mocha brownie cupcake

Posted on August 22, 2011 by natalie @ wee eats

It’s a cupcake, no, a brownie, no, a cupcake… It’s chocolate. And coffee. It’s “mocha”. Gail sent me this recipe for our baking date this weekend. It’s straight from the Hershey’s website where they call it a “European Mocha Fudge Cake”. As I was reading the recipe I decided that it looked suspiciously similar to a brownie recipe.

To save time, and, more importantly, to use these super cute cupcake wrappers, we baked them into cupcakes. Once baked, our suspicions were confirmed – little brownie cupcakes, browniecakes, cup-brownies. Cup-brownies? That should be right… Call them whatever you want, I will call them delicious. And Gail will back me up 110%.

The real star here is the frosting. The mocha “frosting” is really just a coffee-flavored whipped cream topping. It’s amazingly light and sweet, like a sweet caffe latte. Once you pair the coffee topping with the dark chocolate brownie, delicious mocha love is born. Yes, ladies and gentleman, when chocolate and coffee fall in love and get married, that is where mocha comes from. (Be sure to tell all your children). I’m pretty sure Gail and I could have polished off that whole bowl of frosting alone, but we restrained ourselves… We deserve a frickin’ medal.

I was so good, I used the leftover frosting for a second dessert, I can’t wait to try it when I get home! If it’s good, maybe you’ll get to know what it was… [insert suspenseful music]

Mocha Brownie Cupcakes

Printable Recipe

1-1/4 cups (2-1/2 sticks) butter
3/4 cup Cocoa
4 eggs
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups sugar
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup finely chopped pecans (nope, we left these out)
COFFEE WHIPPED TOPPING (recipe below)

Heat oven to 350°F. Line two 12-cup cupcake pans with the prettiest liners you can find.
Melt butter in small saucepan. Remove from heat and add cocoa; cool slightly.
Beat eggs in large bowl until foamy. Add salt and vanilla, then gradually pour in sugar, beating well. Add cooled chocolate mixture and blend thoroughly.
Fold in flour. Stir in pecans. (if using)
Pour mixture into prepared pans.
Bake about 18 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 5 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks to finish cooling.
Once cooled, frost with coffee topping. Refrigerate 1 hour or longer before serving. Store covered in refrigerator.

COFFEE WHIPPED TOPPING

1-1/2 cups cold whipping cream
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
2 teaspoons powdered instant coffee

Whip cream with instant coffee until frothy, add brown sugar and continue to whip until stiff peaks form.

[Adapted from Hershey’s]

strawberry shortcake

Posted on August 1, 2011 by natalie @ wee eats

I have no idea why it took me so long to make my first shortcake this year- strawberry shortcake is usually the first dessert to come out of my kitchen in the summer. With berry season in full swing, I can’t seem to get through a trip to the store without coming home with at least one container of berries and shortcake is such an easy and delicious way to get rid of them. I’ve been eating them plain, dredged in ganache, soaked in vodka, in and/or atop my pancakes, and today (FINALLY) – with shortcake.

Where strawberry shortcake is concerned, there are generally two types of people: those who prefer a biscuity shortcake, and those who prefer angel food. Having grown up with mom making Bisquick shortcake, I fall into the former category. BF, however, thinks I’m stupid and prefers his strawberries atop angel food cake. Unfortunately, our passionate strawberry shortcake views had never really been discussed, that is until I was already halfway through my shortcakes. Unfortunately for him, at least. I still got my shortcakes. 🙂 Unfortunately for me – now I have the last excuse I needed to go out and buy a tube pan to make angel food cake… But I digress, back to the shortcake…

Generally speaking, I’m a firm believer of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” As such, I will use Bisquick to make my shortcakes 99.9% of the time. Every once in a while, though, I will see a recipe that catches my eye. This is one such recipe. I found this particular strawberry shortcake recipe on the kitchn.

Since it uses a food processor it’s still more or less a “one-bowl” recipe, which made it easier for me to justify straying from my super-quick bisquick shortcakes. The only part that really required additional work was rolling and cutting the shortcakes, instead of Bisquick’s “scoop-and-drop” method (or, if you’re especially lazy, “press-into-bottom-of-pan” method).

These shortcakes are indeed very tasty, and a slightly better texture than Bisquick usually ends up with. Since they aren’t much more difficult, I’d definitely recommend giving them a try, if you’re a “shortcake” kinda girl (or boy). Then again, I’d probably eat just about anything if you covered it with macerated strawberries and freshly-whipped cream (just look at those flecks of vanilla bean, absolutely divine!). However, even the anti-shortcake BF devoured this batch of shortcakes (and several more throughout the week). That must count for something, right?

Strawberry Shortcake

Print me!

Macerated Strawberries

Strawberries, chopped or sliced
sugar to taste (about a tablespoon)
Splash of lemon juice

Whipped Cream

1 C heavy cream
2 Tbsp powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla paste or extract

Shortcake “Biscuits”

4 C all-purpose flour
2 Tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/3 C sugar
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, cubed
1 1/2 C heavy cream, plus extra for glazing
1 Tbsp vanilla
2 Tbsp turbinado sugar (if you don’t want to buy a whole thing, just snag a few packets of “raw” sugar from your local Starbucks ;))

Preheat oven to 425° and line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Stir your strawberries with the sugar & lemon juice, set aside.

In the bowl of a food processor pulse the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar to combine. Add the and pulse until the butter is cut into the flour until the butter is the size of “kidney beans”.
Add the cream and vanilla and pulse again until a shaggy dough is formed. Turn dough onto a dry, clean work surface and gather all the bits into a ball. Be careful not to overwork the dough or it will be tough. You want the dough to be barely holding together. (It will still be sticky)
Roll the dough ball to about an inch thick and cut with a biscuit cutter (I used a 1.5 inch cutter) – a jar or glass will work just as well. Place on lined baking sheet & brush lightly with cream; sprinkle with turbinado sugar.
Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, until just golden brown. Allow to cool on wire rack.
While biscuits are baking, make your whipped cream. Whip cold cream until bubbly. Add vanilla and powdered sugar and continue to whip until soft or stiff peaks form (depending on how firm you want your whipped cream to be).

To assemble:
Slice biscuit in half and top with strawberries, then whipped cream, then top of biscuit, then more strawberries and more whipped cream! YUM!

Also, you can cut or crumble the biscuit into a small bowl & top with strawberries and whipped cream.

I like to warm my sliced biscuit for a few seconds in the microwave before topping, but that’s just me. I also like to eat the biscuit plain as a snack (don’t judge).

In case you needed it…

My usual (Bisquick) shortcake recipe – tried and true and full of nostalgia for the shortcake of my youth… I also like to use this recipe when I’m (ahem) “watching what I eat”… I mean, aside form just watching it go into my mouth…

You can swap the sugar for sugar substitute, omit the butter (but, it’s only 3 tablespoons, will it really kill you?), and use skim milk…

Bisquick Shortcake:

2 1/3 cups Bisquick baking mix
3 Tbsp butter, melted
1/2 cup milk
3 Tbsp sugar (or sugar substitute)

Heat oven to 425°F. Stir baking mix, melted butter, milk, and 3 Tbsp of sugar in a mixing bowl until soft dough forms.

Drop by 6 spoonfuls on to a greased cookie sheet. Bake 10-12 minutes or until golden brown.

* I’ve also pressed this into an 8 x 8 baking pan and baked until golden brown. Cut and serve desired size slice.

* If you get the “heart healthy” bisquick, I believe they omit the butter and just use skim milk

[shortcake recipe adapted from the kitchn]

If you like this, you will love these:

my first cake roll

Posted on July 20, 2011 by natalie @ wee eats

Few things remind me of childhood bliss like swiss cake rolls. Every day after school we would go to our uncle’s house who had a kitchen full of sugary treats. There we would watch TV and load up on sweets while we waited for mom to pick us up on her way home from work. Among my favorites was the swiss cake roll.

I was one of those kids who would meticulously peel apart the roll, dissecting it before eating it layer by layer. First, I’d peel off and eat the outside chocolate shell, trying my hardest to keep it as one solid piece. Following that, the cream was scooped out, and once all of the cream was consumed, I moved on to the chocolate cake, which i would eat section by section. When I was super young, I refused to eat even the cream, which is probably what prompted the development of the dissection process – just a way to remove the cream before devouring the chocolate parts. (Yes, apparently my crazy developed at an early age…)

Naturally, my heart was filled with that very same childhood glee when I saw this post on Smitten Kitchen. I immediately linked it to my BFF exclaiming that this cake was in my very near future because, of course, “IT’S LIKE A GIANT SWISS CAKE ROLL!” Those of you who have spent the majority of this post not knowing what a swiss cake roll is grew up in a Hostess household and called them “ho-ho’s”… and I feel a deep sadness for you. Ho-ho’s don’t stand a chance against Little Debbie’s swiss cake rolls- which really doesn’t matter because both will taste like overprocessed garbage compared to this divine treat. I’m pretty sure they are both medium unacceptable to consume once you’re a grown up, anyway…

bonus treat – chocolate covered strawberries, yum!

Although I’m usually much more intrigued by “mini” versions of things, I could not get this “giant” swiss cake roll out of my head. “Don’t do it,” BFF warned me, “you’ll have a series of heart attacks when it cracks!” … Even SK talked about how she often ends up with “cake chips” instead of a “cake roll”, but I didn’t care. I wanted my giant swiss cake roll, cracks or not. Worst case scenario I could have a swiss cake roll trifle… 😉

Yes, it cracked and yes, my heart hurt watching it. I could see the sympathy in my BF’s mom’s eyes as she tried to help me gingerly unroll the cake, but the end product was SO worth it! The chocolate cake (Which has no flour or leavening agents aside from egg whites) comes out super light and airy, despite that it looks dense and brownie-like. After filling it with vanilla bean whipped cream, I covered it in chocolate ganache to finish off the “swiss cake roll” appeal.

This cake went straight to work with BF tthe next day. I knew if it went to work with me, my coworkers would never see it. Not only would they never see it, but I would be covered in chocolate and crying tears of shame at my computer before lunch time even rolled around. It’s that good. After I transferred the remaining cake to a container, I dragged strawberries through the ganache that was left on the cake plate. So. Good.

(As pretty as the roll is, I think next time I’ll save myself the trouble and just slice it into a few rectangles and turn into a layer cake instead)

Chocolate Cake Roll – [Adapted from SK]

Lots of stars means lots of TIPS – read them!

Print me!

Cake layer:

6 oz semisweet chocolate, chopped or chocolate chips*
3 Tbsp espresso or coffee
6 large eggs, separated
2/3 C sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder, divided

Filling:

1 C heavy cream
2 Tbsp powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla paste or extract

Ganache (optional)

8 oz chocolate, chopped
¾ C heavy cream
1 Tbsp butter (optional)

For the Cake

Preheat oven to 350°F. Prepare a 10-by-15-inch jellyroll pan and line it with parchment, allowing a little to hang over the edge.

Melt chocolate with water or coffee in a small saucepan (*see notes) over very low heat until it is mostly melted. Remove from heat and continue stirring until it is smooth. Set aside to cool.

Beat egg yolks with an electric mixer until pale. Gradually add sugar and continue beating until yolks are pale and ribbony. Gently stir a little bit of the cooled chocolate into the yolk mixture*, then stir in the rest.

In a new bowl with CLEAN beaters, beat egg whites until foamy, add salt and continue to beat until they hold stiff peaks.* Stir 1/4 of egg white mixture into the chocolate mixture to lighten it. Then, gently fold the remaining whites into the cake batter in three additions.

Pour the batter into your prepared pan and smooth the top. Bake at 350F for 15 minutes, or until dry (but very soft) to the touch and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. It may still seem a little underbaked, don’t worry – we still gotta roll this guy…** (or do we?)

Transfer to a cooling rack and cover the top with a light damp towel or two layers of damp paper towels for 10 minutes. Gently remove towels (don’t worry about the cake crumbs stuck to them) and loosen the edges of the cake from the pan with a thin spatula or knife.

Sift one tablespoon cocoa over the top of the cake and cover the cake with a thin tea towel or flour sack towel that is a little longer than the pan. Place the back of a baking sheet, cutting board, or a large flat tray over the towel and invert the cake onto it. Gently peel back the parchment from the new “top” (that was just the bottom) of the cake. Sift the remaining tablespoon of cocoa powder over this side of the cake. Using the towel underneath to help, lift and roll the cake from short end to short end with the towel inside. Let cool completely while rolled and encased in its towel.

Once cool, make your filling. (see below)

Gently unroll chocolate cake and remove tea towel. (Try not to cry as it cracks). Spread whipped cream filling evenly over cake. Gently use waxed or parchment paper once again to reroll cake. Place on serving platter, seam side down.

Drizzle with ganache, if desired.

For the filling:

1 C heavy cream
2 Tbsp powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla paste or extract

Whip cream with cold bowl and cold beaters until it gets bubbly. Add powdered sugar and vanilla and continue beating to desired consistency, voila.

*You could add some cocoa, peanut butter, liquer, or even a bit of jam to make a variety of flavors for your filling

For the ganache:

8 oz chocolate, chopped
¾ C heavy cream
1 Tbsp butter (optional)

Bring heavy cream and butter (if using) just to a boil in a pan or the microwave, then pour over chocolate. Let sit a minute, then stir with a nonstick spatula until it’s smooth. Set aside to cool briefly, and pour while still fluid over chilled cake.

.
TIPS

*You may used chopped chocolate or chocolate chips, but chocolate chips don’t melt as nicely or quickly because they contain stabilizers to keep them in “chip” shape.

*You can melt your chocolate in the microwave on 50% power, just check it every 30 seconds or so to make sure it doesn’t burn!

*I add a little bit of chocolate first, that way if it’s still warm the egg yolks don’t get scared and scramble. Adding a little bit of the mixture will raise the temperature just a bit before adding the rest, this is called “tempering” the eggs.

*It’s IMPERATIVE that your bowl and beaters be clean of any and all fat or your whites will not whip no matter how hard you try! “Stiff peaks” means, when you pull the beaters out, the tip of the whites will stay pointing straight up.

*You could add some cocoa, peanut butter, liquer, or even a bit of jam to make a variety of flavors for your filling

*I had a hard time finding that size jelly roll pan, and I don’t really have a surplus of tea towel laying around – I finally found ‘flour sack towels’ and the correct size jelly roll at Bed Bath & Beyond.

**As pretty as the roll is, I think next time I’ll spare myself the trouble and just cut it into 3 or 4 layers and make it into a layer cake 🙂

Cake-Poundin’ Time!

Posted on March 20, 2011 by natalie @ wee eats

So I was watching TV the other day and saw an episode of ‘Martha Bakes’, well not really an episode. I saw about thirty seconds where she was putting the ingredients for cream cheese pound cake into her mixer, and I said “I’m going to make that.” And so I did.

Pound cakes were so-named because of the ingredients: 1 lb butter + 1 lb sugar + 1 lb flour. (Or so I’ve heard, don’t ask me where, since I have no idea- probably an episode of Alton Brown or something. Sounds like the kind of useless information he would give.) I cut Martha’s recipe in half, since I have absolutely no need to have 2 pound cakes lying around the house. I know my limits of self-control, and they’re very low. Given that the recipe is so simple to begin with, halving the recipe caused no problems whatsoever.

cracking is natural – no worries!

I also lightened this pound cake ever so slightly by using reduced fat cream cheese. I was shocked by just how light and airy the cake was despite how heavy and dense it felt in the pan.

It came out perfectly moist, sweet, and slightly tangy and paired perfectly with sweetened strawberries and whipped cream. For my whipped cream I used one of my favorite pantry items: vanilla bean paste. Vanilla bean paste can be substituted 1:1 for vanilla extract, so feel free to use vanilla extract for your whipped cream. Vanilla bean paste is sweeter than vanilla extract, so you may want to add a little more sugar to your whipped cream. Most importantly, vanilla bean paste has the pretty little flecks of vanilla bean that I think makes stuff look more fancy ^_^ So I use it any time it will make an aesthetic difference (like in whipped cream or ice cream).

The only issue I had with this recipe was over-browning (As I’m sure you can see). While the cake inside was perfectly cooked, the high sugar content caused the outside to get more brown and crisp than I’d have liked. This can be fixed by merely lowering the oven temperature about 25 degrees from 350F to 325F. If you want a crispier crust, feel free to bake at the suggested 350F. Oh, and don’t worry about the crack, that’s natural for pound cake. I’m pretty sure it’d have been less severe had I remembered to bang my pan on the counter to release air bubbles, but it really doesn’t hurt anything.

Cream Cheese Pound Cake – Adapted from Martha Stewart

Printer-Friendly Version

Makes 1 loaf

1 ½ sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
½ package (4 oz) less-fat cream cheese
1 ½ c sugar (if you really wanted to, I’m sure you could get away with just 1 c, but why would you want to?)
3 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 ½ c AP flour
1 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 325F (original recipe calls for 350F). In a separate bowl, mix flour and salt together and set aside.

With a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat butter and cream cheese until smooth. Add sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Should look something like this:

nice and fluffy!

Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each, then add vanilla. Should become a smooth, wet batter like:

Add flour mixture in two additions, beating until just combined. It will look like a runnier cookie dough, almost. Be careful not to over-mix!

Grease a loaf pan, and pour batter into pan & smooth top with spatula. Rap pan on the counter to work out some of the air bubbles.

Bake until nice and golden brown, and it passes the toothpick test. (60 – 75 minutes). Cool 5 – 10 minutes in pan on wire rack, then turn out onto rack to finish cooling out of the pan.

For the Strawberries

1 1-lb container strawberries, washed and sliced
2 Tbs sugar

Toss sliced strawberries and sugar, set aside at least 30 min or refrigerate for a couple hours. The longer they sit, the more juice you’ll have.

For the whipped cream

1 c heavy (whipping) cream
2 Tbs powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla bean paste (or vanilla extract)

Whip cream to soft peaks. Add sugar and vanilla, and continue beating to stiff peaks. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use.

If you’re not familiar with vanilla bean paste- here’s a peek for ya:

Tips:

*If you don’t have a stand mixer, an electric hand mixer will do. It will just take a bit more time than using a stand mixer.

*If the cake starts to brown too quickly, tent with aluminum foil

*As with all baking, try not to open the oven door often or the heat will escape. I don’t open my oven door until you must use a toothpick to tell if it’s done.

*Taste your strawberries before sugaring them; very ripe strawberries will not need as much sugar as less ripe strawberries.

*Adjust powdered sugar content to taste for your whipped cream, you may prefer your whipped cream sweeter or less sweet than I like mine.

*When making whipped cream, start with cold beaters and cold cream to achieve proper whipped texture faster.

Mocha Brownie Cupcakes

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