Three Berry Buckle

I’m not going to lie, I considered a lot of puns to title this post, things like “buckle up,” or “get ready to loosen your...” but I ultimately decided against it. Not that I don’t love a good (or bad) pun, as the case may be, but memorializing it seemed like perhaps a bad idea, and so here we are.

If you’ve never had a buckle before, stop what you’re doing (ok, stop once you’re done reading this post and the recipe), and go make a buckle. A buckle is sort of a cross between a cobbler, a cake, a pie, and maybe a crisp. It takes all of the best elements of each, resulting in a soft, super moist cake. I would say it’s almost pudding like, but that really doesn’t do it justice. The buckle is topped with sort of a crispy sugar crust, making it even better.

The recipe I use is adapted from an old Gourmet. My mom has actually been making it for about as long as I can remember. Her advice when I went to make it was this “Bad fruit = bad buckle,” which is absolutely true. The original recipe calls for nectarines and blueberries, but almost anything will work. Ideally you want something with a sort of concentrated flavor. Most stone fruits (nectarines, peaches, etc) are great, as are all kinds of berries. I’ve never tried it with apples or pears, but I bet they would work in a pinch. One of the reviewers on epicurious mentioned having made one with strawberries and rhubarb. Given the early spring season, I went the berry route, and made one with strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries, which are always a solid choice if you can find good ones.

What I can say for sure is that the people I made this for couldn’t stop telling me how good it was. Maybe they were just being polite, but I suspect otherwise...

Fruit Buckle

Makes 9 x 13 pan worth

For filling:

1 cup + 2 T (2 ¼ sticks) unsalted butter, softened

1 cup + 2 T sugar

1 ½ tsp vanilla

3/8 tsp baking powder

2 cups AP flour

¾ tsp salt

4 large eggs

4-5 cups mixed fruit

For topping:

¾ stick COLD unsalted butter, cut into chunks

¾ cups sugar

½ cup AP flour

¾ tsp cinnamon

¾ tsp nutmeg

1. Preheat oven to 350. Butter a 9x13 cake pan or pyrex baking dish.

2. Start by making the topping. In the bowl of a food processor, briefly pulse together the flour, sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Add the cold butter, and pulse until mixture resembles a coarse grain. Put the topping in the fridge while you make the rest of the buckle.

3. In a large bowl (or the bowl of a standing mixer) cream together the butter and the sugar until fluffy. Beat in vanilla.

4. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

5. With the mixer on medium speed, alternate adding the flour, and the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.

6. Fold in the fruit. Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Sprinkle the topping liberally over the top of the cake. It might look like you’re putting it on thickly, but remember it melts in the oven, the more you add, the ticker and crunchier a crust you get.

7. Bake for 45-50 minutes, or until the cake is golden on top, and the fruit juice is bubbling up the sides. Check it as you’re going, and if it looks like the top is burning, tent it with tinfoil.

8. Serve warm, with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

Strawberry and Champagne Cupcakes

One of the associates at work hosted a potluck over the weekend, so inevitably I volunteered to bring cupcakes (in fact, it was a bake off between this associate and myself, and I’m fairly certain her cupcakes won, but that shouldn’t be further spoken of). I decided to go for the expimental, and came up with the idea of strawberry and white-chocolate cupcakes with a champagne frosting. Thinking myself quite original, I went searching the internet for a cake recipe to use, when I came upon this. Having found it, I used Cupcake Project’s strawberry cupcakes recipe, but with a few modifications. I changed the frosting over to my champagne meringue. And for the cakes, I added white chocolate chips. To increase the strawberry flavor, I also added powdered strawberry to the cake recipe. I can’t say for sure if this made a difference, other than adding some nice color, but I have a feeling it made the cakes a little stronger. To make strawberry powder, I got some freeze-dried strawberries from Trader Joe’s, which I then crushed into a powder.

When I baked these, I followed the instructions, let them bake for 20 minutes, put in a tester, and took them out of the oven. I let them cool, and decided to eat one, only to discover that it was raw in the center. Panicked, I put the cupcakes back in the oven for about another 10 minutes. They did eventually get fully baked, and for the next bath I increased the time. Nonetheless, I would test multiple cakes before taking these guys out of the oven. I didn’t have any cake flour here in DC, so I used all purpose in its place without a problem.

Strawberry Cupcakes

Makes 24 cupcakes

2 ½ C cake flour

1 tsp baking soda

¼ tsp salt

½ C (1 stick) unsalted butter

1 ½ C sugar

5 T powdered strawberries (see above for details)

2 large eggs

1/3 C buttermilk

¼ C canola oil

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 C finely chopped fresh strawberries

12 oz. white chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl, sift together the cake flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

2. In a large bowl, cream butter, sugar, and strawberry powder with an electric mixer.

3. Add eggs. Mix until smooth and creamy. Add buttermilk, oil and vanilla. Mix until combined.

4. Add flour mixture to butter mixture. Mix until just combined.

5. Stir in strawberries and white chocolate chips.

6. Fill cupcake liners using a quarter cup measure (half to two-thirds full). Bake at 350 F for 25-30 minutes, or until tops are golden and testers come out clean. Let cool.

Champagne Meringue Frosting

6 T egg white Powder

2/3 cup extra-dry Champagne

1/4-1/2 cup granulated sugar (to taste)

1. Measure ¾ of champagne (this can be tricky because of the foam). Pour the egg white powder into a large bowl, and add the champagne. Use an electric mixer at high speed to whip the mixture until it becomes foamy. Add the sugar two Tbs at a time (until the taste gets where you like it) and beat until the meringue forms stiff peaks.

2. Frost cupcakes, lightly torch frosting with a culinary torch, or under the broiler.

Pineapple Cupcakes

I got the chance to bake again this weekend, and decided I wanted to make something on the summery-fruity side. I thought pineapple cupcakes might be an interesting twist. Some google searches revealed a lot of recipes for pineapple upside down cakes, but not a lot of straightforward pineapple cake recipes. Eventually I found a recipe for pineapple Bundt cake on Genesis of a Cook that I thought looked good, and decided to try it. Instead of going with a traditional frosting, I decided to make a caramel-rum glaze for the cupcakes. The glaze was good, but only really stayed on the tops of the cupcakes for maybe 30 minutes. After that it really just soaked in. These cupcakes were moist and dense, and I thought very tasty. I thought they were best within a day or two of baking,

Pineapple Cupcakes

Makes about 24 cupcakes

2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 cup butter, softened
1 ½ cups sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. salt
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 egg whites
2 tsp. lemon zest
1 (16 ounce) can crushed pineapple, undrained

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Whisk together the flour and the baking powder.

2. In a large mixing bowl cream together the butter and sugar until fluffy. Add the cinnamon, salt, eggs and zest, beat until thoroughly combined. Fold in flour. Stir in pineapple and juice.

3. Fill cupcake liners with a ¼ cup measure. Bake for 17-20 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean. Let cool.

Caramel-Rum Glaze

½ cup(1 stick) unsalted butter 

¼ cup water 

1 cup sugar 

½ cup dark rum

1. Melt the butter over medium heat in a saucepan. Add the water and sugar, stir until combined, and bring to a boil. Boil for 5-7 minutes, until it just begins to turn a caramel color.

2. Remove from heat. Carefully pour in the rum – be careful, it will steam and bubble.

3. Let the glaze cool until thickened. Spoon over the cupcakes. 

Sushi?

I don’t know why, but when I first read the recipe for chocolate ribbons in Bakewise the first thought my mind went to was “you could use that to make dessert suishi.” And so I set out to try it. This “sushi” is composed of malleable chocolate, rolled around a filling of coconut rice, mangos, pineapple, and kiwi. I topped it off with mango “caviar” in an attempt to complete the tromp l’oie effect. I have to say, making this was a whole lot of work. I’d never made malleable chocolate before, but it is not the easiest thing to use, specifically rolling it out is challenging, expect to get a good work out. I did think this tasted really good, when you first bite in the fruit and rice hit your mouth, followed by the taste of the chocolate. The recipe here is largely a guide, as these could be filled with almost anything, and a pretty wide variety of fruits would be good. I have cut the recipe for coconut rice in half from what I used, as it made way more than I needed. I would also recommend adding some flaked, sweetened coconut to the rice after it is cooked (or maybe just some coconut extract), as I didn’t think the coconut flavor came through as much as I’d like.

Making the mango caviar was my first experiment with “spherification” – turning liquids into spheres. I used agar agar for this spherification, rather than the more complicated chemicals used for dishes like liquid ravioli. This method has the disadvantage of turning the spheres into solid gel all the way through, but the advantage of using an ingredient that can be found in most health food stores and Asian markets, and doesn’t cost an absurd amount. I have read a number of recipes on this technique, and I’m not sure if you’re supposed to bring the agar agar mixture to a boil or not, I did. One recipe also said to blitz the mixture with an immersion blender, which I didn’t bother with. This was a mistake, as many of the agar agar flakes didn’t dissolve, resulting a weaker gel, and the occasional chunk of agar agar. I will definitely experiment with this technique again. I didn’t bother using a hypodermic needle to make my spheres, I just dripped the juice from a measuring cup. I also tried using a pastry bag, but attempts so squeeze near boiling liquid did not go well.

Coconut Sticky Rice

2 t flavorless oil (canola, vegetable)

1 cup Thai jasmine Rice

1 cup coconut milk

¾ cup water 

¼ tsp salt

1 T brown sugar

1. Use a paper towel to oil the bottom of a medium pot. Combine all ingredients in the pot over medium high heat. Bring mixture to a boil, stirring constantly, making sure to scrape the bottom.

2. Once the mixture begins to bubble, stop stirring, turn heat down to low, and cover the pot with a lid. Leave the lid slightly askew so that some steam can escape. Cook 15-20 minutes, until rice has absorbed all of the liquid.

3. Turn off the heat, but leave the pot on the burner and let rest for 5-10 minutes.

4. Remove the rice from the heat, and let cool COMPLETELY. If you want to use the rice soon, you might spread it in a baking pan or put it into the fridge or freezer. It is imperative that the rice be cold when you put it into the sushi, otherwise it will melt through your carefully rolled sushi, and cursing will ensue!

 

Mango Caviar

1 cup mango juice

1 T agar agar flakes* 

1-2 cups very cold (preferably from the freezer), neutral oil (such as vegetable or canola)

*I used flakes, because that is what my store had. The package had the 1 to 1 ratio on it, if you have a different form of agar (such as powder) check your packaging for the appropriate ratio. Otherwise, I have read that you want between 1-2% weight of agar to liquid. A cup of juice should take about 2.5 grams of agar.

1. Pour the cold oil into a shallow dish. You want breadth, not depth, you probably need less than an inch of depth.

2. Combine the mango juice and the agar argar. Blitz the mixture with an immersion blender to break up the agar agar. Put the mixture into a small saucepan over medium high heat and bring to a heavy boil.

3. Pour the mixture into a spouted measuring cup. Drip the mixture into the cold oil. You should see your droplets settle on the surface, then sink and turn into spheres after a few moments. How much you drip will determine the size of your spheres.

4. Make as many spheres as you want. Pour the remaining mango mixture into a ramekin and place in the fridge to set as a nice mango jelly. Use a fork to test if your spheres have set (they should be solid and resist the fork. If they haven’t set, place the pan into the freezer for a few minutes.

The caviar may look flat from the top, but from the side you can see they're really spheres

5. Pour the oil and mango caviar through a fine mesh strainer. Rinse the mango caviar with slow running, cold water, to clean off the remaining oil. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Malleable Chocolate Sushi wrappers

This may make more than you need, I only made one “roll” of sushi so I had a lot leftover

10 oz. semisweet chocolate

1/3 cup + ½ tsp light corn syrup (Bakewise recommends pouring this from a measuring cup that has been sprayed with non-stick cooking spray, so that all of it will come out easily. I scraped it out with a spatula)

1. Melt the chocolate in a medium saucepan over low heat. Once the chocolate is melted and smooth, remove from heat.

2. Quickly stir in the corn syrup into the chocolate. At this point you will have a wet, sticky mess. Use your spatula to continuously turn the mixture and fold it over on itself. As the mixture cools and you work it, it will begin to form a dough. Eventually the dough will pull away from the sides, and will no longer be sticky when you touch it (this may take awhile, I would guess it took me ten minutes).

3. Dump the dough onto a clean counter. Flatten the dough out, and fold it over on itself three times. Press it together, flatten it out, and fold it over again. Do this several times. When complete press the dough into about a 6 inch disk, wrap with plastic wrap, and refrigerate several hours or overnight.

4. This is the challenging part. Remove the dough from the fridge. It will be incredibly hard. Put the dough between two pieces of wax paper and begin rolling it out. Bakewise suggests that if the dough is too hard you should give it 10 seconds in the microwave at 30% power, but I didn’t try this. Once you have the dough rolled out, fold it over on itself, and roll it out again. Keep doing this until the dough begins to become reasonably flexible.

5. Bakewise recommends putting the dough through a pasta maker on its widest setting at this point, which turns out to be a remarkably good idea. Just make sure the pasta maker is completely clean, as the chocolate will pick up any dirt in it. Take about a quarter of the chocolate, and run it through the machine. Fold it back on itself, and run it through again. Do this until the chocolate is very flexible. Unfortunately, for a sushi shape, you cannot use the pasta maker, and will need to return to rolling out the chocolate by hand.

6. On a piece of wax paper, roll out your chocolate. It should be considerably easier to work at this point. However, because any flour or powdered sugar will discolor the chocolate, I didn’t use it. Instead, after every roll or two, pick up the parchment paper, and flip the rolled out chocolate onto your hand, (treat it like a pizza dough, and be careful not to let it fold over on itself), and then flip it back onto the wax paper. This will help the keep from getting the chocolate stuck to the paper. Roll the chocolate into roughly a rectangular shape, and use a pizza cutter to trim off any edges. You will not be able to make the chocolate as thin as seaweed, and wouldn’t want to, but try to aim for 4-5 mm at most. Once the chocolate is rolled out, let it rest for at least 5 minutes before using it to make the sushi (I found this made the chocolate a little less prone to breaking when rolled, good time to get the next piece of chocolate ready.

 

Chocolate sushi

Chocolate sushi “wrappers” (above) 

Cold Coconut rice (Must be completely cooled)  

Thinly sliced sticks of mango, pineapple, and kiwi (or whatever fruit you would prefer)  

Mango caviar 

1. Place a chocolate sushi wrapper on a piece of wax paper, oriented so that the longer direction is perpendicular to you (the photos are not oriented this way) 

2. Spread about ½ cup of rice on the chocolate wrapper, spreading the rice all the way to the edge nearest you leaving about an inch at the far end uncovered. 

3. Place the fruit in a line, about an inch from the nearest edge. 

4. Using the wax paper to help, lift the near end of the sushi, and begin to roll it over on itself. Roll it all the way over, trying to keep the roll tight. Press the chocolate together to seal the roll.

5. Immediately transfer the roll to a plate (be careful to support it under the center when moving), and place in the fridge for 5 minutes to let the chocolate firm up. 

6. When ready to cut, take a very sharp, serrated knife, and run it under hot water. Quickly dry the knife, and use it to slice  the roll into individual sushi. Top each piece of sushi with some mango caviar and serve.

Chestnut and Banana Pancakes

A month or so ago I ordered some chestnut flour on a whim from L’Epicerie, largely because they were selling it pretty cheaply. However, I didn’t know what to do with it (although The Cake Bible does have a recipe for a chestnut flour genoise). This morning I decided to make pancakes using it. Aiming for an Italian theme, I used Ricotta as the dairy in the batter and honey as the sweetener. I also added a banana. I thought these pancakes were really good. The batter was very thick because of the ricotta and mashed banana, the ricotta kept the pancakes nice and moist (which is how I like my pancakes), and I thought the chestnut was subtle but present. The recipe is based on my old favorite pancake recipe, which originates from the Tasajara Bread Book.

Chestnut and Banana Pancakes

1 1/3 cups all purpose flour 

2/3 cups chestnut flour 

3 tsp baking powder  

1 tsp salt  

2 T honey 

3 eggs 

1 banana mashed with enough low-fat ricotta to make 1 ½ cups total ½ cup vegetable oil 

Butter for the pan

1. Whisk together the flours, the baking powder, and the salt, set aside

2. Whisk the eggs, add the honey, banana-ricotta mixture, and oil and whisk to combine.

3. Put your pan over medium-high heat and melt the butter. Once the butter is melted quickly fold the dry ingredients into the wet

4. Spoon out pancake batter to make pancakes of whatever size you like. Remember the batter is thick, you may need two spoons.

5. Cook the pancakes 3-4 minutes a side, or until both sides are brown and the pancakes are cooked through. Serve Warm with maple syrup.

Blood Orange Sandwich Cookies

Sorry for the longer than expected delay, but it’s been a really busy week phasing back into the semester. Fortunately I found some time tonight to bake. I had been keeping my eyes open for blood oranges for quite some time, and finally found some the other day. All that was left was to decide what to make. Not having a whole lot of time this weekend I decided to go for something simple, chocolate and almond cookies with blood orange curd filling. For the cookie base I decided to go with a shortbread base, with mini-chocolate chips mixed in. 

I thought these cookies were good, but a little gooey. The shortbread was very crispy, and so the filling tends to squirt out when you bite down. The filling was good, but not the strongest blood orange flavor in the world, I think one of the oranges I used was a little on the weak side. UPDATED: these cookies taste a lot better if you store them in the fridge for awhile, the curd stays firmer, and so doesn't squeeze out when you bite, and the flavors mingle better.

Almond Chocolate-Chip Shortbread

Makes 40 Sandwiches (80 cookies)

1-1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, softend
1 cup confectioners' sugar
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt1/4 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup ground almonds (I ground about ¾ of a cup of whole, blanched almonds to get this amount)
3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour  

¾ cup miniature chocolate chips

1.  Cream together the butter and the sugars on medium speed until fluffy. Mix in the salt, the extracts, the almonds, the chocolate chips, and the flour. Once the dough starts to come together into medium sized clumps stop the mixer and press the dough together with your hands.

2. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

3. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Take the dough out of the fridge.  Break the dough into two pieces. On a floured surface roll out one of the disks until it is about ¼ inch thick. Use a round cookie cutter, or a glass to cut 1 inch circles out of the dough. Pick up the extra dough, and transfer the circles to the cookie sheets. Roll out the second disk of dough and do the same, then combine the extra pieces of dough and roll it out. Continue rolling out the dough until you have made as many cookies as you can.

5. Bake for 10-13 minutes, or until the edges are just turning golden. Remove from the oven and let cool on the cookie sheets

Blood Orange Curd

½ cup blood orange juice 

2 tsp finely grated blood orange zest 

2 tsp lemon juice 

½ cup sugar 

3 eggs 

½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into cubes

1. In the bowl of a double boiler over medium-high heat, mix all ingredients except for the butter. Whisk constantly until the mixture thickens and the whisk begins to leave a trail (175 degrees on a candy thermometer)

2. Remove from heat and quickly whisk in the butter.

3. Pour the curd into a bowl or baking dish, and press plastic wrap onto the surface. Place into the fridge and refrigerate until it has firmed up.

4. Once the curd is firm, place 1-2 tsp of curd onto the bottom of one cookie, and sandwich with another. Store in an airtight container in a refrigerator.

Inverted Apple Tart Cupcakes

Awhile ago I had the idea that you might be able to replace the wrapper in a cupcake with very thinly sliced apple. I decided I wanted the cupcakes to be some sort of cross between a cake and a tart, and so I used a frangipane based cake recipe I modified from Orangette. The result was something that was sort of like an apple upside down cupcake, and was really delicious. The cake was especially almondy. Overall though, I’m honestly not sure it was worth the trouble, as getting all the apple slices made and the cupcake cups lined with them was a bit of a pain. The almond cake recipe is good enough on its own though that it is certain to show up again. Most of the work in this recipe shows up in the assembly section, I tried to take decent pictures. The cake actually comes together really easily. Use Granny Smith Apples for this recipe, they stay firmer than most others when baked (I tried Golden Delicious on a test cupcake, they just fell apart). To make thin strips out of the apples I used a vegetable peeler. I used this type, except I got a cheap one at Kroger for $1. It’s surprisingly effective, though you should be very careful not to peel your fingers (I’ve done it several times now).

Almond Cake

Makes ~ 9 cupcakes

½ cup flour

½ cup ground almonds, or almond flour/meal*

1 tsp. baking powder

Pinch of salt

8 T (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature

¾ cup sugar2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla extract

2 tsp. almond extract

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Whisk together the flour, ground almonds, baking powder, and salt.

2. Put the butter and sugar in the bowl of a standing mixer, and beat until fluffy. Add the eggs, flour, and extracts and beat until combined.

3. Set the dough aside while preparing the apples.

*You can make almond flour by grinding blanched almonds in a food processor until they reach a sandy consistency (this is what I did). I've been told you should be careful not to overdo it, otherwise you can end up with almond butter. You can also buy almond flour / meal at some grocery stores or specialty stores.

Assembly

2 Granny Smith Apples

1. Peel an apple. Cut the apple into quarters and remove the core. Use the apple peeler to cut very thin strips of apple.

2. Layer the strips around the cupcake pan. Press the apples in hard so that they take the shape of the cup. Make sure the apples overlap, to try to reduce the amount of cake that gets through to get stuck to the pan.

3. Fill each apple lined cup with a little less than a ¼ cup of batter. I recommend using a measuring cup and a spoon to get the batter in. Try to be careful, because once the batter gets in there, you really can’t move it around without messing up the apples.

4. Bake the cupcakes for 17 – 20 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean.

5. Let the cupcakes cool to room temperature on a wire rack. Once they are cooled run a dull knife around the edges of the cupcakes, then invert onto a flat surface. I didn’t frost these, because I thought they were good as is. Store in an airtight container at room temperature.

Pear Sorbet

It’s been a little while since my last update. I can’t claim any particular excuse, I just didn’t around the making anything, or posting anything. I actually made this sorbet about a week ago, it just took me a long time to put it up.

I got the recipe for this pear sorbet from Vanilla Garlic. I changed it a little by cutting the sugar, and replacing some of the pear syrup with Frangelico, but I only used a few tablespoons, which wasn’t enough to make a difference in the flavor, or how it froze. I think the addition is a good idea though, so I would suggest upping the Frangelico if you try this.

Pear Sorbet

Makes ~1 quart

6 Bartlett Pears 

1 vanilla bean 

3 cups sugar 

4 strips of lemon zest 

6 cups of water 

2 Tbs Frangelico

1. Use a vegetable peeler to strip 5 strips of zest off of a lemon. Combine the lemon zest, sugar, and water in a large pot. Cut the vanilla bean in half and scrape the seeds into the water, add the bean.

2. Put the pot on the heat and bring the water up to a boil so that the sugar has dissolved. Reduce the heat to medium.

3. Peal the pears and cut off the bottoms so that they can stand up. Put the pears in the poaching liquid for at least 10 minutes.

4. Remove the pears from water one at a time (do not discard the poaching liquid). Cut the meat from each pear, discarding the stem and core. Put the pears into a food processor or large blender.

5. Puree the pears with 2 cups of the poaching liquid and the Frangelico, (Here is where you can reduce the amount of poaching liquid you add, and increase the amount of Frangelico).

6. Put the mixture into your ice cream maker and freeze according to its instructions. Put the sorbet in the freezer to set, but not for more than an hour or two. Longer than this and you risk it freezing into a solid block.

7. Save the remaining poaching liquid, and use if for something else (it is delicious). In the cake bible, there is a recipe for making pear pastry cream using this type of poaching liquid.

Another Trip to the Orchard

Sorry about the lack of posts of late, I know it’s been over a week since my last. It has been an incredibly busy time for me, I’ve been travelling a lot lately, and had a whole lot of work to do, and just haven’t had the time to bake. Fortunately, my schedule has opened up, and my friend C______ has come to visit. Today we made a trip to the apple orchard, and then made some apple cupcakes. It seems like every time I go to the orchard a cupcake results. These cupcakes were pretty similar to those actually, I made an apple chiffon cake, filled with apple curd, and topped with a spiced whipped cream. These cupcakes tasted really good, but were a bit messy to eat. The curd wasn’t quite firm enough, and so really leaked out when people bit into them. I used muscavado sugar in the cupcakes, which I was hoping would add some depth of flavor, which it did. If you don’t have it, substituting plain granulated is just fine.

I had a little trouble with the curd for these cupcakes. I used my standard curd recipe, but when it went to set it separated, I don’t know why. I ended up putting it back on the heat and adding another egg and more lemon juice. This caused it to come together. My guess is that if everything went in at the start, it would come out fine, and that’s how I’ve listed the recipe. If other people try it and have trouble, I can work on figuring it out, otherwise, there are other recipes for apple curd online.

Apple Cupcakes

Makes 14 cupcakes

1 ½ cups flour
½ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
1 cup muscavado sugar
2 eggs
3/8 cup vegetable oil
½ tsp vanilla
½ tsp lemon zest
½ apple juice (I used Mott’s all natural) 

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. Whisk in the sugar.

2. In a separate bowl beat together the eggs, oil, apple juice, and vanilla

3. Fill cupcake liners with a ¼ cup measure. Bake cupcakes for ~20 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean (the recipe at cupcake bakeshop says to bake for 30 minutes). These cupcakes are very moist, and somewhat sticky on top.

Apple Curd

Makes about a cup

3 egg yolks

1 whole egg 

¾ cup sugar

½ cup apple juice (I used Mott’s all natural) 

¾ tsp lemon

3 Tbs butter, cut into chunks

1. Whisk together the egg yolks, sugar, Apple Juice, and lemon juice. Place the mixture over a double boiler and begin heating.

2. Stirring constantly, heat the mixture until it is hot to the touch, or 170 degrees F on a candy thermometer. Make sure you don’t let the mixture get to boiling.

3. Remove the mixture from the heat, and let it sit for 30 seconds. Stir the butter into the curd until it melts. Put the curd into the fridge to let it set.

Spiced Whipped Cream

Makes more than you need

2 cups whipping cream 

¾ cups powdered sugar 

¾ tsp cinnamon 

½ tsp fresh ground nutmeg

1. Using a chilled bowl and beaters, beat the whipped cream and the powdered sugar until stiff peaks begin to form.

2. Add the cinnamon and nutmeg. Beat to combine, scrape down the sides and beat to combine again. Refrigerate until using, and re-whip right before using.

Assembly

1. Use a knife to cut a cone in the top of the cake. Cut off the bottom of the cone.

2. Fill the hole with apple curd, place the top of the cone back over the hole.

3. Frost with whipped cream.

Peachy Keen

I still had lots of peaches left over after making the peach cupcakes from my last post (I picked pounds of the things). However, I had to decide on something to do with them. I considered pies, cobblers, and crisps, but I wasn’t feeling inspired. They also all required ingredients that I didn’t have in my kitchen, and I didn’t want to go shopping. Eventually I was struck by inspiration, peach ice cream. The result was this post, a spiced peach ice cream, that I think is quite tasty. I based my recipe on a recipe I found online for peach brown sugar ice cream (if you search for peach brown sugar ice cream, the same recipe comes up over and over posted on a variety of websites). However, instead of brown sugar, I used muscovado, which I thought added some depth of flavor that would have been lacking otherwise. If you can’t find or don’t want to bother with muscovado, use dark brown sugar.

Spiced Peach Ice Cream

Makes 1 Quart

4 peaches, pureed or finely diced*
1 ¼ cup muscovado, firmly packed
1 Tbs lemon juice
1 ½ cups whole milk
3 eggs beaten
2 tsp vanilla paste
1 tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp ground nutmeg
1/8 tsp ground ginger
1 ½ cups whipping cream

*I pureed the peaches in my food processor with their skins on, and then sieved the mixture to remove whatever didn’t puree. If you are finely dicing the peaches, you should probably skin them first

1. Put the peaches, ½ cup of the sugar, and the lemon juice in a bowl. Whisk to combine. Cover and place in the fridge.

2. In the bowl of a double boiler set over medium heat, mix the eggs, the remaining sugar, the whole milk, the vanilla, and the spices. Whisk the mixture continuously, until it thickens enough to cover the back your spoon or reaches 175 degrees on a candy thermometer. Once it gets to that phase, immediately remove from heat.

3. Slowly whisk in the whipping cream. Then whisk it all into the peach mixture. Let chill in the fridge, and freeze according to your ice cream maker’s directions.

Peaches for Me

One of the things I get to take advantage of while I’m in Virginia is the proximity of fresh peaches. In Chicago, the only place to find them is the grocery store, but here, you can go pick them yourself. So today I took some friends and went peach picking at a local orchard. It was great, I brought home pounds of fresh peaches. With some of them, I decided to make peach cupcakes. I wanted to use the same basic recipe that I used for the cantaloupe cupcakes, but with peach in place of the melon. I tried to make burnt caramel frosting again, but apparently didn’t burn my caramel quite enough, it was still good, but not as good as the time I made the cantaloupe cupcakes. Interestingly, these cupcakes were not nearly as sticky as the cantaloupe cupcakes. I haven’t actually tried the cupcakes yet, but I will update this with a review of the cupcakes once I’ve actually eaten some.

Update: My friends and I ate these last night at an Olympics party (if you didn't watch them, the opening ceremonies were pretty cool), and they got positive reviews from everybody. The frosting was just slightly salty, and complemented the peachyness of the cupcake and curd filling well. If you want something that is super peachy, eat a peach, but these will do in just fine for a peach cupcake.

Peach Cupcakes (I used the cake recipe from Cupcake Bakeshop)

Makes 15 cupcakes

1 ½ cups flour
½ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
3/8 cup vegetable oil
½ tsp vanilla
½ tsp lemon zest
½ cup pureed peach
¾ cup diced peaches

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. Whisk in the sugar.

2. In a separate bowl beat together the eggs, oil, and vanilla.

3. Add the wet to the dry ingredients and beat to combine. The batter will be very dry at this point, don’t worry.

4. Whisk in the pureed peach. Fold in the diced peach.

5. Fill cupcake liners with a ¼ cup measure. Bake cupcakes for ~20 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean (the recipe at cupcake bakeshop says to bake for 30 minutes). These cupcakes are very moist, and somewhat sticky on top.

Peach Curd

Makes about a cup

3 egg yolks
¾ cup sugar
½ cup peach puree
½ tsp lemon
3 Tbs butter, cut into chunks

1. Whisk together the egg yolks, sugar, peach puree, and lemon juice. Place the mixture over a double boiler and begin heating.

2. Stirring constantly, heat the mixture until it is hot to the touch, or 170 degrees F on a candy thermometer. Make sure you don’t not let the mixture get to boiling.

3. Remove the mixture from the heat, and let it sit for 30 seconds. Stir the butter into the curd until it melts. Put the curd into the fridge to let it set.

Salted Caramel Frosting (also from the Cupcake Bakeshop)

Makes 3-4 cups

4 Tbs water
1 cup sugar
2 Tbs light corn syrup
½ cup heavy cream
2 Tbs butter
½ tsp lemon juice
½ tsp salt
2 sticks unsalted butter (softened)
8 oz. fat free cream cheese

3 cups powdered sugar

3 cups powdered sugar (the bakeshop recipe uses 5-6 cups, but I thought three was plenty.

1. Stir together the water, sugar and corn syrup in a deep saucepan, and cook covered over medium heat for three minutes

2. Turn the heat up to medium high and bring the mixture to a boil. You should no longer stir the caramel, but you can shake it to ensure even heating (I tried shaking to no effect.

3. Cook until the caramel turns an even amber color (to make it burnt, let at least some of the caramel turn dark brown, see the picture below to see what mine looked like). Remove the caramel from the heat and let it sit for 30 seconds.

4. THIS PART IS DANGEROUS. Wearing oven mitts and standing back, pour in the heavy cream. The caramel will bubble up a lot. Carefully stir in the 2 Tbs butter, lemon juice, and salt.

5. Pour off the caramel into a bowl, and let it sit until it is cooled and thickened. At least 20-30 minutes.

6. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat together the cream cheese and two sticks of butter until fluffy. Beat in the powdered sugar until fully combined. Then beat in the caramel until fully combined.

Assembly

Using the cone method, fill each cupcake with ~ 2 tsp of peach curd. Frost the cupcakes with the salted caramel frosting, and top with a wedge of peach.