Chocolate Salted Caramel and Fresh Strawberry Cupcakes

First off, these should be illegal and that’s saying something from me since I’m not the biggest fan of cupcakes in general.  Don’t hate me but I’d rather eat a cookie or a piece of cake than have a cupcake.  Most cupcakes have too much icing on them.  In my opinion there should always be more cake to icing ratio and in all those fancy cupcake stores, the icing is usually twice as much as needed.  It’s a cupcake not a cupicing.

I digress.

So why did I make cupcakes?  Someone asked me if I would and I said yes.  When I asked what they wanted they asked if I could do a salted caramel and a strawberry.  So there you have it :)

I already had a kick ass chocolate cake recipe and a vanilla cake recipe that I could rework into a strawberry.

First the Chocolate Salted Caramel cupcakes.  These require three things, the cake, the icing and most importantly the caramel.  Now you could make your own if you have the gift.  I don’t so I use the salted caramel sauce from Trader Joes.  You can eat this right out of the jar if you were so inclined. I was ;) 

I then needed a really luscious icing recipe.  I thought a cream cheese icing might work really well with the salted caramel.  The icing should always balance out the cake not over power it.

Chocolate Cake:

• 1 3/4 cup flour
• 2 cups sugar
• 3/4 cup cocoa
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 cup freshly brewed coffee

1. In bowl of stand mixer, combine dry ingredients.
2. Add buttermilk, oil, eggs and vanilla slowly until just combined
3. Slowly add coffee until just combined.  Remove bowl from mixer and fold to make sure all in incorporated.
4. Scoop into regular cupcake pan. I use a standard icecream scoop to make all the cupcakes the same size.
5. Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes.  Let cool 15 minutes before removing to cool  completely.

Salted Caramel Icing

• 1 cup softened unsalted butter
• 1 8oz package softened cream cheese
• 1/2 cup salted caramel sauce (I use Trader Joes)
• 6 cups confectioners sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla

1. In bowl of stand mixer, cream butter and cream cheese.
2. Add the caramel sauce and vanilla until combined
3. Mix in the 6 cups of sugar until the icing stands up on it’s own.  The thing with using cream cheese, the icing is a lot softer than traditional butter cream.

Putting it together!

1. Fit a piping bag with a large star tip (1M).
2. Starting in the centre, pipe circles outward to create a rosette.
3. Drizzle more salted caramel sauce over the icing.
4. Sprinkle with Fleur-de-Sel and chocolate curls.

Next up in the Fresh Strawberry Cupcakes.  I use actual fresh strawberries but add a small package of strawberry jello powder to really enhance the flavour.  I got this idea from Sweetapolita.  I also used fresh strawberry puree in the buttercream as well.

Fresh Strawberry Cake:

• 1-3/4 cups granulated sugar
• 1 (85 g) package strawberry flavored Jell-O
• 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 4 eggs (room temperature)
• 3 cups unbleached flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup whole milk, room temperature
• 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup strawberry puree

1. To make the puree, remove 1 cup of frozen strawberries and add to a blender.  Let them sit out for about 5 minutes.  Add 2 tbsp of apple juice and blend until no big frozen chunks are left.  Put aside.
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream the butter, sugar and jell-o until fluffy.
3. Add eggs until combined.
4. In one separate bowl, combine milk, vanilla and strawberry puree.
5. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt.
6. Alternate adding each bowl contents to butter mixture.  Starting and finishing with dry ingredients.
7. Scoop into prepared cupcake pan.
8. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes.  Let cool.

Fresh Strawberry Icing

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter softened
• 1/2 cup Crisco shortening
• 1 tbsp milk
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 4-6 tbsps strawberry puree
• 4 cups confectioners sugar

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream the butter and Crisco until combined.
2. Add the 4 cups confectioners sugar
3. Add the milk, vanilla and strawberry puree.  Whip until nice and fluffy but holds it shape.
4. Pipe onto cupcakes using the 1M Wilton star tip. This time start at the outside and circle to center.
5. I made small fondant strawberries and added them to each cupcake for a little accent.

Each of these recipes makes two dozen cupcakes.  I only needed three dozen total, so the last dozen I froze and will use when I need a quick dessert.

So I hope you don’t hold it against me that I’m not a cupcake lover but I would totally make these again in a heartbeat!

Thanks for looking!

My First Attempt at an Ice Cream Cake

I always like to challenge myself and this past weekend was no different. I’ve always wanted to try to make an ice cream cake but never got around to it and since it was Memorial Day weekend, I thought it was a perfect time to give it a go.

My husband smoked a pork shoulder for a big bbq feast on Sunday and I wanted to make a dessert that would match up with the tastiness!

I made my new favourite chocolate cake from Barefoot Contessa on Saturday and then had to take a break.  Sadly my back has decided to give out on me again and so I can only work on stuff a little at a time.

Sunday we went strawberry picking. Ok, the girls picked and I watched.  But we scored quite a few!  I decided that our cake needed a strawberries and cream layer.

Putting it together:

1. First off, you need a spring form pan.  That’s a pan that you can take the sides off with a clip.
2. Bake 3 thin layers of cake.  I weighed my batter and then divided into 10 oz each.
3. I used Bryers Vanilla ice cream, take it out and left soften about 10 minutes.
4. In the spring form pan place the first layer of cake down.
5. Scoop ice cream onto cake layer and smooth out.
6. Top with another cake layer and put into freezer to firm up.
7. While the cake is freezing up, slice strawberries, whip cream and make some ganache.
8. Remove cake from freezer and pour some ganache over cake.  Then cover with sliced strawberries and whipped cream and the final layer of cake.
9. Put back into freezer until ready to serve.
10. With the remaining ganache, whip up using a hand blender until fluffy.
11. When ready to serve, remove cake from freezer and cover with the fluffy ganache.
12. Slice and serve!
13. Enjoy!

Now my biggest issue was covering the entire with icing.  Most store bought ice cream cakes use a full shortening icing that doesn’t freeze.  I CAN’T DO THAT, WON’T DO THAT.  So I only covered the top.  I liked the rustic look it had and without the icing, wasn’t that sweet, which I prefer!

Was this good?  OMG yes!

Should you attempt?  Absolutely!

It’s a little time consuming but really, what cake isn’t?

thanks for looking!

Strawberry Season is here!!!

One of my favourite seasons isn’t really a true season and not everyone gets to have this season at the same time.  I’m talking about strawberry season!!!  Back home in Ottawa, Canada this season isn’t until June, but here in North Carolina it’s April.  We are also pretty close to Florida’s February and March season, so we get really good strawberries for several months.  YAY!!!

So to celebrate I made a cake!  Second one in a week, I’m on a roll

We were having guests for dinner and since I’ve kind of created an expectation of desserts all the time, I got to work and made this vanilla bean sponge filled with strawberries and cream and then covered with left over orange buttercream for the cake I made for Dartagnan’s birthday.

This such a simple cake.  But I also tried my hand at the Viva towel method of flat icing.  It’s not perfect but not bad either!  I embellished with strawberries and it turned out looking pretty fancy!  Fresh fruit is always best in my book!

So for a simple dessert make your favourite vanilla cake, fill with whip cream and strawberries and then ice with your favourite buttercream.  Garnish and voila, beautiful and super tasty!

Here is my recipe for the cake:

Vanilla bean sponge:

• 1 1/2 cups cake flour
• 1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 cup sugar
• 8 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tablespoon vanilla bean paste
• 1/2 cup buttermilk

1. In stand mixer, combine all dry ingredients.
2. Mix in softened butter, eggs and vanilla bean paste.
3. Slowly add milk until combined.
4. Grease pans and bake at 350 for 35 minutes
5. Let cool and ice and fill as desired.
6. Enjoy.

The buttercream recipe is here and for the filling whip some cream, add some sugar and vanilla and voila a tasty centre!

So I hope you all enjoy your strawberry season a if you can’t make a cake just eat em plain, that’s how I like them best anyway

Thanks for looking!

Treat Day Wednesday–Chocolate Strawberry Cubes

Today is Wednesday and you guessed it, I was so not ready for Treat Day. So I went to my Pinterest Must Try and Idea boards and decided on these.  It’s not original and didn’t even turn out the way I had planned but when Rowan saw them, the look in her eyes was totally worth it!

That’s the great thing about Treat Day; they don’t have to be pretty; they just have to taste good!  And really what’s better than strawberries and chocolate???

Take an ice cube tray and place strawberries with stems cut off in each section.  Then cover with your favourite melted chocolate.  Chill and remove the same way as ice cubes.  Now if I had more chocolate I could have filled each cube more but this way you get a peek-a-boo effect.

Simple, delicious and perfect for a quick snack! Plus you don’t have to dip each berry one by one and for me, with limited mobility these days, is perfect!

Thanks for looking!

Strawberry Chocolate/Caramel Wontons

Have you ever made something and was so thankful that you only made six?  Today was that day.

I LOVE DEEP FRIED WONTONS, like LOVE them.  They are my favourite treat on a Chinese food menu.  Sadly they are not healthy by any stretch and for that I rarely order them because they are probably a days worth of calories in one order.  I mean, not that Chinese food in general is low cal.  But of all the dishes I could eat, deep fried wontons are at the bottom of the list.

So why would I make a dessert wonton?  Because I am crazy! with a capital C :)

Ok, so these little devils you won’t like, really just move on.  I mean what’s so great about chocolate, strawberries and/or caramel wrapped in wonton goodness, deep fried to perfection and then dusted with icing sugar…EVERYTHING!

I always try at least a bite of whatever I make.  I’d hate to make something and put it up to find out that it’s crap.  So I ate one, then another and then they were gone.  Thank God there was only 6.  I just couldn’t stop myself.  I even ran errands between number two and three and with them cooled down, they were still awesome.  I’m not sure they wouldn’t keep over night. I’d suggest that if you make these and do that, let me know.  It’s just not safe for me to make them again to find out.

So to make them, buy some wonton or egg roll wrappers.  I had the egg roll.  They are bigger.  Place a cut strawberry and some chocolate chips or a caramel in the centre.  Brush the edges with egg wash and then fold over.  Pressing over to make the edges seal.  Drop the wontons into 350-375 degree vegetable oil and deep fry for 1-2 minutes tops.  The wrappers crisp up quite quickly.  Remove from oil and onto a paper towel.  Dust with icing sugar.  Wait a few minutes as the insides will be molten before you eat them.  Then devour, I mean eat them! 

I’d say try to eat just one and if you can you are a better person than I!

Thanks for looking!

Berrylicious! Meringue Nests with Bumbleberry Compote

Ok, can I tell you how excited I was when Hani asked me to be apart of Berrylicious.  I think I jumped up and down.  I know it seems silly but as I am a self professed stalker of many amazing blogs and love watching when several do a joint blog post;  plus have always thought it would be so much fun to be apart. So now I can say that I’m amongst some amazing bloggers and hopefully keeping up!

In our house, berries rule!  So trying to pick just one to use in a recipe might have led to a heated discussion. It’s hard to say no to the 4 and 6 year old canvassing for just raspberries or to a husband who prefers blueberries and not to mention I did a whole week on strawberries.  In the end I knew what I needed to do.  Yup, all of them!

Making a compote isn’t nuclear science but it’s the best way to use berries when berries are not in season.  So this post is something you’ll want to pull out mid-winter when you’ve got a hankering.  Now I used fresh berries for this, but you can so do this with frozen.  Heating berries brings out the flavours of the berries ten-fold.  It also brings out the tartness, so you’ll need to add in some sugar.

Bumbleberry Compote Recipe:

• 1 cup quartered strawberries
• 1 cup blueberries
• 1 cup raspberries
• 1 cup blackberries
• 1/4 cup sugar (if too sweet add less, if too tart add more)
• 1 tbsp lemon juice

1. Put all ingredients into saucepan and heat until sugar is dissolved and the blueberries pop.  The sauce should be a deep red colour.
   
   
   
2. Strain and reserve both berries and sauce.  (It’s awesome hot and cold)

Now as much as I love the compote and you could totally eat it straight up, I felt you all needed something a little more.

One of my mother’s desserts, she didn’t have many specialties because baking is so not her thing, she made this baked meringue.  It was light and crunchy and oh so good.  I took a few recipes and gave them a go but they always turned out chewy.  I finally broke down and asked her.  You are not going to believe how easy this is.

Vanilla Meringue Recipe:

• 4 egg whites
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• scant 1 cup sugar

1. Pre-heat oven to 225F
2. Whip egg whites until soft peaks.
   
3. Add 1 tbsp sugar and vanilla and continue to whip until firm.
4. Remove and fold in the 1 cup sugar.  The meringue will soften a bit.
   
5. Place in large ziploc bag and cut corner.
   
6. Pipe into circles
   
7. Bake in pre-heated oven for 1hr 15minutes, turn off oven and leave until completely cooled.
   

This meringue is dry and crunchy, it should snap when you try to break it but will have a soft centre.

Now that you have your meringue and compote what to do with them?  I know!

Place your meringue onto a plate, put a scoop of your favourite ice-cream in the center, cover with berries, drizzle with sauce and then for that extra something special add some chocolate curls!  Now that’s a dessert!

I served this luscious dessert when we had a few neighbourhood friends over to help us eat a very large brisket that followed Rob home from the store :).  He smoked it all day and it was delicious.  So I felt a delicious dinner deserved a delicious dessert and I wasn’t wrong.  Our guests had nothing but fabulous things to say about it. YAY!

I hope you enjoyed this as much as I enjoyed sharing it with you.  Please don’t stop here, hop around and enjoy the rest of the Berrylicious posts from around the blogosphere!

Thanks for looking!

1. Joan, Chocolate Chocolate and More - Lemon Blueberry Pound cake
2. Charity, Foodlets – Strawberry - Banana Frozen Yogurt Pops
3. Jamie, Green Beans & Grapefruit - Mixed Berry & Cookie Butter Clafouti
4. Hani, Haniela’s – Red Currant Meringue Cake
5. Katrina, In Katrina’s Kitchen - Frozen Blueberry Basil Lemonade Pies
6. Sue, Munchkin Munchies - English Matrimonials
7. Bia, Rich and Sweet - Blueberry Blackberry Orange Streusel Scones
8. Sam, Sams Kitchen - Eton Mess Mini Cheesecakes
9. Sherron, Simply Gourmet Photography - Mulberry Syrup
10. Ann, Sumptuous Spoonfuls - Strawberry Chia Jam
11. Me!, Trilogy Edibles - Meringue Nest with a Bumbleberry Compote

 

I link with THESE great parties

Treat Day Wednesday–Fresh Fruit in a Cookie Bowl

Most of the time the treats in this house are healthy.  I know you don’t believe me but it’s true.  So today I decided to show you the typical after school treat, but of course I spruced it up just a titch :)

Yup, everyday they eat fresh fruit.  Strawberries, blueberries, mangos, apples, pears, bananas oh my!  My kids and hubby love fruit.  So do I, but I have to be careful because I have a sensitivity to acidity and therefore can’t eat as much as I’d like.

So today I give you fresh fruit in a cookie bowl.  It’s not rocket science so everyone can do this.

Here we go!

Cut up fruit – I know right!

Now for the bowl.  I used left over cookie dough.  There is always some in our house.  I cut them using my largest fluted circle cutter.

I then inverted my muffin pan and sprayed with Pam.  Place the circles over the pan bottom but don’t try to form them, the baking process will do that for you.  Bake at 400F for 10 minutes, they should be slightly browned.  So that’s longer than you would bake your regular sugar cookie.

Let the cookie bowls cool on the pan and then remove. You might need to use a knife to help lift.  Be careful as they are cookies, they will crumble if you use too much gusto to get them off the pan.

Fill with fruit, icecream or whatever (chocolate mousse would be awesome!)

And enjoy!

So even fruit can be an awesome treat!

Thanks for looking!

Treat Day Wednesday–Strawberry Vanilla Swirl Popsicles

And you thought I’d be through with strawberries.  Well I didn’t pick today’s treat, Rowan did.

Both Abby and Rowan have been all about the popsicles and ice cream these days.  When I was flipping through Pinterest, I saw these popsicles.

This great little website Our Best Bites has so many wonderful ideas, especially for kids.

When scrolling through the several popsicle ideas, Rowan stopped me and said, those ones mommy!

So here we are on Treat Day and I give you these strawberry and cream pops!

Recipe: adapted by Our Best Bites

• 1 small box instant vanilla pudding (now I used cook and serve pudding b/c that’s what I had in the pantry.  I just made it as per directions but with just 1 cup of milk.)
• 1 C milk
• 6oz vanilla yogurt
• 12 medium strawberries (about 1 3/4-2 C roughly chopped)
• 2-3 T sugar

1. remove stems from berries and pulse with 2 T sugar in a food processor until completely smooth. Taste and add more sugar if needed. You should have just over a cup of puree. Set aside.
2. In a blender combine pudding, yogurt, and milk and blend until combined. Layer or swirl the pudding mixture with the strawberry mixture in popsicle molds and freeze until solid. (Here’s what I did.  I cooked the pudding, cooled it in an ice bath, added the yogurt and then continued)
3. Enjoy!

This is a great idea for the kids to help with.  Rowan put the sticks in and helped swirl the strawberries into cream!  So many giggles and smiles, this was a really fun treat!

Thanks for looking!

Linking with:
Cast Party Wednesday
Mrs Fox's Sweets Party
Success U

Strawberry Week–The Beyond All Strawberry Cake!

What do you do with 1000 freshly picked strawberries when you children don’t like jam?  You try to combine as many little awesome treats into one big awesome treat.

I had an idea to make an ice cream cake but then that came to an abrupt end.  So I moved on :)

Then I took a step back and refocused.

So many strawberries…what’s a girl to do???

Ok, so here’s what I came up with.  Vanilla/Strawberry cake with Champagne Strawberry Buttercream.  Then I covered it with fondant and made strawberry accents and voila!  It kind of ended up looking like a Bolero hat, perfect in time for next weekends Kentucky Derby! 

Recipe: Strawberry - Vanilla Cake

• 2 sticks butter, room temp
• 2 1/3 cup sugar
• 5 egg whites, room temp
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 3 cup flour
• 4 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 1/2 cup milk, warmed for 30 sec in microwave to bring to room temp
• 2 cups finely chopped strawberries

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350F degrees.
2. Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
3. Cream the sugar and butter, then add the egg whites. Add the vanilla and mix until fully incorporated. Then, alternating between wet and dry, add the milk and flour mixture in two parts.
4. Fold in strawberries
5. Weigh the batter and divide by the number of layers you’d like.  I made 3.  Pour into the pans and bake for 15 minutes each.
6. When you remove them from the oven, let them rest on the cooling rack, in the pan, for ten minutes.
7. Cool completely before icing.

Strawberry Champagne Buttercream

• 1/2 cup softened butter
• 1/2 cup shortening
• 4 cups icing sugar
• 4 tbsp champagne
• finely diced strawberries

1. Cream butter and shortening together.
2. Add sugar and slowly add champagne
3. Beat on medium until smooth.
4. Fold in strawberries.
5. If not using immediately place in fridge as it will separate due to the champagne.

Abby and Rowan made strawberries too but Abby ate hers before I could take a pic, here’s Rowan’s!

Thanks for looking!

Strawberry Week–Strawberry Daiquiris…just in time for Friday :)

Ok, I have a very special guest today on the blog, my husband Rob!  He’s sharing one of his favourite strawberry treats!  He wrote and took all the pictures (I guess all my blogging is rubbing off, yay!)

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Good Morning All!

Well….  I seem to have a bit of a big head today.  Let me explain why…

As I am sure you are all abundantly aware by now, it's been strawberry week around the house this week.  There have been a number of spectacular edibles showing up on the table.  (In fact, our usual eating audience – the guys in my office — have been very busy this week.).  Now I don't know about you, but when I see fresh strawberries, I only think of one thing – Strawberry Daiquiris!.  Now Karen knows this, so she told me - "Go ahead, but I want a blog post".  Go figure :>

So… as the dutiful husband I made Daiquiris.  It's a tough life I live.

Strawberry Daiquiris

There are only a few ingredients to a good Daiquiri:

• Ice
• Lemon Juice
• Sugar
• Chopped Strawberries
• Good Flavorful Rum

The Process is pretty simple:

1. Slice strawberries.
   
2. Put some ice in a blender.  How much?  Two glasses worth!
   
3. Add in a squirt of Lemon.  Call it a tablespoon or so
4. Add Sugar.  Probably 2-3 tablespoons.   If you aren't sure, go with less, and flavor to taste after you blend.  Usually, if there isn't enough, it tastes tart.
5. Rum.  I usually end up making two glasses, so I put enough for two in.  You can put more or less, depending on your tastes.  I recommend a darker rum.  They tend to have more flavor, and you can tell the difference when you taste the drink.
   

Editors Note:  There is a temptation to try and make the daiquiri without the rum.  It's hard.  With a frozen daiquiri, it is almost impossible to blend the ice without the booze – it just freezes solid.  The Rum keeps it from freezing and makes it WAY easier to blend.  

1. Blend.  You want a mostly smooth slush
2. Add in the Strawberries.
   
3. Blend again.
4. Taste – if it isn't right, you may be short on sugar (that's where I end up usually).  You can tweak with more rum, sugar, or lemon as needed and re-blend.
   

These are one of my very favorite drinks.  I always make them in the spring when the berries are fresh, or while I am in the Caribbean – both of which are reasons why they bring a smile to my face!

Enjoy,

Rob

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Isn’t he sweet? and yes that’s his picture smile :)

Thanks for looking!