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After a bit of tinkering, I'm ready to open the new domain to the public!  Do note that it is not finished!  I am going through all 90+ posts, fixing some problems with the text, as well as adding printer friendly PDF recipes to some posts.  I'm also still looking for a nice header image but haven't found one yet.  Anyway, please join me over at:

The Sweetest Kitchen!

The Cupcake Review Moves On...

This is just a heads up post - The Cupcake Review will soon be moving to its own domain, as well as changing its name.  Expect this to happen within the next 1-2 weeks.  I hope this doesn't inconvenience anyone - I know quite a few of you have linked to me and there are over 100 subscribers to this site, so I apologize, but I think it's time to expand this website a bit more than what Blogger allows!  :)

Thank you so much for staying with me!

Shortbread Cookies

I thought it was a huge coincidence that the very day I had planned on making shortbread cookies, Cakespy posted a Salute To Shortbread!  My mom's birthday is early next week and she likes shortbread.  I thought it'd be a nice treat for her to have some homemade shortbread cookies, so I chose the Classic Shortbread recipe from Martha Stewart's COOKIES book.

I didn't have a 10" fluted tart pan, or any 10" pan whatsoever, so I did something a little different; I lightly pressed the dough into the bottoms of my mini bundt cake pan.  The pan has 12 mini bundt cake molds in it.

They turned out pretty cute!  They're very delicate and very buttery.  With the first batch to go in the bundt pan, I forgot to refrigerate the dough.  When I tasted a cookie from that batch after I took them out of the oven, I didn't like it one bit.  I was quite disappointed, but the rest of the batches I kept the dough refrigerated.  Oddly enough, I liked the cookies with the refrigerated dough.  I don't know what the refrigeration changed about the taste of the cookie, but I'd just like to remind everyone, don't forget to refrigerate the dough!

Classic Shortbread

makes 8 wedges

2 cups all purpose flour

1 1/4 teaspoons coarse salt

2 sticks unsalted butter at room temperature, plus more for the pan

3/4 cup confectioners' sugar

Preheat oven to 300 degrees, with rack in upper third of oven. Sift flour and salt into a bowl; set aside. Put butter into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium-high speed until light and fluffy - 3 to 5 minutes. Gradually add sugar; beat until pale and fluffy, about 2 minutes. 

Reduce speed to low. Add flour to mixture all at once; mix until just combined. 

Butter a 10 inch round springform pan or cake pan. Using plastic wrap, press dough evenly into pan. With plastic on dough, refrigerate 20 minutes. 

Cut dough into 8 wedges with a paring knife. Using a wooden skewer, prick all over at 1/4 inch intervals. 

Bake until golden brown and firm in center, about 1 hour. Transfer pan to a wire rack. Re-cut shortbread into wedges; let cool completely in pan.

Hot Cocoa With Matcha Whipped Cream

I've been wanting a good cup of hot cocoa with a big dollop of whipped cream for a while now.  So to remedy that, I came up with a variation of this delicious matcha cocoa recipe.

First, I made up half a batch of this hot cocoa mix recipe from Martha Stewart.

Second, I whipped up some matcha whipped cream (recipe courtesy of Boulder Tea):

5 ounces heavy cream
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon matcha powder

In a large bowl beat heavy cream and sugar with an electric mixer with the whisk attachment until it is stiff. Then add the matcha and mix well.

Now, my matcha powder ended up mostly in little round balls in my whipped cream, even despite the fact that I sifted it into the whipped cream.  No matter though, it was just as tasty.

The matcha whipped cream melted into a foamy layer on top of the hot cocoa.  It was pure perfection!

The recipe for the shortbread cookies in the above photo can be found here.

Bittersweet Chocolate Brownies

I have become a frequent visitor to TasteSpotting.com.  There are so many different types of lovely and amazing food on the website, I just start drooling every time I go there!  This was where I found the recipe for bittersweet chocolate brownies.

To start at the beginning, I received a couple of bars of Ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate in a chocolate haul I got for Valentine's Day from my husband.  I searched through my cookbooks and online to find a recipe using bittersweet chocolate, but most used semisweet.  I began to crave brownies over the past couple of days and just today came across the recipe for bittersweet chocolate brownies (from Slow Like Honey), via TasteSpotting.com.

The baker, Amanda, at Slow Like Honey, claimed that these brownies were the best ever, and when I read that, I knew this was the recipe I would use my bittersweet chocolate for.  They looked too tempting to pass by.

I did do a couple of things differently from the posted recipe, which is originally from Alice Medrich’s book Pure Dessert.  I used a double boiler to melt the chocolate and butter, instead of sitting the bowl of chocolate and butter in simmering water and I used parchment paper to line the pan instead of aluminum foil.  I think that my brownies are just a touch under-baked, although I went about 2-3 minutes over the recommended baking time, but I'd rather have under-baked brownies than over-baked brownies.  I think my brownies are just extra gooey, but that makes them all the better, right?

Unfortunately, I don't have any vanilla ice cream, or any ice cream at all for that matter, but I do think a scoop of vanilla ice cream would compliment a square of these brownies perfectly.  They taste really nice, and I can assure you that I will definitely be making these again.

Banana Cupcakes With Caramel Buttercream

The first cupcakes I decided to try from February 2009's issue of Martha Stewart Living were the banana cupcakes with caramel buttercream.

And they are really yummy!  The cupcakes: they ended up more muffin-like in texture than I expected; they are soft and moist; they did not rise much while baking; they have an extreme banana taste; they don't need frosting on them, they taste amazing.  The frosting: was a little bit daunting, seeing as how there are so many steps, but was actually quite easy as I went along; is actually a caramel Swiss meringue buttercream; is best prepared with a stand mixer; tastes beautiful.

Just a tip for the buttercream... the directions say to make the caramel first.  I had read on the comments section of the recipe that the caramel becomes hard by the time you add it to the buttercream, which is the very last step.  Of course you want the caramel to be cool, but you also don't want to hard bits of caramel in your frosting.  What I did was stir the caramel occasionally as I went through the steps and kept it near, but not on, the burner I had cooked it on, to keep it a little bit runnier.  It was quite cool by the time I added it to the buttercream, but chunks of caramel still formed in the buttercream.  This was basically solved by just beating with the mixer at a speed higher and beating for a little bit longer, although there were still a few caramel chunks.  Personally, I don't mind them, however - this caramel is simply dreamy!

And one other tip - the more caramel buttercream you put on the cupcakes, the better!  The banana and caramel combination is a lovely taste.

Recipes at marthastewart.com - banana cupcakes and caramel buttercream.

Iron Cupcake Earth: Coffee

This month's Iron Cupcake: Earth challenge has been pretty hard for me. See, I love coffee and normally have two cups a day. The problem is though, that since becoming pregnant I don't like coffee anymore! It's really crazy. Through all my three pregnancies I have had at least one strong food aversion with each one - 1) eggs; 2) pepperoni; 3) coffee.  But since I didn't enter last month's Iron Cupcake: Earth challenge, I tried to overcome my coffee aversion to make a hazelnut mocha cupcake.

The cupcake is a mocha cupcake, made with strong coffee and a scattering of ground coffee.  It is filled with straight Nutella.  The frosting is my Nutella coffee frosting that has been featured at Cupcakes Take The Cake.  The cupcake is finished off with a hazelnut, dipped in chocolate by my own self.

Do these taste like a hazelnut mocha?  They do.  A very rich hazelnut mocha!  The Nutella filling may have been a bit much.  The coffee taste isn't very strong in the cupcake, and you cannot feel the crunchiness of the ground coffee.  The strongest coffee taste comes from the frosting, which smells absolutely gorgeous.  The cupcake itself is just a teensy bit dry, but very chocolatey.

Our February ETSY PRIZE-PACK is from artists:

• DIANAEVANS - http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5599270
• as well as a pair of cupcake earrings from LOTS OF SPRINKLES at http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6057281.
• PLUS, IronCupcake:Earth can not forget our good friend, CAKESPY, http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5243382, who is now going to be doing a piece for our winner each month until further notice - sweet!

As an added bonus for February, SWEET CUPPIN CAKES BAKERY AND CUPCAKERY SUPPLY will be tossing in a variety of cupcaking supplies, http://www.acupcakery.com/index.html.

Last and certainly not least, don’t forget our corporate prize providers: HEAD CHEFS by FIESTA PRODUCTS,http://www.fiestaproducts.com, HELLO CUPCAKE by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson, http://blog.hellocupcakebook.com, JESSIE STEELE APRONS http://www.jessiesteele.com; TASTE OF HOME books, http://www.tasteofhome.com; a t-shirt from UPWITHCUPCAKES.COM http://www.upwithcupcakes.com/. Iron Cupcake:Earth is sponsored in part by 1-800-Flowers,http://www.1800flowers.com.

Now, on to the recipes.

Mocha Cupcakes
makes 12

Ingredients:

2 eggs

1/2 cup cold brewed coffee

1/2 cup canola oil

3 teaspoons cider vinegar

3 teaspoons vanilla extract

1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup sugar

1/3 cup baking cocoa

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground coffee

Method:

In a large bowl, beat the eggs, coffee, oil, vinegar and vanilla until well blended. In a small bowl, combine the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda and salt; gradually beat into coffee mixture until blended.

Fill paper-lined muffin cups three-fourths full. Bake at 350° for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pan to a wire rack to cool. 

Nutella Coffee Frosting
makes enough to frost 12 cupcakes

Ingredients:
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
4 tablespoons Nutella
3 cups powdered sugar
2-4 tablespoons milk
2 teaspoons instant coffee granules
1 teaspoon vanilla

Method:

In a small bowl, combine 1 tablespoon milk with 1 teaspoon instant coffee and stir until coffee is dissolved.  It may help to dissolve the coffee if you warm the milk in the microwave, just be sure to cool it off afterwards in the fridge before adding to the frosting.

In a separate bowl, combine butter, Nutella, powdered sugar, vanilla, and the 2 tablespoons coffee-milk mixture.  Mix well with electric mixer, adding more milk as needed to make a fluffy spreadable/pipeable frosting.

Updated the next day: I just had one of these cupcakes without the Nutella filling and I enjoyed it much more.  The Nutella filling was just a bit too much for me.  I'd recommend that if you make these to not fill them with Nutella, but ultimately that choice is up to you!  :)