St Patty's Day Minty Chocolate Stout Cupcakes

Though this is a bit outdated, I wanted to upload my lovely little St Patty's day cupcakes. I was debating on making chocolate stout cupcakes with either a ganache topping or an Irish Cream buttercream topping, but then was inspired by the festive green color of the holiday and decided to make a minty whipped cream topping instead.

I decided to bring these little babies to work, but didn't have a good way of transporting with the frosting on, so I kept the cake base and the frosting separate so I could "assemble" onsite. Except, I didn't have a proper piping bag, so I just stuffed the frosting into a piper, sandwich-bag style...which explains the texture of the whipped cream.



Minty Chocolate Stout Cupcakes

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa, plus more for dusting finished cupcakes
2 cups sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda

Pinch fine salt
1 bottle stout beer (recommended: Guinness)
1 stick butter, melted
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
3 large eggs
3/4 cup plain yogurt
3/4 to 1 cup heavy cream
1 (1-pound) box confectioners’ sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the cocoa, sugar, flour, baking soda, and salt.

In another medium mixing bowl, combine the stout, melted butter, and vanilla. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Mix in sour cream until thoroughly combined and smooth. Gradually mix the dry ingredients into the wet mixture.

Lightly grease 24 muffin tins. Divide the batter equally between muffin tins, filling each 3/4 full. Bake for about 12 minutes and then rotate the pans. Bake another 12 to 13 minutes until risen, nicely domed, and set in the middle but still soft and tender. Cool before turning out. If you decide to make mini-cupcakes, they only need to cook for ~15 minutes.

Minty Whipped Cream
1 C Heavy Whipping Cream
1 teaspoon Peppermint Extract (dependent on how minty you want it.. a little goes a long way!!)
1 Tablespoon powdered sugar
2 drops green food coloring

1. Pour whipping cream into the mixer and start the mixer on low and then turn to medium-high once bubbles start forming.
2. Keep mixer on medium-high while adding powdered sugar slowly.
3. Slowly add in Peppermint Extract... make sure not to dump too much at once or the flavor can be too overwhelming.
4. Once flavored, add the green food coloring one drop at a time until desired color is reached.
5. Keep an eye out during this entire process. The whipping cream will start getting stiff peaks and that is when you will need to stop. DO NOT OVERMIX! Or this mixture will turn into butter.

Add whipped cream to cupcake base and sprinkle a little green cake decoration to make it pop and voila! Serve and enjoy!!

Ginger.....cookies?

The event: Brut Sun Bowl.
The goodie: Dark, spicy Gingerbread

The goal was to bake a moist, dark, spicy gingerbread for the Brut Sun Bowl. Every winter, I get a huge craving for ginger in baked goodies. And what completes a cold winter day than gingerbread? So, I found a recipe off of Allrecipes and decided to go for it.

The first thing I noticed was the amount of molasses in the recipe: 1 whole cup! I'm not that big a fan of molasses...I find it a bit overbearing, but since the recipe was highly rated, I decided to go for it. After putting it in the oven, I set the time to what the recipe had suggested: 1 hr. Ok fine... it seemed a little long for the amount and the stickiness of the batter (1 9x9 square brownie pan), but I trusted the recipe and toiled on. About 45 min later, I went to check on my gingerbread. By now, I could smell the molasses wafting out of the kitchen. I opened the oven door, took out my pan, and poked at it. Rock solid. Crap.

In a moment of panic, I decided that I could just buy some gingerbread at Safeway and pass it off as my own. But I knew I couldn't make myself do that...and my ego was stopping me from it. Quickly, I changed plans to keep the ginger as the main ingredient and decided to fall back on a reliable choice: cookies! And voila! These big, soft, ginger cookies were born!

Might I say, that I think these turned out very well. So well, that, upon taking a bite, my friends were surprised that I had made them:

- Friend 1: These cookies are good! Did Ji make these?
- Friend 2: No, Penny did actually.
- Friend 1: Really??? Penny made these???

Don't worry. I wasn't offended. In fact, it gave my ego a giant boost after hearing that. So, hopefully these will bring you the same joy that it brought me and my friends on that cold Saturday afternoon.

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon water
• 1/4 cup molasses
• 1/4 teaspoon orange extract
• 1 teaspoon of orange zest

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Sift together the flour, ginger, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, and salt. Set aside.
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and 1 cup sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg, then stir in the water and molasses. Gradually stir the sifted ingredients into the molasses mixture. Shape dough into walnut sized balls, place the cookies 2 inches apart onto an ungreased cookie sheet, and flatten slightly.
3. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container.

The Lazyman's Pumpkin Log

When I was in college, my roommates and I one Christmas somehow came up with the idea to look for a Yule Log. Maybe it was because none of us had had one since we were kids or maybe it was just the thrill of the hunt. Who knows? Amazingly...or not, Berkeley turned out to be a difficult place to find one. We went from Safeway to Safeway, bakery to bakery, and yet nothing. We didn't find one that year, and we didn't try any other years. Being that the holidays are upon us made me reminisce to that moment and made me wonder why we didn't just bake our own Yule Log. Well this year seemed like as good a year as any to start! Of course, being the lazyman and a pumpkin lover, I decided to just make a simple Pumpkin Log.


This recipe itself is an adaptation of Libby's Pumpkin Roll. I like my spice breads with a generous amount of spices, but you can adjust that to according to your preference. Also, just to add a little more texture, I incorporated some chopped walnuts into the filling to add some depth :).

1/4 C. powdered sugar
3/4 C. all-purpose flour
1/2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. baking soda
1 t. ground cinnamon
1/2 t. nutmeg
1/2 t. allspice
1 t. ground cloves
1/4 t. salt
3 eggs
1 C. sugar
1 C. canned pumpkin

filling:
1 pkg. (8 oz.) cream cheese, softened
1/2 C. powdered sugar, sifted
4 T. butter, softened
1/2 C. chopped walnuts
1 t. vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 375°F. Grease a 15×10 jelly roll pan (also known as half sheet pan); line with parchment or waxed paper. Grease and flour paper; set aside. Spread out a clean, thin dish towel on the counter (make sure the towel is larger than your jelly roll pan); sprinkle liberally with powdered sugar (this can be done using a mesh strainer).

2. In a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and cloves.

3. In a large bowl combine eggs and sugar; beat until thickened. Add pumpkin; beat until well mixed.

4. Stir in flour mixture into egg mixture. Spread batter evenly into prepared pan, easing it carefully to the corners with a spatula.

5. Bake in preheated 375 degree oven for 13 to 15 minutes or until center springs back when lightly touched.

6. Immediately loosen cake from edges of pan; invert cake onto the prepared towel. Remove pan; carefully peel off paper. Roll up cake in towel while hot, starting with 10-inch side. Cool completely on wire rack (will take at least an hour).

7. When cake is almost completely cooled, make the filling: beat cream cheese, powdered sugar, butter and vanilla extract in small mixer bowl until smooth. Fold in chopped walnuts.

8. When cake has cooled completely, unroll, spread with the cream cheese filling then re-roll cake. Wrap rolled cake in plastic wrap then refrigerate at least one hour (overnight is best).

9. When ready to serve, unwrap cake and place on a platter. Top with walnuts for decoration. Sprinkle with powdered sugar if desired (sift the sugar through a small mesh strainer for a nice presentation). Cut into slices.

buns are hard

While I was in Korea over winter break, I got this amazing baking book by Young Mo Kim, THE man of the Korean Bakers Association. This book is full colored and has a range of delicious, ornate pastries and cakes including the ones you find in asian bakeries with custard and red bean filling inside. 

I had the urge to try baking something different last week so I made my first brave attempt at baking asian buns. I made one batch of sweet bread dough to make three different types of buns -- custard filling, red bean filling, and some with sweet crumb topping.  

I mixed all the ingredients and kneaded, pounded the dough for about 15 minutes manually (per instructions in the book) and my arms almost fell off so I think next time, I'll just use the KitchenAid mixer. The result was just okay. The bread was not as soft and moist as I had hoped. The custard filled one was my favorite because the custard gave the bun that extra moisture it needed. 

Next time, I think I will try a couple of things differently:

   1. use KitchenAid mixer to knead the dough more thoroughly

   2. use a combination of cake flour and bread flour as the book suggests rather than just all-purpose flour 

   3. find a good place to proof the dough (needs a constant 28 deg C environment.. perhaps a space heater and a bowl of water in a box will do?) 

   4. put more filling in the buns! 

cranberries

Have you seen fresh cranberries before? On the outside they're smooth and round, but on the inside, they look like four-leaf clovers. I had a bunch of cranberries leftover from Thanksgiving, so I made a cranberry upside-down coffee cake from this recipe. I brought this to a house-warming party, and the combination of cranberries, pecans, brown sugar, and spices baked together was a perfect contrast to the cold weather outside. Next time you have fresh or dried cranberries, give this a try!

i heart gingerbread men

They just look so adorable when they are in a cluster, don't they? I made a personalized gingerbread man for each of my coworkers and since our group works on cameras for Google Streetview, I made little cameras to go along with it. They were an instant hit of course :) 

I used this recipe but substituted margarine with butter.  Make sure you watch them while baking because they are soft and chewy with slight crunch normally, but will turn hard and dry very quickly if overbaked. For the frosting, I mixed 1/2 cup of confectioners' sugar with 1 tablespoon of nonfat milk and a pinch of cinnamon for more flavor. 

Happy Holidays! 

apple pastry cake

My first entry! 

I baked this apple pastry cake for Thanksgiving. The recipe was from a book A Passion for Baking by Marcy Goldman (this is an amazing book for those home bakers out there).  It is a hybrid between a pie and a cake. The entire cake is filled with plumped raisins, cinnamon, nutmeg and sugar coated apples (I think I used at least 8 medium sized apples) and after about 40 minutes of baking, custard is poured into the filling and popped back into the oven.  

It can be served warm or cold. The apples still have a bit of a crunch and the creamy custard filling between these apple pieces give each bite a wonderful mix of textures. 

 

I wish I had a picture of a piece cut out...