Chocolate
S'mores Cupcakes.
August 20, 2010 10:42
I personally invented S’mores Cupcakes a few weeks ago when I was munching Trader Joe’s dark chocolate with graham crackers, which reminded me of s’mores minus the marshmallows. (I was at work, so it would have been too messy, not to mention dangerous and dismissal-worthy, to add a campfire and toasted marshmallows to this mid-afternoon snack at my desk.)
This was my vision!
I envisioned a graham crackery cupcake spread with a layer of chocolate ganache and crowned by marshmallow frosting. I'd never seen a recipe for graham cracker cake before. I Googled.
Which is when I discovered that, indeed, I had not invented the S’mores Cupcake. But while I found a number of nice sounding recipes, I didn’t find my S’mores Cupcake -- with a simple graham cracker cupcake base and the chocolate ganache layer. Many of the recipes sounded too fussy, with chocolate chips (too provincial) and mini marshmallows (too sticky!) or frostings with a dozen ingredients (too MUCH). So I pulled together several recipes and DID, sort of, invent my own version of this s’moresy confection.
I found a nice Graham Cracker Cupcakes recipe at the Gigi Cakes blog, who used the original recipe from Nabisco. If you've got one, use a food processor -- or better, a mini chopper -- to make grinding up the graham crackers easy and a little less messy. I don't know about anyone else, but I'm not a fan of graham crumbs flying hither and yon all over the kitchen.
These cupcakes don’t puff up like regular cake, so you can fill the paper liners 3/4 full. They rise but cook flat, all the better for spreading chocolate ganache on top! I refrigerated the plain cupcakes overnight, partly to break up the preparation process and partly to keep the ganache layer and marshmallow frosting from melting on warm, freshly baked cakes. I’m confident these would freeze nicely too, tucked into a ziploc bag. And they are perfectly delicious unadorned accompanied by coffee or tea. Next up: the ganache!
Chocolate Ganache Recipe
3 oz. sweetened dark chocolate (I used Trader Joe’s)
1/8 cup whipping cream or evaporated milk
Put both ingredients into a heavy bottomed pan over low heat.
When chocolate starts to melt, stir ingredients together until chocolate
is fully melted and incorporated with the cream or evaporated milk.
Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly.
I spread about two teaspoons (but feel free to use more) of chocolate ganache on top of each cupcake and let it set for a few minutes. The recipe above should top 16 cupcakes with some leftover for dipping your finger into.
While there are plenty of marshmallow frosting recipes, including some that use marshmallow fluff as an ingredient (plus additional sugar and/or corn syrup -- yikes, that's got to be sweet!), Martha Stewart’s Marshmallow Frosting (technically belonging to Trophy Cupcakes in Seattle) has only four ingredients and is super easy to make.
Frosting prep action shot. Note the pink Cook for the Cure Komen Foundation handmixer
, in honor of my sister Mary Jane.
I halved Martha's frosting recipe, and quartered the vanilla extract. It tasted perfect! Just the right marshmallow flavor, spreadable, and not too sticky. And even at half the amount there was plenty of frosting for 16 cupcakes, with lots left over.
Look at those perfect peaks! It only took about five minutes to whip up this frosting.
I used a small plastic spatula to spread and shape the frosting, instead of a pastry bag. Even if you want a fancy, fluted tower of frosting, as shown on Martha’s site, half the recipe should still be enough. I refrigerated the leftover frosting in a plastic container, and a week later it’s still holding up well in the fridge. It will make for great peanut butter and fluff sandwiches! Oh boy, yum.
Once the wee cakes were ganached and marshmallow frosted, I broiled them for exactly a minute -- just enough to brown the tops without burning them. I kept them in the cupcake pan to make sliding them in and out of the oven easier. And I kept a watchful eye on them! I tested one cupcake first, to gauge the broiling time and temperature.
Broiling took place in my electric oven, which I’m not terribly fond of. I grew up cooking with real flames, on the stove top and in the oven. This oven is small and narrow -- it just barely held the turkey we cooked for 15 people a few years back, and cookie sheets have to be shimmied in and out. Plus, we have to set the temperature high by at least 20-25 degrees to get anything to cook within the suggested time on the recipe. One of the few positives about this odd oven is that broiling takes place on the top rack and with the door open, so monitoring food under the broiler is much easier than with a gas oven whose broiler is at floor level. Anyway, watch these pretties carefully when you’re broiling the tops. Just a minute or so should do (and maybe less under a real flame). Or if you’re truly fancy, use a creme brulee torch
!
Oh my, look at those lovely cupcakes. They turned out quite nicely, if I say so myself.
But of course, the true test is the taste.
Come to me, o vision come true!
Mmmmmmmmmm, they are delish. If I humbly say so myself. A perfect combination of graham, chocolate, and marshmallow.
Careful--it takes only a few seconds to eat one of these things.
They refrigerate well in a plastic container and the frosting stays put. When you’re ready to eat, leave them out at room temperature for a few minutes and dig in. Or, skip the waiting and just dig in!
This was my vision!I envisioned a graham crackery cupcake spread with a layer of chocolate ganache and crowned by marshmallow frosting. I'd never seen a recipe for graham cracker cake before. I Googled.
Which is when I discovered that, indeed, I had not invented the S’mores Cupcake. But while I found a number of nice sounding recipes, I didn’t find my S’mores Cupcake -- with a simple graham cracker cupcake base and the chocolate ganache layer. Many of the recipes sounded too fussy, with chocolate chips (too provincial) and mini marshmallows (too sticky!) or frostings with a dozen ingredients (too MUCH). So I pulled together several recipes and DID, sort of, invent my own version of this s’moresy confection.
I found a nice Graham Cracker Cupcakes recipe at the Gigi Cakes blog, who used the original recipe from Nabisco. If you've got one, use a food processor -- or better, a mini chopper -- to make grinding up the graham crackers easy and a little less messy. I don't know about anyone else, but I'm not a fan of graham crumbs flying hither and yon all over the kitchen.
These cupcakes don’t puff up like regular cake, so you can fill the paper liners 3/4 full. They rise but cook flat, all the better for spreading chocolate ganache on top! I refrigerated the plain cupcakes overnight, partly to break up the preparation process and partly to keep the ganache layer and marshmallow frosting from melting on warm, freshly baked cakes. I’m confident these would freeze nicely too, tucked into a ziploc bag. And they are perfectly delicious unadorned accompanied by coffee or tea. Next up: the ganache!
Chocolate Ganache Recipe
3 oz. sweetened dark chocolate (I used Trader Joe’s)
1/8 cup whipping cream or evaporated milk
Put both ingredients into a heavy bottomed pan over low heat.
When chocolate starts to melt, stir ingredients together until chocolate
is fully melted and incorporated with the cream or evaporated milk.
Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly.
I spread about two teaspoons (but feel free to use more) of chocolate ganache on top of each cupcake and let it set for a few minutes. The recipe above should top 16 cupcakes with some leftover for dipping your finger into.
While there are plenty of marshmallow frosting recipes, including some that use marshmallow fluff as an ingredient (plus additional sugar and/or corn syrup -- yikes, that's got to be sweet!), Martha Stewart’s Marshmallow Frosting (technically belonging to Trophy Cupcakes in Seattle) has only four ingredients and is super easy to make.
Frosting prep action shot. Note the pink Cook for the Cure Komen Foundation handmixer, in honor of my sister Mary Jane.I halved Martha's frosting recipe, and quartered the vanilla extract. It tasted perfect! Just the right marshmallow flavor, spreadable, and not too sticky. And even at half the amount there was plenty of frosting for 16 cupcakes, with lots left over.
Look at those perfect peaks! It only took about five minutes to whip up this frosting.I used a small plastic spatula to spread and shape the frosting, instead of a pastry bag. Even if you want a fancy, fluted tower of frosting, as shown on Martha’s site, half the recipe should still be enough. I refrigerated the leftover frosting in a plastic container, and a week later it’s still holding up well in the fridge. It will make for great peanut butter and fluff sandwiches! Oh boy, yum.
Once the wee cakes were ganached and marshmallow frosted, I broiled them for exactly a minute -- just enough to brown the tops without burning them. I kept them in the cupcake pan to make sliding them in and out of the oven easier. And I kept a watchful eye on them! I tested one cupcake first, to gauge the broiling time and temperature.
Broiling took place in my electric oven, which I’m not terribly fond of. I grew up cooking with real flames, on the stove top and in the oven. This oven is small and narrow -- it just barely held the turkey we cooked for 15 people a few years back, and cookie sheets have to be shimmied in and out. Plus, we have to set the temperature high by at least 20-25 degrees to get anything to cook within the suggested time on the recipe. One of the few positives about this odd oven is that broiling takes place on the top rack and with the door open, so monitoring food under the broiler is much easier than with a gas oven whose broiler is at floor level. Anyway, watch these pretties carefully when you’re broiling the tops. Just a minute or so should do (and maybe less under a real flame). Or if you’re truly fancy, use a creme brulee torch
! Oh my, look at those lovely cupcakes. They turned out quite nicely, if I say so myself.
But of course, the true test is the taste.
Come to me, o vision come true!Mmmmmmmmmm, they are delish. If I humbly say so myself. A perfect combination of graham, chocolate, and marshmallow.
Careful--it takes only a few seconds to eat one of these things.They refrigerate well in a plastic container and the frosting stays put. When you’re ready to eat, leave them out at room temperature for a few minutes and dig in. Or, skip the waiting and just dig in!
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A sort of Ambrosia.
September 20, 2009 01:29
After David Lebovitz inspired me to make salted butter caramel ice cream -- which, if I say so myself, is like manna from heaven AND the nectar of the gods -- I discovered a more decadent (almost) treat on his site: Chocolate-Covered Salted Peanut Caramel Cups (as always, he includes the recipe). There was no way I wasn’t going to make these! I already had a full container of lovely fleur-de-sel, and a supply of Trader Joe's dark chocolate ... might as well put them both to good use.
The peanut caramel comes together pretty easily, although mine didn’t set quite thick enough so I cooked it a second time for a wee bit -- that caramelized it just enough to let me make manageable blobs for plopping onto chocolate filled paper cups, which I found in the cooking aisle at Tom Thumb.
David’s method of putting melted chocolate into the cup and then “painting” it up the sides was a bit too painstaking for me. After a few attempts, I decided instead to pour a thin-ish layer of chocolate into the bottom of each cup, cool the cups for about ten minutes, put a blob of cooled peanut-caramel on top of the hardened chocolate, then pour more chocolate around the sides and enough to cover the top. This felt more efficient for this short-cut-loving girl. It’s not that I’m entirely impatient or unwilling to put time and effort into producing good food, but when something starts to feel tedious I absolutely must figure out an alternative. This one worked beautifully.
A few sprinkles of fleur-de-sel, a chill in the fridge, and these pretty candies were ready for the real taste test (all the tasting I did during the manufacturing process didn’t really count). Oh my, they were delicious! The tang of salt combined with luscious dark chocolate and creamy peanut caramel -- it's a compelling combination! (Read: dangerously difficult to stop eating.)
Oh goodness yes, I will be making these again!
The peanut caramel comes together pretty easily, although mine didn’t set quite thick enough so I cooked it a second time for a wee bit -- that caramelized it just enough to let me make manageable blobs for plopping onto chocolate filled paper cups, which I found in the cooking aisle at Tom Thumb.
David’s method of putting melted chocolate into the cup and then “painting” it up the sides was a bit too painstaking for me. After a few attempts, I decided instead to pour a thin-ish layer of chocolate into the bottom of each cup, cool the cups for about ten minutes, put a blob of cooled peanut-caramel on top of the hardened chocolate, then pour more chocolate around the sides and enough to cover the top. This felt more efficient for this short-cut-loving girl. It’s not that I’m entirely impatient or unwilling to put time and effort into producing good food, but when something starts to feel tedious I absolutely must figure out an alternative. This one worked beautifully.
A few sprinkles of fleur-de-sel, a chill in the fridge, and these pretty candies were ready for the real taste test (all the tasting I did during the manufacturing process didn’t really count). Oh my, they were delicious! The tang of salt combined with luscious dark chocolate and creamy peanut caramel -- it's a compelling combination! (Read: dangerously difficult to stop eating.)
Oh goodness yes, I will be making these again!
Mmmm, double chocolate mint ice cream.
August 27, 2009 09:50
While the ice cream maker was still cranked (so to speak) after my experiments with salted butter caramel ice cream and chocolate sherbet, I forged ahead with Double Chocolate Mint ice cream from Joanna Farrow’s big beautiful book Ice Cream and Iced Desserts
.
This book is pretty, somewhat oversized, and filled with plenty of recipes and gorgeous photos of ice creams, sherbets, sorbets, granitas, ice cream desserts, and exotic frozen treats like Indian kulfis. I love paging through it and plotting which of them to make next. I’m reasonably sure I got it off a bargain shelf ages ago, so I feel a little smug at having such a lovely book for cheap. The cover alone is worth leaving it on your coffee table, with peachy pink scoops of ice cream snugged together in a transluscent bowl made of ice and rose buds, against a pale aqua background. Beautiful! Someday I’ll make that ice bowl with the real rosebuds.
This recipe called for chopped fresh mint leaves, which I was not inspired to use. Although I love the smell and flavor of fresh mint, and inherited from my mother an appreciation for lovely sprigs of mint in iced tea and lemonade, I am not a fan of chewing and swallowing actual mint leaves. Their roughness gives me the willies, like fingernails on a chalkboard for some people. Plus, I didn’t think the youngsters in the house would appreciate picking mint leaves out of their ice cream. Gummi bears, cookie dough blobs or chocolate chips yes ... mint leaves, no. So I opted for crushed candy canes (yes, leftover from Christmas! and a reasonable substitute for the crushed mints called for in the recipe) and about 1/2 teaspoon of peppermint extract. Along with the usual ingredients -- dark chocolate, eggs, milk, whipping cream -- the result was delicious! Smooth and creamy, with just the right balance of chocolate and cool mint. I might be partially responsible for the fact that it didn't last long.
.This book is pretty, somewhat oversized, and filled with plenty of recipes and gorgeous photos of ice creams, sherbets, sorbets, granitas, ice cream desserts, and exotic frozen treats like Indian kulfis. I love paging through it and plotting which of them to make next. I’m reasonably sure I got it off a bargain shelf ages ago, so I feel a little smug at having such a lovely book for cheap. The cover alone is worth leaving it on your coffee table, with peachy pink scoops of ice cream snugged together in a transluscent bowl made of ice and rose buds, against a pale aqua background. Beautiful! Someday I’ll make that ice bowl with the real rosebuds.
This recipe called for chopped fresh mint leaves, which I was not inspired to use. Although I love the smell and flavor of fresh mint, and inherited from my mother an appreciation for lovely sprigs of mint in iced tea and lemonade, I am not a fan of chewing and swallowing actual mint leaves. Their roughness gives me the willies, like fingernails on a chalkboard for some people. Plus, I didn’t think the youngsters in the house would appreciate picking mint leaves out of their ice cream. Gummi bears, cookie dough blobs or chocolate chips yes ... mint leaves, no. So I opted for crushed candy canes (yes, leftover from Christmas! and a reasonable substitute for the crushed mints called for in the recipe) and about 1/2 teaspoon of peppermint extract. Along with the usual ingredients -- dark chocolate, eggs, milk, whipping cream -- the result was delicious! Smooth and creamy, with just the right balance of chocolate and cool mint. I might be partially responsible for the fact that it didn't last long.
Summertime, and the livin' is icey.
August 04, 2009 12:54
I’ve been bitten by a lot of mosquitos this summer, but it’s the ice cream bug that bit me the sweetest. Ever since I froze up a batch of salted butter caramel ice cream, which I discovered at David Lebovitz's internet kitchen in Paris, ice cream has a semi-permanent place on our summer menu, and the ice ceam maker lives next to the fridge instead of collecting dust in the crawl space.
The butter caramel ice cream could be the tastiest thing I’ve ever eaten, but one cannot live by caramelized sugar and fleur de sel alone (although it's tempting!). After the success of that first attempt (success = everyone who ate it went "WOW"), I threw a wrench into my summer fitness plans and forged onward with David’s chocolate sherbet. He is extremely generous in sharing actual recipes on his site, and this one did not disappoint! As usual I tinkered with it slightly, using everyday Hershey’s unsweetened cocoa powder (instead of the recommended Valrhona or Askinosie, both difficult to find around here without much telephoning and driving longish distances, which I am mostly too lazy to do) and Ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate, always easily available at the grocery store. Appealing though it sounded, I omitted the shot of coffee liqueur, worried that it might not appeal to the younger palates in the house. ("But," you might understandably argue, "it's good to reserve some treats for the adults exclusively, non?" I heartily concur! But in these early efforts, I can't leave anyone out.)
This one cooks up quickly -- there are no eggs in the recipe and, hence, no need for lengthy cooking and thickening time. Just boil, cool and freeze. A bonus: without eggs, this frozen treat is lower in fat. And remember: when you add darkdark chocolate to anything, you're lengthening your life ... or at least, not shortening it. For real. Just eat, enjoy, and live longer. The liquid chocolate tasted exactly like delicious pudding, and I could have sipped it in large quantities straight from the pan.
Once the milk mixture is boiled, chopped bittersweet chocolate is added. Alas, the Ghirardelli chocolate I used was not the stuff for this job. It added slightly funky flavor and grainy texture that, thankfully, no one detected but me. (I love cooking for my family -- they never notice my mistakes!) I recently bought a number of 70%-ish dark chocolates, including Valrhona and several Trader Joe's varieties. I found that Trader Joe's Swiss dark chocolate was the tastiest of them -- smooth, chocolatey and delish, and not a trace of bitterness or funk. That's what I'll use next time.
Regardless, the chocolate sherbet was gobbled UP by the me and family and given positive reviews, audible to the adult human ear, even by teenagers, who I had previously believed only express their approval non-verbally by eating everything under cover of night and leaving their dirty dishes on the counter as proof of enjoyment. Or at least as proof of consumption. It is gratifying, indeed, to know my efforts are appreciated!
I went ahead and ordered David's book Perfect Scoop: Ice Creams, Sorbets, Granitas, and Sweet Accompaniments
, so between ice cream recipes I had already torn out of magazines, such as lavender and toasted almond, mango lime ice, roasted pistachio, and David's scrumptious sounding concoctions -- Toasted Almond and Candied Cherry, Fresh Fig, Pear Caramel, Roasted Banana, Mocha Sorbet, Milk Chocolate Guinness (you heard me...Guinness and chocolate) -- I'm going to be busy cranking ice cream AND stepping up my workouts. It will be worth it.
The butter caramel ice cream could be the tastiest thing I’ve ever eaten, but one cannot live by caramelized sugar and fleur de sel alone (although it's tempting!). After the success of that first attempt (success = everyone who ate it went "WOW"), I threw a wrench into my summer fitness plans and forged onward with David’s chocolate sherbet. He is extremely generous in sharing actual recipes on his site, and this one did not disappoint! As usual I tinkered with it slightly, using everyday Hershey’s unsweetened cocoa powder (instead of the recommended Valrhona or Askinosie, both difficult to find around here without much telephoning and driving longish distances, which I am mostly too lazy to do) and Ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate, always easily available at the grocery store. Appealing though it sounded, I omitted the shot of coffee liqueur, worried that it might not appeal to the younger palates in the house. ("But," you might understandably argue, "it's good to reserve some treats for the adults exclusively, non?" I heartily concur! But in these early efforts, I can't leave anyone out.)
This one cooks up quickly -- there are no eggs in the recipe and, hence, no need for lengthy cooking and thickening time. Just boil, cool and freeze. A bonus: without eggs, this frozen treat is lower in fat. And remember: when you add darkdark chocolate to anything, you're lengthening your life ... or at least, not shortening it. For real. Just eat, enjoy, and live longer. The liquid chocolate tasted exactly like delicious pudding, and I could have sipped it in large quantities straight from the pan.
Once the milk mixture is boiled, chopped bittersweet chocolate is added. Alas, the Ghirardelli chocolate I used was not the stuff for this job. It added slightly funky flavor and grainy texture that, thankfully, no one detected but me. (I love cooking for my family -- they never notice my mistakes!) I recently bought a number of 70%-ish dark chocolates, including Valrhona and several Trader Joe's varieties. I found that Trader Joe's Swiss dark chocolate was the tastiest of them -- smooth, chocolatey and delish, and not a trace of bitterness or funk. That's what I'll use next time.
Regardless, the chocolate sherbet was gobbled UP by the me and family and given positive reviews, audible to the adult human ear, even by teenagers, who I had previously believed only express their approval non-verbally by eating everything under cover of night and leaving their dirty dishes on the counter as proof of enjoyment. Or at least as proof of consumption. It is gratifying, indeed, to know my efforts are appreciated!
I went ahead and ordered David's book Perfect Scoop: Ice Creams, Sorbets, Granitas, and Sweet Accompaniments
, so between ice cream recipes I had already torn out of magazines, such as lavender and toasted almond, mango lime ice, roasted pistachio, and David's scrumptious sounding concoctions -- Toasted Almond and Candied Cherry, Fresh Fig, Pear Caramel, Roasted Banana, Mocha Sorbet, Milk Chocolate Guinness (you heard me...Guinness and chocolate) -- I'm going to be busy cranking ice cream AND stepping up my workouts. It will be worth it.Chocolate cake for no reason.
May 30, 2009 05:23
While flipping through recipes the other day, I came across a chocolate buttermilk cake recipe torn from a 1999 issue of Cooking Light magazine. Instead of waiting for some event, I decided our inaugural screening of "Bolt" was good enough. So I made the cake.
I made a wee mistake -- added too much baking powder or baking soda, I can’t remember which. To counter that slight extra saltiness, I added an extra tablespoon of cocoa powder (or two, perhaps?) and about half a cup of chopped up chocolate chips. If I humbly say so myself ... my mistake was the making of this cake! It was chocolatey and moist and a big hit with everyone. Although I won’t be adding too much of whatever-it-was next time, I’m noting the additions of extra chocolate for future cakes. Yum!
By the way, Bolt is a sweet and very fun movie. It's fun to think that's Vinnie Barbarino doing the voice of the innocent superdog. Rhino the Hamster is my favorite -- such a silly hamster!
I made a wee mistake -- added too much baking powder or baking soda, I can’t remember which. To counter that slight extra saltiness, I added an extra tablespoon of cocoa powder (or two, perhaps?) and about half a cup of chopped up chocolate chips. If I humbly say so myself ... my mistake was the making of this cake! It was chocolatey and moist and a big hit with everyone. Although I won’t be adding too much of whatever-it-was next time, I’m noting the additions of extra chocolate for future cakes. Yum!
By the way, Bolt is a sweet and very fun movie. It's fun to think that's Vinnie Barbarino doing the voice of the innocent superdog. Rhino the Hamster is my favorite -- such a silly hamster!
