Tag: birthday

That which should never enter my house rides again

I blame Costco.  After a near five year reprieve from membership at the warehouse mecca, TD and found ourselves wandering its (too busy for a Friday night) aisles.  Wandering the aisles at Costco is never a good idea.  I can’t remember what we went in for but am fairly certain the case of beer, apple chips, baby naans and two huge containers of Nutella were not on the original list.

There are only two things that I don’t trust myself to casually keep on hand.  The first is Cheez-Its.The second, as I’ve mentioned in previous posts, is Nutella.  Late on the night of the Costco trip I could hear the chocolate-hazelnut spread calling to me from the garage in little Italian voices accompanied by an accordian.  I swear.

Something needed to be done with the Nutella…before I was done with it.

Cue the cupcakes.  I started with a great basic vanilla and buttermilk cupcake recipe from Sunset Magazine.  The recipe is simple and the resulting cupcakes have enough integrity (structurally speaking) to take on an inch or two of frosting.

Starting with my go-to buttercream recipe, I added a generous blob of Nutella.  And then I added some more for good measure.

After a quick roll in chocolate jimmies, I had, what I thought was a pretty good misdirection for the serious error in judgement that was the purchase of Nutella.  As a bonus, the cupcake recipe makes exactly 12 little cakes.  So, I didn’t even have an excuse to try one since my carrying container holds one dozen and my own sense of social propriety didn’t want to explain what happened to the missing one.

Malted Vanilla Cupcakes with Nutella Buttercream Frosting

cake adapted from Sunset Magazine

For the Cake

Ingredients

  • 6 TBS  unsalted butter, at room temperature
  • 1 C plus 2 TBS sugar
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 TSP vanilla
  • 2 C all-purpose flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 C malted milk powder
  • 2/3 C buttermilk at room temp.

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line pan with 12 cupcake wrappers.
  2. Sift flour, baking powder, malted milk powder and salt into a medium bowl, set aside.
  3. In a bowl, with a mixer on medium speed, beat butter and all the sugar until well blended.
  4. Add eggs and vanilla and beat on high speed until well blended.
  5. With mixer on low speed, beat about a third of the flour mixture into butter mixture, then about a third of the buttermilk. Repeat to beat in remaining flour mixture and buttermilk, alternating in thirds. When all the flour is incorporated, beat mixture on medium speed just until well blended.
  6. Fill paper-lined or buttered muffin cups (1/3-cup capacity) about three-fourths full with batter (about 1/4 cup in each).
  7. Bake in a 350° oven until tops spring back when lightly touched in the center, 20 to 25 minutes.
  8. Cool on racks 5 minutes; remove from pans. Cool completely.

For the frosting

 Ingredients

  • 5 large egg whites
  • 1 C plus 2 TBS sugar (superfine)
  • pinch of salt
  • 12 ounces (3 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temp, cut into tablespoons
  • 1 tsp cold espresso (optional)
  • 3/4 C Nutella

Directions

  1. In the heat-proof bowl of a stand-mixer, combine egg-whites, sugar and salt.  Set over a pan of simmering water and whisk constantly by hand until the mixture is warm to the touch and the sugar has dissolved.  The temp on an instant-read thermometer should read between 150-160 F.
  2. Attach the bowl to the stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment.  Starting on low speed, and gradually increasing to medium-high speed, beat until the mixture is fluffy and glossy and completely cool (you can tell by touching the side of the bowl).  Process will take about 10 minutes.
  3. With mixer on medium-speed, add the butter a few tablespoons at-a-time, mixing well between each addition.  At some point the frosting will start to look curdled.  Don’t worry, just keep on going.
  4. Switch to the paddle attachment.  Add-in espresso and Nutella mixing on low until everything is combined.
  5. Generously frost cupcakes.

 

 

Dee-lich-chus Cake

I think I’ve talked about our adventures in cake-tasting and the beautiful but epic fail of a wedding cake that came out of them.  Thinking of that 100 degree day in San Diego combined with the smell of buttercream across many bakeries still make me cringe a little.

Let’s say the average wedding cake tasting consists of seven samples.  If my memory holds true, we visited four bakeries that faithful summer day.  A little air arithmetic, carry the one and it comes to about 28 different taste tests.

And after biting into each morsel, TD would say, “that’s dee-lich-chus cake.”

About a dozen samples in, my curiosity (and annoyance) got the better of me and I asked what the hell he was talking about.

The details were a bit fractured (probably all that sugar) but what I gathered from his story is that there was a wedding, an elderly woman, some loose dentures and a cake that was decidedly not “dee-lich-chus.”

In my witness, every times he’s eaten cake since, he says the same thing: “that’s dee-lich-chus.”

It only took nearly ten years to wonder, if “dee-lich-chus” cake was a flavor, what would it be?

I decided a cake of this caliber would start with a buttermilk base.   In to which roasted strawberries would be gently folded.

And accessorized with clouds of pillowy pink strawberry and balsamic buttercream.  Stay with me here.  Adding balsamic to strawberry is like adding coffee to chocolate.  You don’t actually taste the extra ingredient, it just really enhances everything.

And so was born dee-lich-chus cake.

Roasted Strawberry and Buttermilk Cake with  Strawberry Balsamic Buttercream

cake adapted from Joy of Cooking, frosting adapted from The Foodies Kitchen

for the cake

Ingredients

  • 4 C fresh strawberries
  • 2 1/3 C cake flour
  • 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp baking sode
  • 1/4 tsp kosher salt
  • 3 large eggs at room temp.
  • 6 ounces (10 TBS or 1 stick plus 2 TBS) butter
  • 1 1/3 C sugar (I use superfine)
  • 1 C buttermilk, at room temp.

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Gently wash and cut strawberries into quarters. Place berries on a cooling rack, seeds-side-down over a sheet pan. Bake until strawberries are partially dried, about 45 minutes. Let cool, the chop (they’ll be sticky).  Divide into 3/4 and 1/4 portions.  Set aside 1/4 for the frosting.
  2. Grease (use your use butter wrapper) two 9-inch cake pans and set aside.
  3. Sift together the cake flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.  Set Aside.  In a small bowl (I also like to use a 2 C pyrex liquid measuring cup), whisk together eggs and vanilla.
  4. Using a mixer  (standing or hand) on medium speed, beat the butter until creamy.  Beat-in the sugar slowly over the course of 3-minutes.  Beat- in egg-and-vanilla mixture one egg-at-a-time.
  5. Reduce speed on mixer to low and mix-in flour and buttermilk in three parts, beginning and ending with the flour.
  6. Gently fold-in strawberries by hand.  Distribute batter into pans and bake in middle rack of oven for 25-30 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes up clean.
  7. Once out of the oven, allow cakes to cool on rack for 10 minutes.  Carefully un-mold and allow to cool completely.

for the frosting 

Ingredients

  • remaining chopped roasted strawberries from cake recipe
  • 5 large egg whites
  • 1 C plus 2 TBS sugar (superfine)
  • pinch of salt
  • 16 ounces (1 pound, 4 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temp, cut into tablespoons
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 2 TBS balsamic vinegar

Directions

  1. Add balsamic vinegar to reserved strawberries, puree mixture and set-aside.
  2. In the heat-proof bowl of a stand-mixer, combine egg-whites, sugar and salt.  Set over a pan of simmering water and whisk constantly by hand until the mixture is warm to the touch and the sugar has dissolved.  The temp on an instant-read thermometer should read between 150-160 F.
  3. Attached the bowl to the stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment.  Starting on low speed, and gradually increasing to medium-high speed, beat until the mixture is fluffy and glossy and completely cool (you can tell by touching the side of the bowl).  Process will take about 10 minutes.
  4. With mixer on medium-speed, add the butter a few tablespoons at-a-time, mixing well between each addition.  At some point the frosting will start to look curdled.  Don’t worry, just keep on going.
  5. Switch to the paddle attachment.  Add-in vanilla and strawberry puree and incorporate with paddle on low. Scrape-down sides and mix until frosting is completely smooth.
  6. Frost cake as desired. Enjoy and try not to think about how much butter is in the frosting.