This week I decided to try something that wasn’t sweet. I’ve always been a fan of soft pretzels, and the recipe didn’t seem too complicated. But as I was looking at it, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what made it a pretzel versus a twisted breadstick. I soon found out.

The recipe started with warm water, sugar and yeast, which was left alone for five minutes to get frothy:

Then, flour and salt were added and stirred in:

This was gathered into a ball and put in a greased bowl to rise for 30 minutes. Once it had risen, it was turned out onto a floured surface and kneaded a bit:

The dough was then divided into pieces and formed into the familiar pretzel shapes. Baking soda and water were whisked together and each pretzel was dunked into the mixture. They were then placed on a greased baking sheet and coarse salt was sprinkled over them:

The pretzels were then baked for about 17 minutes, rotated once during baking. When the timer went off, they came out looking like this:

It worked! And they actually tasted like pretzels! That little dip they took in the baking soda and water mixture is what turned them brown and made them taste like pretzels. The pretzel in the photo that is white is one that I missed when I was dunking them. And it baked just fine, but tasted more like bread than a pretzel.

My only issue with the pretzels was that they didn’t hold up so well the next day. These are definitely a bake-n-eat on the same day kind of baked good. But man they were good that evening.

Stay tuned for next week. I’m not sure exactly what I’ll be making yet. Rob and I just got back in this evening from a wedding in New York and I haven’t had a chance to pour over my cookbooks yet!

Let me start off by saying that I LOVE Framboise. It is quite possibly the most perfect alcohol ever created. I am not a beer fan, but there’s something about that raspberry flavored goodness. Mix it with some ice and ginger ale, and I am a happy woman.

So I got really excited thinking about how I could incorporate Framboise into frosting. I couldn’t find an established recipe for it online, so I just went with a buttercream frosting and winged it. The cupcake part was pretty easy. I found a raspberry cupcake recipe online and followed it. The recipe began by combining cake flour, all-purpose flour, baking powder and salt, and then adding two sticks of butter that have been cut into one inch cubes:

Now that I’ve made these, if I ever make them again, I will know to cut the butter even smaller. Basically when you’re finished with the batter, you end up with chunks of butter (because you don’t cream it prior to mixing it into the flour). The chunks of butter melt into the cupcake, which is nice, but it’s kind of messy. The cups on my cupcake tin had a layer of butter in the bottom even though I baked the cupcakes in papers. Surprisingly, they’re not the least bit soggy, but they are quite delicate.

Once the butter was mixed into the flour mixture just until the butter was coated, milk, eggs, raspberry yogurt and vanilla extract were whisked together in a bowl:

(I feel like this would make an AWESOME batter for French Toast. Note to self: Try this sometime.)

This mixture was added to the flour/butter mixture in three parts. Once it was just incorporated, a little over a cup of fresh raspberries were added, and the mixture was poured into cupcake cups:

These were baked for 25 minutes, during which time I started on the Framboise Frosting. This was a pretty standard buttercream frosting recipe, which included one softened stick of butter which was creamed in the mixer. A cup of powdered sugar was added in until it was creamy. At this point, I changed the recipe up a bit. I added vanilla extract, milk and the Framboise. Once this was incorporated, I added more and more powdered sugar until it resembled frosting:

I loaded up a pastry bag and star tip with the frosting and went to work:

Alas, my frosting wasn’t quite thick enough. I added so much powdered sugar to that mixture, and it never really got any thicker than this. So a lot of my cupcakes have frosting dripping over the edge. It’s all good though. I popped those babies in the fridge and the frosting hardened up on the spot. So no more gooey mess. That frosting tastes AMAZING though. I almost made myself sick eating it. I just. Couldn’t. Stop.
These cupcakes are pretty good. I only had two (one tester to make sure they were baked all the way through and another with the frosting). I am still not the biggest fan of berries. I somehow ALWAYS manage to take a bite and crunch a seed right in my teeth. It’s a very unsettling feeling eating something soft and then crunching a seed. I’m the only person I know with this issue. I’m sure my co-workers will devour them:

Next week I’ll be baking on Thursday morning. Rob and I are driving to New Jersey Friday for a friend’s wedding over the weekend and I plan to bake something cookie-ish that we can eat in the car. I’m not sure yet what it will be. I will have to do some research and pour over my cookbooks to find the most suitable item!

CupcakeCampColumbus is coming! It’s going to dominate!

CupcakeCampColumbus is an event designed for the cupcake fanatics among us; those who love to eat them and those who love to make them! It’s an opportunity to bring together a group of creative bakers and decorators, as well as to unite legions of the tiny treats with their adoring public. In addition, CCC is a chance for Columbus’ professional cupcake bakers to get out of their own kitchens and to enjoy the ingenuity of amateurs from all over our fair state.

CCC is hosted by myself and Carmen Owens of Surly Girl Saloon. It will be held Saturday, May 9th at Surly Girl Saloon, 1126 N. High Street in Columbus.

“CupcakeCamp is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and eat cupcakes in an open environment,” according to CupcakeCamp.org. A descendant of BarCamp, they have taken place all over the world, with the most recent being CapitalCupcakeCamp, a veritable blowout in Ottawa, Canada.

We’re keeping it small and sassy with the first Columbus event, but are excited about the potential to make this even bigger and better if all goes well! Here’s what else you need to know:

~If You’re A Cupcake Eater~

Our CupcakeCamp will be broken into two identical sessions with at least 20 different cupcake possibilities; one from 2-3pm and a second from 3:30-4:30pm.

Tickets for either session will be available for sale in person at Surly Girl Saloon, starting Friday, April 17 at 11am for $5 each. Cash only, please. There will be a limited number of tickets available for both sessions, so be sure to buy ‘em early!

This is an all-you-can-eat style event. So be sure to sample all the goodies!

Proceeds from ticket sales will be donated to the MidOhio Food Bank.

~If You’re A Confirmed Cupcake Baker~

Bakers will receive a reply with a request to confirm via email shortly before Tuesday, May 5. If a confirmation e-mail is not received from bakers by Tuesday, May 5, they will be refused entry into CupcakeCampColumbus. (The horror! Please don’t make us reject your precious cupcakes!)

There is no registration fee for bakers, in exchange for the chance to try their lovely creations. (Thanks, bakers!) However, all bakers must register their cupcakes.

CupcakeCampColumbus politely requires that at least two dozen of each flavor registered for public tasting, and an additional dozen (so that’s three dozen total) of any flavor submitted for judging, be brought to the Surly Girl Saloon by 1pm on the day of the event.

We will be cutting the cupcakes into halves (maybe quarters) so we can provide a larger quantity of samples. Don’t worry, we’ll leave one of your cuties whole so the crowd (and the judges) can see how it looks! If you’d prefer, you have the option of baking mini cupcakes! If you do bake minis, we will need FOUR dozen (FIVE if they’re being judged).

If you have a regular sized cupcake that you absolutely do not want cut, please let us know and we will leave it be.

Our panel of judges (for those bakers who have opted to enter the judging) will be a delicious combination of fellow cupcake lovers/creators from Pistacia Vera, Bakery Gingham, Suisse Shop Bakery, Pink Moon Cupcakes, and Pattycake Vegan Bakery. And maybe a few surprise guests, too!

xo,
CupcakeCampColumbus

Do you think I’m ready for “The Next Food Network Star”?

Next week is still a toss-up that will be decided tomorrow. It will either be an apple pie or Raspberry Cupcakes with Framboise Frosting. (I’m testing recipes for CupcakeCampColumbus. What’s that you ask? Only the greatest gathering of cupcake enthusiasts in Columbus ever! More details can be found here!)

I meant to post this yesterday, but it totally slipped my mind. Anyway, this week was kind of my cheat week, as I mentioned last week. I’ve baked these vanilla cupcakes about a million times, and they are my go-tos when I need cupcakes fast. And as I mentioned last week, I was pretty sure I hadn’t made the chocolate cupcakes before, which turned out to be true. They were as easy as the vanillas:

These cupcakes were baked as the blank canvases for children at my work to decorate for Easter and springtime. One of my co-workers also baked some chocolate and vanilla cupcakes. Together we ended up with about ten dozen!

I decorated a few cupcakes beforehand to give the kids ideas:

From left to right, that’s Worms In Dirt, Peep Chick with Eggs and Peep Rabbit with Eggs.

The Worms in Dirt was my favorite. I chopped Chocolate Graham Crackers in my food processor to create dirt:

I frosted the chocolate cupcake with chocolate frosting and then rolled it around in the ‘dirt’. A gummy worm was added. I tried to make a little grass with green frosting, but it didn’t work out so well:

The kids also had the option of just dumping tons of candy on their cupcakes, which seemed to be the most popular choice. Unfortunately, I couldn’t take any photos.

Sorry this week’s entry is so short. But stayed tuned this weekend when I attempt to make cream puffs for Easter. And hopefully the blog entry will be super-exciting.

Lucky Week Thirteen brought another cupcake – the Mint Meltaway. This cupcake started with a sour cream chocolate cupcake, the same that were used in the Chocolate Covered Hi-Hats from a couple of weeks back:

After the cupcakes were baked and while they were cooling, I mixed up the mint chocolate filling that would go in the cupcakes. This was made up of heavy cream and butter that was heated over the stove. Once the butter melted, semi-sweet chocolate chips, peppermint extract and vanilla extract were added. This was refrigerated until it thickened up and reached a spreadable consistency. I refrigerated mine a little too long. It was tearing up the cupcakes, so I ended up heating it back up a little over a pot of boiling water until it thinned out a little bit:

At the same time, I made a double batch of chocolate glaze. This was made up of heavy cream, butter and light corn syrup heated over the stove. Once the butter melted, semi-sweet chocolate chips and vanilla extract were added, and the mixture was refrigerated until it thickened up.

Once the cupcakes were cooled, the papers were pulled off and the cupcakes were turned upside down. I used a paring knife to cut the cupcakes in half horizontally:

I then spread about a tablespoon of the filling on the bottom (former top) of the cupcake:

The cupcakes then received an initial ‘crumb coat’ of the chocolate glaze:

The crumb coat was allowed to firm up for 15 minutes, and then the second coat of chocolate glaze was applied. This was quite possibly the messiest thing I’ve ever made. I had to wash my hands after every cupcake because I was covered in chocolate. I finally figured out it was easier to suspend the cupcake over the bowl of chocolate glaze with my spatula, and use my offset spatula to cover the cupcake:

I packed the cupcakes up in my carrier on some wax paper and popped them into the fridge to firm up completely:

Rob and I devoured a few of them this evening during “Lost”. These are definitely a plate-and-fork kind of cupcake. Even with hours of chilling in the fridge, the fudge glaze is still a little sticky:

I should have just used the glaze I used for the Hi-Hats. That glaze firmed up like the chocolate dip they use at Dairy Queen.

Next week I’m breaking my rules a little and making something that I’ve previously made. We’re doing another cupcake decorating event at my work and I’m going to be making vanilla and chocolate cupcakes from “More from Magnolia”. I know I’ve made the vanilla cupcakes before, but I’m not sure if I’ve ever made the chocolate. So maybe I’m only half breaking my rules.