Cookies & Cream Mini Cheesecakes (Cupcake of the Month #14)

It's been a really long time since I've shared a Cupcake of the Month. There was a molten chocolate concoction I attempted in June, but it needs a little perfecting before I post about it.

The September 2013 cupcake however, needs no perfecting. Just repetition because it's awesome.

It's a cookies and cream mini cheesecake, with an Oreo cookie as the crust!

I've had bad luck with sinking cheesecake cupcakes in the past, but not so with these babies. I think the use of the cookies sort of helped keep them from sinking. These are a Martha Steward recipe, but try as I might, I can't seem to find a link to the original recipe right now. While it says you can get 30 cupcakes out of this, I made 24 regular sized and still had enough batter for 24 minis.

Anyway, here's how I made them!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Cupcakes (Cupcake of the Month #13)

Cupcakes and chocolate chip cookies are both wonderful things.  They become truly excellent when combined.

Yes, that's a little itty bitty cookie on top of that frosting.  And there's a surprise inside, too.

This was a truly multi-step cupcake, as you have to not only make the cake batter, but also the cookie dough and the vanilla frosting.  And I have to tell you something up front about the cookies: the recipe lies.  10 minutes is way too long to bake the little 1 and 1/2 inch cookies.  Mine were close to burned and nearly inedible.  I'd say 5-6 minutes is more on the mark.

Anyway...

Gilded Irish Coffee Cupcakes with Brown Sugar Meringue Buttercream (Cupcake of the Month #12)

So I got a bit behind with non-Christmas baking over the last couple weeks, but I finally found time this evening to make the final 2012 Cupcake of the Month.

Ain't it pretty?  Plus, it marks

Teacher, Baker, Gourmet Meal Maker's 100th Post!

It's an Irish coffee mini cupcake, topped with brown sugar meringue buttercream and "gilded" with festive gold sugar sprinkles (because I could find neither gold luster dust or sanding sugar).

It's quite a finish for the 2012 Cupcake of the Month series - but never fear, cupcake fans!  My mom got me the 2013 Martha Stewart Cupcake calendar, so there are more cupcakes on the way. Perhaps not one every month, but they'll make an appearance every so often. Promise.

Almond-Hazelnut Cupcakes (Cupcake of the Month Series #11)

It figures that November, one of my busiest months as a teacher, would also happen to be the month of the most time consuming, labor intensive cupcake of the year.

These almond-hazelnut cupcakes weren't actually that difficult to make.  There were just a lot of steps, so the whole process took me a good three hours start to finish.

Now, the recipe card said I should get 24 cupcakes from this recipe, but the online recipe says only 16. I actually got 18 cupcakes total.  So who knows.

Orange Almond Cupcakes (Cupcake of the Month #10)

My mom's birthday was last week, so I whipped up the October cupcake for her!

It's an orange almond cupcake, topped with a dollop of sweetened whipped cream and orange marmalade.

Cream-Filled Chocolate Cupcakes (Cupcake of the Month #9)

There's nothing quite as delightful as a chocolate cupcake.  Except maybe a chocolate cupcake filled with marshmallow-y cream.

The September cupcakes are a delightful cream-filled chocolate cupcake, reminiscent of Hostess cupcakes (but without the chocolate frosting).

After a couple months' worth of rather labor intensive cupcakes, these were - pardon the pun - a piece of cake.

Buttermilk Vanilla Mini Cupcakes with Ice Cream (Cupcake of the Month Series #8)

*gasp* Two posts in one week!  Yes, I'm trying to catch up a bit, mostly to ensure that I share this month's featured cupcake.

It's a miniature buttermilk vanilla cupcake, topped with a tiny scoop of ice cream!

Now, the recipe card actually called for gelato, but that's not something easily found in my neck of the woods.  However, also didn't want to just throw any old store-bought ice cream on these baby delights, so I topped them with homemade peach ice cream instead.

Want to see how to make them?

Lemon Meringue Cupcakes (Cupcake of the Month Series #7)

A couple weeks ago, I hosted a rather large-ish dinner party to celebrate a family birthday, and aside from the tomato sandwiches, butter roasted pecans, lowcountry boil, cream rolls, watermelon salad, and chicken kebabs, I served the July cupcake.

This lemon meringue cupcake really topped off our meal and provided a degree of entertainment for some members of my family.  You will notice that, despite the picture on the Martha Stewart website, I decided not to pipe the seven-minute frosting, which is just meringue with a deceptive name.

I have already learned my lesson when it comes to meringue and pastry bags.

This was not a quick cupcake, and the various elements were made over the course of two days.  The lemon curd was made the night before (literally, at about 10:30, which is why there are no pictures of the process), the cupcakes the morning of and the meringue/frosting about ten minutes before serving.

I apologize in advance for the quality of most of these photos.  My SLR camera was missing in action through most of the baking process, so I used my Canon Powershot instead.

Ginger Cupcakes (Cupcake of the Month Series #6)

I thought you all deserved a cupcake post riddled with success instead of frustration.  Luckily for you, I made the June cupcake of the month last weekend to celebrate my cousin's twentieth birthday.

These cupcakes are based on Martha Stewart's rose and ginger cupcakes, but I omitted the rose part for a few practical reasons.

First of all, my cousin is a guy.  I don't think he would've been thrilled to have sugared rose petals on top of his cupcakes, regardless of how nifty the idea is.  I also was a bit pressed for time. I baked the cupcakes at 9:30 at night and iced them before we left for church the next morning.

Second of all, the rosewater flavoring is only added to the icing.  And a tiny bottle of rosewater (which isn't available at my local Price Chopper or Walmart, by the way) costs like $4.  Remember my chagrin at the price of ground cardamom?  

Yeah, we weren't going there with the rosewater.

Meringue Cupcakes with Strawberry Rhubarb Compote (Cupcake of the Month #5)

So May turned out to be a bit of a wash with cooking, baking, and posting.  But there was a May cupcake.

It's a meringue cupcake with a strawberry rhubarb compote and creme fraiche.

And I was not enthusiastic about it once the process began.  It was messy.  It was frustrating.  And this is the only picture I have of the final product (taken with my Canon PowerShot ELPH because... well, we'll get to that later).

Let me be clear in stating I have no problems with meringue.  I love meringue.  I've made several pies involving meringue.

But meringue cupcakes - that's a whole different story. And these, in particular, were a comedy of errors from beginning to end.


First of all, I do have to give a huge shout-out-thank-you to my mother for making the compote and making the creme fraiche (because none could be found at the store).  I was out of town for Memorial Day weekend and had barely enough time to make the cupcakes. We'll get to that in a minute.

The strawberry rhubarb compote was delightful, actually. It would be fantastic on ice cream, pancakes, waffles, mixed into vanilla yogurt, spooned across the top of a sponge cake.  I will likely make it myself at some point this summer - and there will be directions and pictures of that process, I promise.

The creme fraiche whipped cream was pretty simple.  Whether you buy creme fraiche at the store or make it yourself (which is possible, by the way), you'll need to whip a cup of it together with half a cup of heavy cream.  Have I done a whipped cream tutorial?  Put that on the list of To-Dos as well.

But the cupcakes.  Oh. My. God.  The cupcakes.

If you've never worked with meringue before, let me just forewarn you that it is like glue. Sticky, sweet glue. And you're supposed to transfer it to a pasty bag and pipe the stuff into your cupcake cups.

Well, you know what?  It's a pain in the you know what.

When I put the first glob of meringue into my pastry bag, it pretty much glued the top shut.  When I finally did manage to get a decent amount into the bag, my attempts to force it to the snipped tip end resulted in about a third of it squeezing out of the top.  All over my hands. (Hence the lack of pictures.)

After about a half hour filled with some choice vocabulary, I had 11 of the 12 required cupcakes piped into my cupcake tins.  (Side note - I managed to have only one cupcake liner in my entire house.  Fortunately, I had some Wilton Bake Easy spray and it worked like magic.  I only had one cupcake break when I removed them from the pans.)   By this point, I think I had almost as much meringue on my hands as was in the pastry bag.

I shouted a particular obscenity, squeezed what was left in the bag into the last cup, and threw the bag away.  I then scraped the bowl clean with my spatula and pretty much just threw the remaining meringue into the cup.  I was done.

Then I discovered I was supposed to bake them for like three hours.  Which I somehow managed to overlook when I was planning my morning.  I had just enough time.

It was also a good thing my husband was home, because my hands were covered in meringue and he had to put the cupcakes in the oven for me, lest I glue my oven door shut with the meringue coating my fingers.

In the end, the cupcakes were adorable (even the one that was "slapped" into the pan).  Everyone loved them.  I told them to enjoy.

Because I am never making these things again.

If you ever consider making these cupcakes, I have a suggestion.

Don't.

Unless you have an industrial sized pastry bag that can hold all the meringue at once.  Otherwise, I suggest something along the line of meringue shells:

Coconut Chick Cupcakes (Cupcake of the Month Series #4)

Easter, springtime, baby chicks....  puts you in the mood to make some cupcakes, right?

Little, adorable cupcakes that look at you and say, "I'm too cute to eat!"  But you eat them just the same.

This is the April cupcake from my Martha Stewart Cupcakes calendar, and while they are a bit labor intensive, they turned out to be far to sweet for their own good.  I actually ended up only decorating six cupcakes as chicks, and the rest received a generous smear of the Swiss Meringue Buttercream that went with the lemon-kissed vanilla cupcakes on my recipe cards, along with a sprinkle of Wilton yellow sugar crystals.

Keep reading to see how I made them.

Chocolate Devil's Food Cupcakes (Cupcake of the Month Series #3)

We celebrated my cousin's birthday this weekend, and it was the perfect occasion to make the chocolate devil's food cupcakes from my Martha Stewart Cupcakes calendar.

Mine ended up looking nothing like the picture on the calendar or the recipe card.  This is either because my ganache frosting hadn't thickened enough by the time I had to head out for the party, or because the frosting in the picture is actually a chocolate buttercream.

Either way it was fantastically delicious, and I have twelve (plus the extra ganache) leftover in my freezer.

Mini Cheesecakes with Raspberry Hearts (Cupcake of the Month Series #2)

This weekend I attempted the mini cheesecakes with raspberry hearts from my Martha Stewart 2012 Cupcake Calendar.

It didn't quite work out the way I'd hoped.  The presentation was a bit of a "fail."

See?  They look nothing like the picture on the recipe card.

But they tasted great, so I'll give you the rundown of how I made them.

Spiced Cupcakes with Citrus Glaze (Cupcake of the Month Series #1)

Everybody loves cupcakes, right?  Especially little tiny cupcakes that are just enough to calm your sweet tooth, the kind you can share with lots of friends.

Like these:

This is January's featured cupcake in my Martha Stewart 2012 Cupcake calendar.  The recipe is for Spiced Cupcakes with Citrus Glaze. They are delightful.  I did have to adapt the recipe a little bit, mostly because of availability of ingredients.

For one thing, I used skim milk rather than whole milk, as is called for in the recipe. This is mainly because that's what we use, and even if I only bought a pint of whole milk, 3/4 of the bottle would spoil before I could use the rest of it.  Because, really, we don't need to encourage me to make a full-calorie chocolate cream pie, do we? And I've tested whole milk versus skim milk in lots of recipes before, and it really didn't seem to make a huge difference in taste or texture.  So if you have whole milk, go for it.  But clearly you can use whatever milk you have on hand.

Secondly, I used cake flour instead of all-purpose flour.  Why?  Because I had over half a bag of it sitting in one of my canisters and I really needed to use it.  Cake flour can be substituted for all-purpose in a variety of baked goods, cakes (and cupcakes, obviously) being at the top of the list.  And again, I don't think it made that big a difference.

Lastly, I had to do a spice substitution.  The recipe calls for 1/2 teaspoon each of cinnamon, nutmeg, and cardamom.

Now, raise your hand if you've ever used, or heard of, cardamom.

I'd come across it in a couple recipes, but let me tell you something.

Cardamom must be ground from the seeds of a gold plant with platinum leaves. Because you can't find it among the "regular" spices.  Oh no.  It's in one of those special glass bottles on the top shelf of the spice section.  And you can't get a small bottle. No.  You have to buy a big bottle.  And that bottle is going to cost you upwards of $11.

Yes I know.

And the kicker is that ground cardamom has a shelf life of, like, negative three seconds, so unless you're going to make massive amounts of cupcakes and cookies that call for it, you're going to use that one 1/2 teaspoon and then end up with a bottle of flavorless brown dust.  Or so the internet tells me.

Well, I might like to go a little crazy with butter now and again, but I try to be frugal with my food and ingredient purchases when I can.  $11 for a bottle of a highly temperamental spice that I'm going to use once in the next six months just doesn't add up.

Fortunately, according to The Cook's Thesaurus, you can substitute equal parts cinnamon and nutmeg for the cardamom.

Spice and savings problem solved.

So now that I've vented my incredulity over the price of cardamom, I bet you want to find out how to make these tiny treats, right?

Cupcake of the Month

In my family, we have a little Christmas gift tradition.  In some families, everyone gets a new pair of pajamas. Some families fill stockings with fruits and nuts.

In my family, we all get a new wall calendar.

When my mom first started giving us wall calendars for our bedrooms, we had to give her ideas for what we'd like.  In the past I've had several "Gone With The Wind" calendars, a calendar for each of the "Lord of the Rings" movies, calendars with flowers, beautiful locations in Italy, and so on.

This year, I got the 2012 Martha Stewart Cupcakes calendar.

I'm beyond excited.  Aside from the beautiful food photography and monthly baking tips, the calendar came with recipe cards for all twelve cupcakes featured.

I'm inspired!

So I'm announcing my next baking series.  I will bake my way through my wall calendar, making each of the featured cupcakes in turn.  I'm hoping to make the cupcakes mid-month, sometime between the 15th and 17th.  It will be a fun challenge.  Some of the cupcakes are pretty simple, but there are a few that are rather labor intensive.  Fortunately one of the more difficult recipes doesn't fall until October or November, so I have a while to work on my techniques.

Let the baking begin!