The Cupcake Craze, Part 1

Frosting isn't easy, you know.

Sometimes it's too thin and runs down the sides of the cupcake, leaving bald spots on the top.

Sometimes it's too sweet because the powdered sugar you used to thicken it is enough to choke a horse.

Sometimes it's grainy, or clumpy, or both, or is made with things like Crisco and really isn't food.

But this frosting is perfect. It's smooth, provided you coax it to the correct temperature, and perfectly sweet and chocolatey and has just five ingredients:

1. cream
2. powdered sugar
3. chocolate
4. butter
5. vanilla extract

For once, my cupcakes look like the ones in the picture in the cookbook. That never happens.

Of course, frosting is nothing without a good cupcake to rest upon. These vanilla cupcakes are also perfect, and versatile: they could support lemony frosting, or cream cheese, or vanilla, or mocha, or whatever else your little heart desires.

I've been resistant to all things cupcake because, well, everyone's doing it.  I hate doing what everyone else is doing. Plus, cupcakes really do need frosting. Otherwise they are just muffins that seem to be missing something. And I believe I have made my position on frosting quite clear. But I have to admit that the last two cupcake batches I've made have been awesome enough to make me a believer.

A believer in cupcakes.

If the frosting is too cold, it doesn't spread or shine as nicely.

Vanilla Cupcakes with Truffle Cream Frosting
adapted from Chocolate Obsession by Michael Recchiuti

makes 12 cupcakes

For the cupcakes:
1 1/2 C AP flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt (kosher is best)
1 C (8 oz) creme fraiche, at room temperature (I substituted full-fat plain yogurt; DO NOT use low-fat or nonfat!)
2 eggs, at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract (I also added seeds from 1/2 vanilla bean)
6 TBSP unsalted butter, at room temperature
3/4 C granulated sugar

For the frosting:
8 oz chocolate (65% dark)
2/3 C heavy whipping cream
2/3 C plus 2 TBSP confectioner's sugar
4 TBSP unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 TBSP vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line 12 standard muffin cups with paper liners, or coat with cooking spray. Set aside.
2. Sift flour, baking powder and soda, and salt together into a medium bowl. Set aside.
3. Combine creme fraiche or yogurt, eggs, and vanilla extract and seeds (if using) in a medium bowl and whisk by hand until well-mixed.
4. Beat butter on medium speed until butter is creamy. Add granulated sugar and beat until fluffy and pale.
5. On low speed, add the dry ingredients in 3 additions, alternating with the wet ingredients in 2 additions.
6. Divide batter among muffin cups, filling each about two-thirds full. Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until the cupcakes are puffed, slightly browned, slightly cracked on top, and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool completely in the pan on a wire rack. Remove from muffin pan.
7. Place chocolate in a medium bowl. Put cream and confectioner's sugar in a small saucepan over medium heat and bring to a simmer. Cook for one minute at a simmer and remove from heat.
8. Pour hot cream mixture over chocolate and whisk by hand until chocolate melts. Whisk in butter, and then vanilla extract.
9. Cover bowl with plastic wrap so that the wrap touches the surface of the frosting, and refrigerate until mixture reaches 70 degrees. This will probably take 30-40 minutes, but start checking after 20.
10. When frosting is at 70 degrees, beat on high speed until it is lighter in color and less dense.
11. Frost cupcakes as desired.

Chocoholic

So I made chocolate.

No really, I did. I mean, I didn't hop off to Belize and harvest cacao pods by hand and dry the seeds in the sun or anything.  But I did take ordinary bars of dark chocolate and transform them into infused bites of deliciousness.

Michael Recchuiti's book, Chocolate Obsession,  which I've checked out from the library about 27 times, will be the death of me for certain. But it includes a recipe for earl grey tea-infused ganache, which sounds exactly like a chocolate truffle I had in Florence and haven't found anywhere else. Plus, there are about a thousand of his other recipes that are calling my name. So I got started.

I'd been scared of candy-making for a while, as I mentioned in my caramel-into-toffee post this past winter. But really, I've started to believe that candy-making is all about temperatures, and not much more. The ingredients are simple: in this case, chocolate, cream, sugar, butter, and tea. The problem is, it's easy to blast way past the desired temperature, and then the very small window of opportunity is gone. Or maybe it's just my problem, since I get impatient waiting around for the Perfect Temperature, and start doing other things. You know, multitasking. And then when I check on the chocolate, its temperature is sky high. Fortunately for me, chocolate-making is more forgiving than hard candy making, since all I have to do is wait a little while for it to cool down to The Right Temperature. Whereas with hard candy, once I've hit Hard Crack, I'm f*cked. (Oh wow. SO not what I meant.)

        The first batch came out well. Well enough to impress people, even. The ganache in the middle was the perfect consistency, and the tea infusion was just like the one I ate while prancing around in my new Italian leather boots and pretending I was a bona fide italiana under the shadow of Il Duomo... I had poured the ganache into a square baking dish, but had a hard time evening it out before it set, so the pieces I wound up with were of many sizes, shapes, and thicknesses. Some of the lopsidedness was masked by the tempered chocolate coating, but the bigger pieces were on the verge of being sickening.

Perfectionists hate imperfection. Which is why one of them invented chocolate molds. So for Round 2, I made a small batch of chili-spiced dark chocolate ganache and set it in molds that create perfect two-bite pieces. This flavor combination has been one of my favorites since "Chocolat" (if you are a teacher or parent, your kids can read about it here. Plus Robert Burleigh is a super-nice guy.). Recchiuti says to rap on the backside of the molds to release the chocolate once it has set. Evidently one can rap too hard, since I left nicks on the tops of my pieces from all the knife-rapping I did.  Note to self.

Molds are great. But it turns out that round pieces are hard to coat evenly since they have no edges. SO not perfect.

Now that I have the whole temperature-plus-perfect-size-and-shape thing down, I need to work on my decorating skills. Recchiuti suggests gold dust, which sounds like a recipe for A Huge Mess, along with microscopic drizzled lines of tempered chocolates, which sound like a recipe for It Looks Like a Three-Year-Old Made This. But then again, I was once afraid of the Perfect Temperature, and look at me now.

The square one on the right isn't quite dry. And I'm not sure what the swirly streaks are on the round and other squares-- cocoa butter rising to the top?

And by the way, Sur La Overpriced Table, it is unbelievably irritating that you sell candy thermometers that don't gauge below 100 degrees when you know perfectly well that tempering chocolate requires said chocolate to be at either 87 or 90 degrees. Crate and Barrel sells one for half your price that drops to a precarious 60 degrees, so now I own two candy thermometers. Which has turned out to be remarkably convenient.

Yes, I realize the SLT one is in the chocolate. That's because I'm not tempering it yet. Smarty pants.

Frosty B*tch

Yeah, I've been called that a few times in my life. But this post ain't about my attitude.

Frosting's never been my thing.
-Gobs of it on store-bought cakes make me ill. I can't stand corner pieces with frosting on three sides; I eat middle pieces that only have frosting on top.
-I got into a tiff once with a college housemate who insisted I ate her Betty Crocker frosting that was wallowing in the fridge.
-My Thank-God-the-CSTs-Are-Over Cupcakes were frosted with what was supposed to be buttercream but which was really just a big pile of fat and sugar. Several hours after inhaling his, one student asked me, "Um, Ms. DiStasi, did you make that frosting?"

Yet I can't quite give up on frosting altogether, and am determined earn my title in the gastronomic realm, not just the interpersonal realm. Michael Recchiuti's Chocolate Obsession  has a decadent yet simple recipe for Devil's Food Cupcakes with White Chocolate-Espresso Frosting. I've made it twice now, and both times the cupcakes were perfect. The first batch of frosting was tasty also. Too bad it was the consistency of gravy. The cupcakes were drowning in it. Of course, those close to me know the first question to ask me is, "Did you actually follow the recipe?" The answer was "No," as it usually is, but my improvisations generally don't lead me so far astray. I guess adding liquid espresso in place of instant-dissolve espresso powder isn't quite an even exchange.

The second batch of frosting was equally tasty, but I followed the recipe more closely (note I didn't say exactly) and after a stint in the refrigerator, I got frosting that stayed in place. At least until the frosting reached room temperature.

Tasty, but espresso granules are too easily mistaken for pieces of dirt.

 For my third batch, I have returned to the use of liquid espresso instead of espresso granules, as the recipe calls for, since the granules make the frosting gritty. At least, mine do, since I refuse to buy the instant-dissolve stuff Recchiuti suggests. I cut back on the cream to compensate for the extra liquid, and added a bit more white chocolate to increase the solid-at-room-temperature fat content. I dumped a bit in the stand mixer, along with a few heaping tablespoons of confectioners' sugar, which I figured was sort of like an ode to my failed buttercream. This frosting is verging on cloying thanks to the extra white chocolate and sugar, but pipes quite nicely.

EPILOGUE:  

ALMOST PERFECTION

The cupcakes and pseudo-buttercream frosting turned out as well as I could have hoped for, and I prepared a batch to bring to friends I met for drinks last night. I even added a little decorative espresso bean atop each one. However, since my car had been sitting in the sun all day, the frosting didn't even make it out of Oakland, much less to the peninsula. Guess I'm not a frosty enough b*tch to keep the cupcakes cool. 

TOTAL DISASTER

Devil's Food Cupcakes with White Chocolate-Espresso Topping
adapted from Chocolate Obsession by Michael Recchiuti

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 cup granulated sugar

1 egg

1/2 cup whole milk

1/4 cup vegetable oil (I use canola)

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup espresso

1/4 tsp grated lemon or orange zest

2 + 3/4 oz white chocolate, chopped

1 TBSP espresso

1/2 cup (minus 1-2 TBSP) heavy cream

For the cupcakes:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line 12 muffin cups, or spray with cooking spray.

2. Sift flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking powder and soda, and salt into a medium bowl.

3. Combine egg, milk, oil, vanilla, and espresso in another bowl and whisk by hand. Grate zest directly into bowl.

4. Pour wet ingredients into dry. Whisk to combine. Distribute batter evenly among muffin cups (they should be about half-full). 

5. Bake until cupcakes are puffed and springy to the touch, about 15-20 minutes. Let cool completely in pan on wire rack, then remove from pan.

For the topping:

1. Put white chocolate in bowl. Set aside.

2. Combine espresso and cream in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Pour hot cream over chocolate and whisk until melted. 

3. Recchiuti says to place bowl in ice-water bath for 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally. I just stuck the bowl in the fridge for an hour. Either way.

4. Place frosting in pastry bag or zipper bag with corner snipped off. Pipe frosting in swirl pattern over cupcakes and garnish with cocoa powder or a single espresso bean.