Snow Days

Although we didn't get a white Christmas,we got a white day after Christmas.  And a little more white three days after Christmas.  This is what it looks like from my corner of the world:

A Busy Week in the Kitchen

This has been a busy week in our kitchen.  There has only been one day that I wasn’t in the kitchen baking or cooking.  It’s been a busy week, but a good week.  It went something like this:

Sour Dough and Sour Oranges

Since finishing my sourdough starter last week for the Tea & Cookies Cooking Challenge, it’s been hanging out the refrigerator.  Waiting.  Beyond the fact that I was busy with the caramels for the Icing Smiles Magic of a Smile gala, the starter develops more flavor and tang as it ages.  But it seemed like it was about time to start doing something with it since I have so much. 

The two recipes I chose to start with, Extra-Tangy Sourdough Bread and Sourdough Chocolate Cake, both required about a cup of “fed” starter.  To feed the starter, I measured out one-half cup of refrigerated starter for each recipe then added one-half cup of flour and one-quarter cup of tepid water, stirred them up and let them sit until doubled in size. 

In between this, I had finally made the decision that it was time to harvest the oranges off of the dwarf tree in the living room.  Some of the branches looked like they could break at any moment.  If these were sweet oranges that could be eaten out of hand, I may have left them on the tree and just used them as I wanted/needed them.  However, that’s not the case.  I’ve tried the oranges a couple of times in the last two months trying to gauge their ripeness.  Both times it was like eating lemons instead of oranges.  Through some Internet research, I think I’ve finally identified these as calamondin oranges.  They will never be sweet.  This does put some limitations on what I can do with them. 

So I’ll turn to the never-fail solution for citrus:  marmalade.  To be finished tomorrow.

In the meantime, my starters being ready, I mixed up the first steps of the bread as it needed to sit at room temp for four hours before going in the refrigerator overnight.  The chocolate cake also needed some fermentation time for the starter with some flour and milk, so that part was mixed and set aside.  Until about 10:00 p.m. when I finally had time to get back to it.

As this was a recipe I’ve not made before, I chose to make cupcakes instead of cake.  Cupcakes just seem to be easier to share than a cake with a piece missing.  I’d like to say I stayed true to the recipe, but that’s not the case.  This was one of the strangest batters I’ve ever worked with.  The addition of the sourdough starter made it gave the batter a texture that was most unappealing in its raw form.  It left me wondering what the baked version would be like.  I also had to consider that instead of using all vegetable oil, the majority of the fat I used was butter.  This may have had an effect on the final texture as well.  When I checked them during baking, I was concerned I had overfilled the cups, but fortunately they came out with perfect high domes without overflowing.  They’re not iced yet, but the one I tried seemed a little dry and not nearly chocolaty enough.  I’m wondering if the recipe would be better as written (imagine that!) with all vegetable oil and in cake form, but not enough that I’ll try it.

White Chocolate Raspberry Cupcakes: Version One

While in the final push on Friday to finish up the previously mentioned cakes and cupcakes for my third bride, I received a call from the wedding assistant of Bride No. 2.  She liked the cupcakes I had done for Bride No. 2's wedding and wanted some for her birthday on December 15th.  When I first spoke with her, we agreed on two dozen pumpkin spice cupcakes.  The next time we talked, she asked if I could do white chocolate raspberry cupcakes.  I stammered for a moment because I've never before made white chocolate cake.

Okay, so let's get this out of the way before we go any further:  I know white "chocolate" technically isn't true chocolate, but for the sake of conversation it's easier.  However, when I do say "white chocolate" I mean the confection that's made with cocoa butter, sugar, milk and vanilla, not the sickly sweet "white baking chips" made with ingredients difficult to pronounce. 

That being established, my concern about white chocolate in cake was that it's a much more subtle flavor than it's darker counterparts so it could be a challenge to get the flavor to come through.  Then I had to think about the raspberry - would adding raspberry to the cupcake overpower the white chocolate completely?  You never know until you try.  So I did.  I left most of the cupcakes plain, but experimented with adding raspberry puree to a few of them.  (I hate the fact that "raspberry puree" has Prince's "Raspberry Beret" running through my head.)




Some I swirled in the puree, others just drizzled it on top.
The ones with the drizzle on top look like someone bled on them.
Kinda gross.


The cake recipe I began with is adapted from Cupcakes, a Better Homes and Gardens Special Interest Publication that I found while waiting in the check out line at the grocery store some time ago.  Starting with their yellow cupcake recipe, I reduced the sugar and vanilla and added six ounces of melted white chocolate.  I think if you know there's white chocolate in the cupcakes you'll taste it, but otherwise it may be overlooked.  I'm pretty sure if I replace some of the butter in the recipe with culinary cocoa butter, I'll get the flavor I'm looking for.  If I can find culinary cocoa butter locally, I'll give it a try.  Not holding my breath on that, Plan B is to add chopped white chocolate chunks to the batter in addition to the six ounces of melted white chocolate.

The cupcakes with the raspberry puree weren't as texturally appealing as those without it.  There's a bit of a "raw dough" texture around the puree.  Not so appetizing.  You can see the difference on the inside between the cupcake I tried to swirl in the puree and the one that just had puree on top.  As for the flavor, it didn't really add much but enough to mask the white chocolate.  That's exactly what I thought may happen. 

Since I had plenty of raspberry puree left over, I decided to make raspberry buttercream and leave the cupcakes as the white chocolate component.  At least the buttercream didn't disappointment me.  Both the color and flavor stayed vibrant.  As the cupcakes are now, I still think the raspberry will overpower the white chocolate.  (I haven't tried this combination yet; my palate needs a break from sweet right now.)  But, I also made a litte bit of white chocolate ganache.  I'm thinking of piping a little star of ganache on top to get the white chocolate flavor mixed in with the raspberry flavor. 

In the meantime, I'll distribute these to a few taste testers tomorrow and see what kind of feedback I get.  Hopefully I'm on the right track.

It's Done!

Yesterday The Hubs and I delivered my largest cake order yet.  Back in May I agreed to do cake for the wedding reception of a good friend's sister.  It ended up being a bride's cake, a groom's cake and cupcakes for about 250 people.  Before I was finished, I seriously thought I was crazy for trying to do all of this on my own. 

The bride's cake was inspired by three different cakes she saw in the wedding cakes page on the Martha Stewart website.  The cake itself was vanilla bean white cake filled with strawberry buttercream and iced with vanilla buttercream- very similar to what I did for her bridal shower.  Each tier was adapted from one of her inspiration cakes.  It worked, but I have a lot of self-criticism:  I need to keep up with my piping skills for writing; the colors weren't exactly what I wanted; the white candy tiles were too tall, etc., etc.  I think no matter how good something may be, I can still find fault with my work.

The groom's cake was supposed to be a surprise.  I didn't spoil the surprise, but he did come in when I was setting the cakes up.  Oops.  A cake with a St. Louis Cardinals or Rams theme was requested.  I held out on deciding which to do until after the World Series - then I knew I would do the Cardinals.  The bride was having a hard time getting the groom to commit to a flavor other than "chocolate" so we went with chocolate fudge cake with peanut butter buttercream filling and rich chocolate buttercream icing all covered in a mixture of fondant and candy clay.

My inspiration for the groom's cake came from a couple of pennant flags in the Cardinals shop on the MLB website.  This cake really didn't turn out the way I envisioned either.  I had piped "St. Louis Cardinals" with red and blue confectionery coating, but the red just would not smooth out.  Couple that with the fact that "Cardinals" broke when I was attempting to remove it from the plastic and it didn't take long to scrap that idea.  I had looked for small number-shaped cookie cutters to do fondant cut outs of the years they won the World Series, but the only ones I found were metal, which I ordinarily prefer but for intricate or small designs is difficult to get fine details.  It made them look juvenile.  I did happen on a set of fondant molds that I liked much better.  Instead of molding fondant, I molded tinted confectionery coating.  I was fairly happy with how they turned out, even if 1964 is extremely crooked on the cake.  (And learned in the process that the Cardinals have never won a World Series in a year containing the number 5.  Just a little trivia there.)





I'm not sure how the groom felt about it, but my dad would like this cake.

And of course, the cupcakes.  Originally intended to be three dozen carrot cake cupcakes, a last minute plea from the bride altered that.  Apparently the mother-in-law was in distress that there would be no red velvet cake.  The bride didn't seem overly excited about red velvet cake so I countered her original thought to replace one of her tiers with red velvet by suggesting some of the cupcakes be red velvet.  Compromise is key.  We ended up with carrot cake cupcakes with cream cheese buttercream topped with a flower of dried pineapple and red velvet cupcakes with the same buttercream - hence my suggestion of cupcakes instead of one of her cake tiers.  Easier for me, the bride had no offending red velvet in her cake, and the mother-in-law got what she wanted.

The adrenaline rush of getting all of this done and delivered successfully has waned and I am now back to wondering:  "Is this really what I want to do?  Am I taking something I love and wringing the passion out of it?  Did they like it?  Can my self-esteem handle it when the time comes that someone doesn't like what I do?"  I don't have answers to those questions right now.  But I'm not giving up just yet.

20 Pounds of Butter

That's part of what was in my shopping cart yesterday.  Along with seven dozen eggs, a gallon of whole milk and two pounds of cream cheese.  And I'm not finished.  I still need about 20 pounds of sugar, 15 pounds of flour and a pound of cocoa powder.

Why do I need all of this?  At the end of May, I agreed to do the wedding cake for the sister of my dear friend, Alicia.  I really didn't know what I was getting myself into at the time.  The wedding cake has evolved into a bride's cake, a groom's cake, a sheet cake and cupcakes.  Cake for about 300 people.  I shouldn't be surprised.  Alicia asked me to do the cake for Kellie's bridal shower in September which was for 80 people.  I'd never heard of 80 people at a bridal shower.

Last year I did cupcakes for Alicia's wedding.  Initially she was going to have myself and someone else making the cupcakes and it was going to be 100 for each of us.  It became 200 for me when the other person backed out.  It wasn't that big of a deal.  Sans intricate decorations, cupcakes are much easier than cake and with some help from the Hubs in getting the cupcakes displayed, I managed to pull it off quite successfully.



Alicia's tropical tower of cupcakes

 And somehow I will pull off her sister's cakes and cupcakes.  It's going to require a lot of planning, being super organized, and working diligently.  Most importantly it's going to require that I squash these feelings of self-doubt and shut down that nagging voice in my head that's demanding to know, "what were you thinking?"  I will get it done.  I will also think twice in the future about what I'm capable of challenging myself with and what will be overwhelming.  It's a fine line sometimes, no?

One Cake Down, One to Go

Earlier in the year, I had agreed to do a small wedding cake and cupcakes for a couple referred to me by a classmate from culinary school.  The wedding was September 3.  Of course at the time we had made these arrangements, I had no idea that my personal life would suffer the losses that it did.  I think that made me more vulnerable than usual.  While it's usual for me to get stressed when I'm doing cake for someone else, it was on the extreme side this time.  When I'm doing something that is so personal - for me and the other person - it causes self-doubt to creep in.  It didn't creep in this time so much as hit me like a linebacker.  This small cake gave me as much difficulty as it did doubt. 


The beginning of the candy clay acorns.



Despite the unseasonably warm temperatures, it was a fall-themed wedding.  Who knew in April it would be 100 degrees in September?  The bride wanted about five dozen cupcakes with fall-themed decorations and a small white cake to cut.  We agreed on peanut butter cupcakes with chocolate ganache, cappuccino cupcakes with mocha buttercream and pumpkin spice cupcakes with cream cheese buttercream.  She also wanted the cake to be peanut butter with ganache filling.  She liked the look of fondant, but not the taste; so my plan was to cover the cake with white candy clay.  I've used chocolate candy clay to cover a cake before and it worked beautifully.  White candy clay did not.  I finally made a judgment call and went with straight buttercream.  This presented problems of it's own as you must be very careful not to make marks in the buttercream once you have it smoothed.  And you have to figure out how to fix it when you have a decoration fall off and leave a big divot.

  

These leaves ended up getting tossed. 
The gold color I was using beaded
up on the candy clay.

I can't say the icing was perfectly smooth.  Sometimes it's necessary to recognize that trying to fix it can only make it worse.  At least I had sense enough to realize that.

Going with the buttercream presented another problem as well.  My original plan was to make small, leaf-shaped tuiles in fall colors to have sort of a "leaf pile" on top of the cake.  (The bride didn't have a topper.  My instructions were "make it pretty.")  Given that the tuiles would likely absorb moisture from the buttercream, I needed a plan B there as well.  Honestly, I struggled with this one.  Finally I decided to use some of the uncooperative candy clay to make ribbon roses.  Ribbon roses are not my favorite decoration.  I prefer more realistic flowers, but there simply wasn't time.  And since ribbon roses are not my favorite decoration, I'd not made them before.  I'm sure they could have been better.  My lack of experience and the fact that just the heat from my hands made the uncooperative candy clay even more so was problematic, but this is mere hours before delivery so it was time to just make it work.  I had shortened my deadline because I wasn't aware of what the set up was going to be and needed to make sure I had enough time to set up and be gone before the wedding party arrived.  I made my deadline, didn't get lost, and even got it all delivered and set up intact.  And most of the anxiety was dismissed after I received a wonderful follow-up note from the bride.

 

These are the cappuccino cupcakes with mocha buttercream and the finished candy clay acorns.   It's quite possible these are my favorite cupcakes. 

Pumpkin spice cupcakes with cream cheese buttercream (not the sickly sweet stuff) and edible gold painted fondant leaves.

Peanut butter cupcakes with chocolate ganache underneath a candy clay maple leaf.

The wedding cake with vanilla buttercream, candy clay roses and leaves, fondant ribbon and initial plaque.  By the time I was finished with this cake, I was a nervous wreck and swearing I wouldn't do any more cakes.  Except the one I promised my friend, Alicia, I would do for her sister's bridal shower.  For 80 people.  On September 18.  Occasionally, I am a glutton for punishment. 

Cappuccino Cupcakes

¼ cup Kahlua or other coffee liqueur

⅓ cup instant coffee granules

¾ cup whole milk

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

1½ cups unsalted butter, softened

2 cups granulated sugar

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

½ tsp salt

5 each large eggs

  

Preheat oven to 350°F.  Prepare muffin tins with paper liners.  

Microwave the liqueur and ¼ cup milk until warm in a glass measuring cup.  Add instant coffee and stir until coffee dissolves, reheating as necessary.  Watch carefully – it will boil quickly!!  Add enough of the remaining milk to equal 1 cup of liquid and set aside. 

In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking powder and baking soda. 

In a large electric mixer bowl, beat butter until soft.  Add granulated sugar, vanilla and salt and beat until light.  Lightly beat eggs in a large measuring cup.  Add eggs approximately two tablespoonfuls at a time beating well after each addition.  Stop to scrape the bowl and paddle halfway through.  

Scrape the sides of bowl and paddle.  Add flour mixture into butter mixture alternately with coffee liquid, beginning and ending with flour.  Using an ice cream scoop, fill muffin tins approximately ¾ full.  

Bake 18 – 20 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.  Remove from oven and cool in pan on a rack 5 minutes.  Remove cupcakes from pan and cool completely on a wire rack. 

If you don't want to use alcohol in this recipe, just use very strong coffee or espresso.

Makes approximately 36 cupcakes.

Mocha Buttercream

1-1/2 cups granulated sugar

1 Tbs instant espresso

3/4 cup whole milk

1-1/2 Tbs all-purpose flour

1-1/2 tsp natural cocoa

1/4 tsp salt

1 Tbs vanilla extract

6 Tbs heavy whipping cream

2-1/2 cups unsalted butter, cubed, room temperature

Heat the milk, sugar and instant espresso over medium low heat in a heavy bottomed pan until the sugar dissolves.  Remove the pan from heat and gradually sift in the flour, cocoa and salt while whisking until smooth.  Cover with plastic wrap directly on the surface and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes to cool.  After the mixture is cooled, whisk in the vanilla extract.

Pour the cooled milk/sugar mixture into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment.  On low speed, add the cream and butter cubes.  Continue mixing on low for about 30 seconds to incorporate the butter.  Gradually increase the speed to medium high (about 8 on a KitchenAid).  The buttercream will start to look curdled.  It’s okay – don’t panic!  Just keep going; it’s nearly impossible to overbeat this icing.  Beat for 8 – 10 minutes or until the buttercream is smooth and creamy.  It will happen.

This is definitely a fair-weather icing; it does not hold up particularly well in warmer temperatures.

 

Mango Tres Leches Cupcakes - Maybe

Several years ago I came across Michael Chiarello's recipe for Mango Dos Leches.  I had printed it off thinking I would try it, stuck it in a folder and promptly forgot about it.  When the 2011 Ice Cream Cupcake Contest was announced, I started thinking about it again, determined that eventually I would try this recipe.  Today is eventually.  And of course, I made modifications to the recipe.  Right now, I'm not sure how that's going to work out for me. 

The cake is a typical genoise of which, in and of itself, I'm not particularly fond.  To make half of the original recipe, I started with 3 room temperature eggs, 1/2 cup granulated sugar and 1/8 teaspoon salt (I didn't reduce the salt).  This gets whisked at high speed until tripled in volume.

1 minutes

I started on low speed and worked my way up to high just so I wouldn't sling egg and sugar all over the walls.  (I need to invest in a pour/splatter shield for the 4 quart mixer.)  Once at high speed, I whisked for 3 minutes although I don't think it would hurt if you went a bit longer.  Some of it will depend on your mixer and ambient temperature.

2 minutes

3 minutes

Three minutes seemed to do the trick.  I really thought it was going to take longer, but I think I was recalling the days of making genoise in the 20 quart mixers at school.  Big difference!

At this point it's time for my least favorite part:  folding in the flour.  I sifted in 1 cup of flour plus 1/32 teaspoon of cayenne pepper in three additions, folding gently after each.  The folding is my least favorite part because I'm always concerned about not getting all of the flour mixed in without deflating the eggs. 

As you can see, I found streaks.  This was actually part of a huge pocket of flour that was trying to hide from me.  I think I eventually got it all, but I won't place any bets on that. 

I scooped the batter in the foil lined cupcake pans and baked at 350F for 14 minutes.  Originally, I set the timer for 18 minutes, but I could smell the cupcakes at 12 so I started checking them after that.  Again, baking time will depend on individual ovens.

It's kind of hard to tell from the photo, but all of the cupcakes sank when they came out of the oven.  I didn't mind so much since it would help keep the milk mixture from pouring down the sides. 

While I let these cool for a bit, I heated 1/2 cup milk and 1/2 cup coconut milk in the microwave in two 1 minute intervals.  To that I added 2/3 cup sweetened condensed milk and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (I omitted the almond extract from the original recipe.)  When the milks were well combined, I added 2/3 cup of mango puree and mixed well.

Using my basic math skills, I figured I had about 2 cups (16 fl ounces) of milk/mango mixture and 16 cupcakes so each cupcake should get 1 ounce (2 tablespoons). 

After poking holes in the cupcakes with a bamboo skewer, I began spooning the milk/mango mixture over the top.  Here's where the problem began.  It appears as though the acid in the mango is sufficient to curdle the milk, making the mixture extremely thick.  The cupcakes are not absorbing it.  So far I have one tablespoon of the milk/mango mixture that's been sitting on the cupcakes for about an hour now.  It's not looking promising.  There may need to be a Plan B involved.

Success - Finally!

I love cupcakes.  I love ice cream.  So when I read about the 2011 Ice Cream Cupcake Contest sponsored by the Cupcake Project and Scoopalicious, I was enthralled. 

When I first read about it on the Cupcake Project blog, mango sorbet immediately popped into my head.  But what to go with it?  I kicked around the idea of sort of a mango tres leches cupcake with a spicy ancho chile kick to it (I may still make these - they sound so good to me), but I’ve really been fascinated with Indian cooking lately, so I decided to let those flavors be my inspiration.  Thinking about coconut rice pudding, masala chai tea and mango lassies conjured up A Taste of India Cupcakes with Mango Sorbet. 

Round One

In my first attempt, the coconut in the coconut chai cupcakes was too dominant over the chai flavors.  They were good – just not what I was looking for in terms of flavor.  The saffron buttercream I made to go with them turned out pretty well, but maybe just a bit too much saffron.  It amazes me that something so small packs such a punch! 

The second go at the cupcakes yielded more of the flavor I was looking for, but they were dry, dry, dry.  Not even brushing them with a chai tea simple syrup could resurrect them.  For quality control purposes, they went to the trash.  I was beginning to feel defeat creeping in.   The second round of buttercream kept that at bay though. 

While lying in bed wide awake at some unholy hour, the idea popped into my head to use some melted mango sorbet in my buttercream.  I wondered about the effect of replacing the milk in the recipe with the sorbet since there is no dairy in the sorbet.  I compromised and added a couple of tablespoons of milk to the melted sorbet.  Eureka!

But the contest deadline was looming and my cupcakes were still not to my satisfaction.  Time for round three.  I went back to the first recipe but reduced the amount of coconut.  Then, instead of using a combination ground spices, I used a bag of Celestial Seasoning’s India Spice Chai.  It worked.

Sunny-side up cupcake?

The assembly got a little messy.  I started by just placing a scoop of sorbet on top of the cupcakes.  They sort of looked like they had a bad fried egg on top.  After softening the sorbet a bit, I attempted piping rosettes.  A common problem I have with piping is that my hands seem to radiate heat.  Not great for buttercream, even worse for sorbet.  By the time I had one ready for its close up, the sorbet was already dripping down the side. 

And I was okay with that.  I snapped some pics, grabbed a fork and enjoyed some cake and sorbet bliss.  The cupcakes finally had the taste and texture I wanted:  a balance of coconut and chai, moist but not falling apart, and chewy little bits of coconut.  The sweet/tart of the mango sorbet is perfect to cut through the richness of the buttercream.  Even though the buttercream has sorbet in it, you smell it more than you taste it.  It just sort of adds to the mango experience.  

As is often the case for me, the third time’s a charm.  My lucky number 3 didn’t let me down.  I now have a recipe I'm not embarrassed to share, and half a pint of mango sorbet at my disposal.  It would have been great to make my own mango sorbet, but there is a reason I don't own an ice cream maker.  As I said, I do love ice cream.

Taste of India Cupcakes with Mango Sorbet

Coconut Chai Cupcakes

1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup unsweetened, finely shredded, dried coconut

1 cup granulated sugar, divided

1 bag chai tea (I used Celestial Seasoning’s India Spice Chai)

1/2 cup + 2 Tbs unsalted butter, room temperature

3 large eggs, lightly beaten

1/4 cup Greek-style yogurt

1/4 cup milk

Mango sorbet for assembly (I like Häagen Dazs)

Preheat oven to 350°F.  Line cupcake tins with paper or foil liners.

Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and dried coconut together in a large bowl.  Set aside. 

Combine one tablespoon of the sugar and the contents of the tea bag in a clean coffee/spice grinder and process until nearly powdered.  Add to the remaining sugar.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar on medium high speed until light and fluffy, about five minutes, stopping occasionally to scrape down the paddle and the bowl.  Reduce the speed to medium and slowly drizzle in the beaten egg, no more than a tablespoon at a time, incorporating thoroughly after each addition.  Stop and scrape the paddle and bowl about halfway through, and again after all of the egg is incorporated.

Reduce the mixer speed to low and add one third of the flour mixture.  Mix briefly, then add the yogurt.  Add another third of the flour followed by the milk, then the remaining flour.  Mix only until combined.

Use an ice cream scoop to portion into prepared pan(s).  Bake 18 – 20 minutes or until a tester comes out clean.  Immediately remove the cupcakes from the pan to a wire rack to cool.  Cool completely before icing with mango-saffron buttercream and topping with mango sorbet.

Makes approximately 18 cupcakes.

Mango-Saffron Buttercream

3/4 cup granulated sugar, divided

pinch of saffron (I used exactly 10 threads)

1/8 tsp turmeric

6 Tbs melted mango sorbet (melt, then measure)

2 Tbs milk

1 Tbs all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

3 Tbs heavy whipping cream, cold

1-1/4 cups unsalted butter, cubed, at room temperature

Combine one tablespoon of sugar, the saffron and the turmeric in a small bowl and grind with the back of a spoon (a mortar and pestle works much better if you have one) until the saffron is crushed.

In a small saucepan, combine the sugar mixture with the remaining sugar, the melted mango sorbet and the milk.  Heat on medium-low until the sugar is completely dissolved.  Gradually sift in the flour while whisking and whisk vigorously until completely incorporated. 

Pour into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment.  Whisk on medium-high speed until the bowl is cool to the touch.  This may take up to 10 minutes, depending on the ambient temperature. 

 

It gets better - trust me.

 

When the mixture is cool, switch to the paddle attachment.  Add the vanilla and whipping cream and mix briefly just to combine.  Add the butter all at once.  Begin on low speed and gradually increase the speed to medium-high.  Don’t worry if the buttercream looks curdled – just keep going.  Beat on medium-high for 8 – 10 minutes or until the buttercream is smooth and creamy.  



Almost there.



If you’re not using the buttercream  immediately, store in the refrigerator for up to three days or up to two months in the freezer.  Thaw frozen buttercream in the refrigerator.  Allow it to come to room temperature and then re-beat before using.

Makes approximately one quart.

Made it!

Assembly

Place the buttercream in a pastry bag fitted with a large star tip.  I like Wilton’s 1M cupcake icing tip, but Ateco 824 also works well.  Pipe a border around the edge of the cupcake (plain or fancy - it's just to keep the ice cream contained), leaving space in the center for a small scoop of mango sorbet.  Add the sorbet just before serving.  You can also try piping some softened sorbet in the center, but that didn’t really work out so well for me. 

Devour immediately.

Ice Cream and Cake and a Relapse

I need to test a cupcake recipe.  The Cupcake Project and Scoopalicious are sponsoring an Ice Cream Cupcake Contest.  I have an idea I think is really awesome and I want to enter, thus the need to test the recipe.  But I'm less enthusiastic about turning on my oven.  We are experiencing "near record temperatures" (as The Weather Channel keeps reminding me) and the idea of turning on the oven isn't so appealing.  I guess I'll have to stay up until wee hours of the night or get up at 0:dark:30 to prevent overheating the kitchen.  I won't spill the beans entirely yet, but I'm calling them "A Taste of India".  Curious?  I am.  The recipe and photos will be posted here after I enter.

In other news, a relapse of my caramel addiction was inevitable.  After finishing the caramels for the Food Blogger Bake Sale, I verbalized something along the lines of not wanting to think about, see, smell, eat, etc., caramels again for quite some time.  In the lyrics of Elvis Presley, "well that was just a lie".  To be completely honest, I don't think I've ever stopped thinking about caramels. 

I'm thinking about chocolate stout caramels.  I'm thinking about goat milk and buckwheat honey caramels.  I'm thinking about caramels made with apple juice.  I'm thinking about how to incorporate peanut butter into caramels.  I'm thinking . . .

I'm thinking I need to learn to make smaller batches of caramels.

Baker v Homemaker

This past week the scale had definitely tipped in favor of baker.  But I have a little bit of an excuse as I was meeting with the future bride and groom on Saturday for a tasting. 

The bride-to-be and I had corresponded regarding design, servings, price and flavors.  I have a list of cakes and icings that I've had good results with and sent to her for some ideas.  I offered the tasting knowing that I would be baking a lot of cake for a small amount.  But you can only reduce a recipe so much without risking the integrity of the final product.  On Friday I ended up making four cake recipes that turned out to be somewhere in the neighborhood of six dozen cupcakes.  The hubs appeared to be getting a little worked up that I was just giving the couple a dozen cupcakes.  I had thought about this briefly myself.  But I quickly realized that I've given away dozens upon dozens of cupcakes to people who are not going to be paying me so what's the problem with a dozen cupcakes for a tasting?  None.  No problem to be solved and I still have cupcakes to get rid of.

Earlier in the week I had made the three buttercreams of my four icings, leaving only the milk chocolate ganache for Friday.  When the cupcakes were finished and it was time to turn my attention to the ganache, I noticed I didn't have as much cream as I had thought.  It still was enough though.  Enough if the ganache turned out perfectly.  Which it didn't.  I stared blankly at this ganache for the longest time wondering what I had done wrong.  I've made ganache dozens of times.  I'm still not sure exactly what I did wrong, but I did it wrong twice.  After running out to get more cream and more milk chocolate for a second batch, it turned out exactly the same:  cream of chocolate soup.  I decided I would chill it, see if I could whip it and hope for the best.  I did end up with something I could pipe, but not what I wanted.  

There is irony to the ganache saga.  Saturday morning I had the idea of melting some chocolate and blending it in with the ganache to firm it up.  Just before I was getting ready to pour the melted chocolate into my container of ganache, a brief flash of sanity overcame me and instead I added a small portion of the ganache to the melted chocolate.  It seized immediately making me so very grateful I'd not ruined all of my already marginal ganache.  I set the bowl of seized chocolate/ganache aside to deal with later when I had time.  That turned out to be Sunday.  I looked at it, poured a little milk over it and threw it in the microwave for a couple of 30 second bursts.  And about a minute later and some quick whisking I had the perfect ganache I had been looking for.  **Sigh**

The strawberry-chipotle preserves turned out fairly well.  The taste is awesome, but I will do a couple of things differently should I made this again.  First and foremost, I will double the batch.  This was absolutely not enough to process in the canner.  Second, I will rehydrate the chipotle chiles before adding them to the preserves.  Even after all of those repeated simmerings, they were still kind of leathery.  Finally, I will not keep the lid on the pot when I'm heating up the preserves.  The extra moisture from the condensation left me with soupy preserves.  But apparently soupy was my theme for the week.



The taste test - pass or fail.




Can you guess which?  Here's a hint:
I stopped short of licking the plate.

 So now that the preserves are done and the tasting is done, it's time to tip the scale back in favor of homemaker for awhile.  In addition to the mundane tasks (such as vacuuming stairs and dusting the ceiling fan hanging from the 14 foot ceiling) I also have a few gardening projects to accomplish.  Why I've waited until we're having near record high temperatures to work on gardening projects is beyond me.  Since I really don't even like hot weather, this will definitely be another test of my resolve.  We'll see how long it takes my resolve to melt.