Cupcake Bakeshop | My Sweet and Saucy

Posts Tagged ‘cupcake bakeshop’

Chocolate Cupcakes with Salted Caramel Frosting & Chocolate Rum Ganache Filling

Sunday, May 11th, 2008

My husband’s side of the family has an interesting tradition for celebrating birthdays…instead of celebrating everyone’s birthday on their “actual birthday” they like to group everyone’s birthday together for a 3-4 month period and celebrate about 10 people’s birthday all together. Now this arrangement does have its pluses, but it also has its negatives…try being 24 yrs. old and having enough money for 8 birthdays!!! Well, one benefit of being a pastry chef is using my culinary skills to make homemade gifts that make people forget that I didn’t spend the big bucks on them. I decided to try out a new recipe for the big party extravaganza! I took a look through my folder full of cupcake recipes that I’ve been wanting to try out and I kept flipping back to Chockylit’s recipe for Salted Caramel Frosting, so I decided to try it out.

I used one of my favorite recipes for chocolate cake/cupcakes from Ina Garten. I also had some extra chocolate rum ganache left over from another dessert that I tried out, so I decided to use it as a filling for the cupcakes. To make this ganache just heat an equal amount of heavy cream until it begins to boil and pour it oven an equal amount of chopped bittersweet or semisweet chocolate. Let it sit for a few minutes and then stir in 1 Tablespoon or so of rum (depending on the amount of chocolate and cream you used…it’s all up to you). Let the chocolate ganache completely cool until it is scoopable and then fill an pastry bag with the ganache and pipe it into the cooled cupcakes.

Here are a couple photos of me making the salted caramel for the salted caramel frosting. You can see the stages the caramel has to go through before you add it to the cream cheese frosting base. First shot is of the amber caramel right after I took it off the stove.

This next shot is after I added the lemon juice, butter, and heavy cream.

This last photo is of the caramel right before I added it to the cream cheese frosting base.

After I added the caramel to the cream cheese frosting base I made a couple small changes to it. I added about 1/2 tsp. more salt to the recipe and about 1 tsp. of vanilla extract. The little amount of caramel I had left, that I didn’t add to the frosting, I spooned over the top of the cupcakes after I frosted them. I also had some leftover candied pecans from the last dessert I made, so I topped off the cupcakes with them. As a finishing touch, I sprinkled a little coarse sea salt on top. These cupcakes turned out fantastic and were a huge hit with the family! I definitely recommend trying them out…thanks so much Chockylit for the great recipe!

I always think presentation is key when giving someone a gift, so I thought that I would package these cupcakes in clear boxes from Garnish. I wish I would’ve had some all-brown M&M’s at home, but I didn’t, so I just used the normal M&M’s to add a little barrier around the base of the cupcake and add some edible decoration. I tied a cute little green ribbon top to tie in all the colors and the gifts were finished.

Well, I hope all of you had a wonderful Mother’s Day today and enjoyed spending time with loved ones. Hopefully you indulged in a couple yummy bites along the way!

P.S. I get all my cute cupcake liners from Confectioneryhouse.com!

Tags: chockylit, chocolate cupcakes, Chocolate Rum Ganache Filling, cupcake bakeshop, Ina Garten, Salted Caramel Frosting
Posted in Cupcakes, Desserts, Products You'll Love, Recipes | 30 Comments »

Chocolate Transfer Sheet Cupcakes

Monday, March 24th, 2008

So sorry about the lack of posting this past week…right now I feel like I am writing to a long lost friend who I haven’t talked to in a while…but when holidays come, so do my orders and therefore my time for blogging is sadly cut short. The good news is that Blue Windows, one of the stores I got my cookies into, sold out of their first order of 2 dozen Easter sugar cookies in 1 1/2 days! I was so excited when I got the call and she wanted to order 6 dozen more!!! My hand wanted to kill me after the order, but I was just so happy that they sold well that I didn’t care at all. Well enough about cookies, this post is about cupcakes…chocolate peanut butter cupcakes to be exact. I brought these cupcakes along with a dozen Coconut Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting to one of my church’s outreaches this past Saturday. Baking for people is my passion and I find so much fulfillment in being able to put smiles on people’s faces and a good memory in their hearts and minds. To jazz these cupcakes up I used chocolate transfer sheet designs and cut mini Easter eggs out of them for the top of the cupcakes.

This chocolate cupcake recipe can be found at Chockylit’s Cupcake Bakeshop, which is probably one of my favorite blogs out there. She is absolutely blows me away with the great combinations she comes up with and all of the creativity that flows out of each posting. The particular recipe is one of the best chocolate cupcake recipes out there and I have used it countless times…once you try it you will be a convert too!

I decided to fill the cupcakes with leftover chocolate ganache I had from another day and think it worked out pretty well. Chocolate ganache is simply a combo of 50% heavy cream to 50% chocolate. You just heat your cream until is it about to boil and then pour it over your chopped chocolate (my favorite is bittersweet) and let it sit for a couple minutes before you whisk it till it’s thoroughly combined. You can also add a tablespoon of butter and corn syrup to the mixture when it’s still hot to give it a better flavor and more shine. If you are going to use it for a filling you need to let it cool completely until it is a thick spoonable consistency. Then just add your ganache to a pastry bag fitted with a medium size pastry tip and insert your tip into the cupcake and squeeze the filling out until you feel your cupcake expanding and the ganache comes up to the top.

I tried a new frosting this time…peanut butter frosting! This frosting from Ina Garten’s show, Barefoot Contessa, got rave reviews online at the Food Network, so I thought I would give it a try. I was definitely not disappointed! This is a delicious and extremely easy frosting to make and makes a wonderful pairing with chocolate cupcakes. I piped on the frosting using a pastry bag and a #8 tip.

I found these great new chocolate transfer sheet designs at Fancy Flours. To see how you make chocolate transfer sheet cut out’s check out my posting on Valentine’s Day Cupcakes. These kind of adornments are very impressive looking to people and yet pretty easy to make in my opinion, so I would highly recommend that you try it out!

Well, here are some more fun photos I took of the cupcakes and a photo of the Coconut Cream Cheese Cupcakes that I made for the event too! Thanks for looking!

Tags: barefoot contessa, chockylit, chocolate cupcakes, chocolate transfer sheets, cupcake bakeshop, fancy flours, foodnetwork, peanut butter frosting
Posted in Cupcakes, Desserts, Easter, Products You'll Love, Recipes | 24 Comments »

Valentine’s Day Cupcakes

Friday, February 1st, 2008

Since Valentine’s Day is just around the corner I wanted to post up some directions for fun Valentine’s Day Cupcakes that everyone can do. First start off by baking up your favorite batch of cupcakes and frosting…you can find really cute cupcake liners online at the Confectionery House and if you don’t have a favorite cupcake or frosting recipe you can find the most delicious recipes at The Cupcake Bakeshop by Chockylit. Once your cupcakes have baked and are completely cool and your frosting is prepared you can start. To make these adorable heart cupcakes you need to first buy chocolate transfer sheets, which can be found online at Fancy Flours or American Chocolate Designs.

Place your chocolate transfer sheet on a flat surface that can be transported, like a cookie sheet. Have the shiny part facing down at the table, so that the cocoa butter design is on top.

Depending on what size of chocolate transfer paper you want to cover, melt enough chocolate (any kind is fine) to cover the sheet. You want the chocolate to be about 1/8th” thick. You can either melt the chocolate in a glass bowl over a pot of simmering water (don’t let the water touch the bowl) or you can melt it in the microwave on 30 second intervals. Once it is melted, pour the chocolate over the transfer sheet and spread with an offset spatula.

Once the chocolate is evenly spread, place the sheet in the refrigerator until the chocolate is dull and not shiny anymore. You want the chocolate to be just set. If the chocolate is completely hard then just leave the sheet at room temperature until it softens slightly. Once the chocolate is ready, push the desired cookie cutter into it and push down hard. If the piece don’t come off easily, then once you have punched out all of your shapes place the sheet back into the refrigerator until the chocolate is completely set and then break pieces apart. These pieces can be made ahead of time and left in the refrigerator until you are ready to use. If you want even more intricate instructions on chocolate transfer sheets you can go to Fancy Flours and they have a instruction sheet about them. So once your cupcakes are ready, pipe on your frosting with a large star tip in a swirl design or whatever you prefer and then place the chocolate transfer design on top. If you have anymore questions feel free to leave me a comment and I will get back to you!