portion of the chocolate, stirring in the reserved chocolate and heating the whole batch to the required temperature
Tempered chocolate is great for cake pops, fruit, candy molds and more

So, what could be better than chocolate covered bacon? This recipe, from Nielsen-Massey’s website, originally developed by Pastry Chef Jessica Ellington, is for Maple Bacon Cupcakes, topped with a maple buttercream frosting, crumbled bacon, and a half slice of chocolate dipped bacon. And yes, they are every bit as delicious as you are imagining!

Nielsen-Massey has a bunch of videos that are helpful for this recipe, so I’ve linked to them throughout the post.

Ingredients:

Maple Bacon Cupcakes

8 slices of bacon, cooked and crispy
8 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 stick), room temperature
2 cups sugar
3 tablespoons pure maple syrup
4 eggs, yolks and whites separated
1 teaspoon Madagascar Bourbon Pure Vanilla Extract
1 ½ cups cake flour
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon kosher salt
¼ cup whole milk

Chocolate-Covered Bacon

1 cup bittersweet chocolate, chopped, divided
9 slices of bacon, cooked and crispy

Maple Buttercream Frosting

¾ cup unsalted butter (1 ½ sticks)
1 ½ cups pure maple syrup
1 ¼ teaspoons kosher salt
¹/₃ cup half and half
¾ teaspoon Madagascar Bourbon Pure Vanilla Extract
3 cups powdered sugar, sifted

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Devils Food Cupcakes

These super chocolatey Devils Food Cupcakes are most certainly going to be a favorite of the chocoholic in your life.

There isn’t anything that specifically determines a chocolate cake as devil’s food cake, but they do tend to be a bit more airy and have quite a bit of chocolate in them!

This moist and fluffy recipe for Devils Food Cupcakes also uses coffee extract to further enhance the chocolate flavor.

Ingredients (makes approximately 30 cupcakes):

3/4 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup boiling water
1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter
2 1/4 cups sugar
1 tablespoon coffee extract
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
2 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1/4 cup cornstarch
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup whole milk
chocolatey buttercream frosting

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Chocolatey Buttercream Frosting

I make more frosting (and desserts!) than I probably should. Luckily, I have friends, family, and coworkers more than willing to help me out with my baking experiments, and this recipe for Chocolatey Buttercream Frosting is definitely a favorite!

I love making fun frosting flavors, like cinnamon cream cheese, vegan peanut butter, key lime, and bourbon-orange cream cheese. But, my absolute favorite frosting is, and always will be chocolate.

So it’s about time I shared my ultimate chocolatey buttercream frosting!

The secret to this frosting is a hint of coffee to really enhance the chocolatey flavor. I use Nielsen Massey’s Pure Coffee Extract to bring out the best chocolate flavor.

Ingredients (makes enough for 12 cupcakes):

2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup cocoa powder
1 (16 oz box) confectioners sugar
1/4 teaspoon fine salt
1/2 tablespoon coffee extract
1/4 cup milk, plus more as needed

Continue reading Chocolatey Buttercream Frosting

Pumpkin Whoopie Pies

One of my favorite parts of reading other blogger’s pages is checking out the “about me” sections of their blogs. It’s always so interesting to read how bloggers began cooking, how they decided to start and blog, and what else in life interests them. So when I was offered a copy of White Jacket Required: A Culinary Coming-of-Age Story written by Jenna Weber of the wonderful blog Eat Live Run I couldn’t wait to dig in!

The book follows Jenna as she graduates college and makes the decision to go to culinary school to fulfill her dream of becoming a food writer. The book allows the reader a deep dive into Jenna’s journey to follow her dreams while dealing with life along the way. Like me, Jenna seems to pinpoint specific times in her life by food that sticks out from that time period. Throughout the book, her story is peppered with delicious recipes from her childhood as well as recipes she developed through her career.

One of the recipes stood out to me: Jenna’s recipe for Pumpkin Whoopie Pies. I am pumpkin obsessed, and I have wanted to make whoopie pies for a while now but was always kind of intimidated by them. Jenna’s recipe seemed approachable so I took the plunge.

I’m pretty sure whoopie pies can now be found basically everywhere but they originally hail from the Pennsylvania Dutch. (I gotta tell you, the Philadelphia area really has some awesome food. It’s no wonder I became a food blogger with all this inspiration surrounding me!) Whoopie pies are just cake-like cookies with creamy goodness sandwiched in between. They are oh so fluffy and just, well, make me happy. So let’s see if I can do them justice..

Ingredients:

Cookies:

2 cups brown sugar
1 cup canola oil
1 can pumpkin puree
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper
1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger

Buttercream filling:

1 egg white
2 tablespoons whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups powdered sugar, divided
3/4 cup shortening

Double Chocolate Cupcakes with Buttercream Frosting

We recently had a baby shower for one of my co-workers. She’s a big chocolate fan, so I went in search of a super chocolately cupcake that I could make for the shower. Lauren’s Latest had a great recipe that incorporated dark chocolate and cocoa powder, perfect! I used an altered buttercream recipe from my Guinness Cupcakes so that I could have a white icing that I could dye blue. She is having a boy so I went with a duck theme!

Cupcake ingredients:

3/4 cup butter

12 oz dark chocolate

3/4 cup packed brown sugar (I used light)

3/4 cup granulated sugar

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

3/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/2 cup flour

3 eggs

3/4 cup milk

3/4 cup low fat sour cream

1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Buttercream ingredients:

1 stick of butter, softened
3 cups powdered (confectioner’s) sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Milk, as needed to get to desired consistency

4-5 drops blue food dye

So I did something that is typically a big no-no in baking. I took Lauren’s recipe and multiplied it by three to make 24 cupcakes. And (thankfully) it turned out a-ok! So feel free to use my multiplied version. Be sure to check out Lauren’s page though to see how beautiful hers came out, especially with that chocolate icing, yum!

Begin by preheating your oven to 350 degrees. Line a cupcake pan with paper liners.

In a small pot, melt the butter and chocolate over medium low heat, stirring until smooth. When combined, remove from heat and allow to cool.

While the butter and chocolate are melting / cooling, add the brown sugar, granulated sugar, cocoa powder, salt, baking soda and flour in a large bowl.

Mix to combine.

In a small bowl, combine the eggs, milk, sour cream and vanilla.

Make a well in the dry mixture.

Pour the wet ingredients into the well.

Mine overflowed. Oops@

Incorporate the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients as well as the cooled butter-chocolate mixture until just combined.

Add half of the mixture to the cupcake tins (the recipe makes 24 so you will have enough batter for 24 cupcakes). I use an ice cream scoop to at least attempt to divide the batter evenly.

Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into a middle cupcake comes out clean.

Allow to completely cool before decorating.

To make the icing, use a hand mixer to beat butter until smooth. Add half of the sugar and beat until smooth. Add other half of the sugar and repeat. If the mixture is too thick, add a bit of milk to thin and beat until smooth. (Note: be careful to not add too much, a little bit of milk goes a very long way!)

I added 4-5 drops of blue food coloring to get a light blue color. The icing became water for my ducks.

How cute are these?

I used a pastry bag to add the icing, but you can also put the icing into a plastic zip lock bag and cut off one of the bottom corners to squeeze the icing out. It doesn’t have to be perfect (mine definitely aren’t!), the ducks splashing makes ripples in the water 🙂

I ordered the ducks and the sprinkles from The Bakers Confections, which you can buy on Etsy.

You’re probably thinking, super, they are adorable. But are they tasty?

They sure are! The double chocolate makes it a really nice dense cupcake, fully of chocolately flavor. The sour cream keeps them nice and moist.

My cupcakes were snatched up in minutes, so I think they were a hit!

Thanks to Lauren for posting such a fantastic cupcake recipe!

Guinness Cupcakes with Baileys Frosting

With St. Patrick’s Day right around the corner, I wanted to test out my recipe for Guinness Cupcakes with Baileys Frosting before the big day to make sure it didn’t need any tweaking.

Guinness cupcakes are chocolate cupcakes that use a dark stout to enhance the flavor.

To keep with the theme, I decided to also make Bailey’s frosting.

Ingredients (makes 24 cupcakes)

Guinness Cupcakes:

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
2 cups sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 12 oz bottle of Guinness (or any other dark stout) – if your bottle is more than this, just measure out 12 oz
1 (4 oz) stick of butter, melted and cooled to room temperature
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
3 large eggs
3/4 cup sour cream

Baileys Frosting:

2 (4 oz) sticks of butter, softened
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup Bailey’s Irish Cream
1/4 tsp salt
8 cups powdered (confectioners) sugar

Continue reading Guinness Cupcakes with Baileys Frosting