Archive for the ‘Cakes – Cupcakes’ Category
Biscoff is a delicious brown sugar and spice, peanut butter-like cookie spread that is gaining fans rapidly. The spread is become more widely available, and while similarities to Nutella and peanut butter make the idea of spreading it on toast or crackers easy, more and more people are wondering what else they can do with this stuff. The answer is that you can do a lot of things, but you have to get a little creative because there aren’t all that many recipes out there yet that call for Biscoff. These Self Frosting Biscoff Cupcakes are a delicious and easy place to start.
One of my favorite Nutella recipes is for Self-Frosting Nutella Cupcakes, a recipe that I’ve been making on a regular basis for years now. The pound-cake like cupcakes are not too sweet and have a topping of Nutella swirled right on top of the batter before they bake. Biscoff is used in the same way here, swirled onto the top of the cupcake batter before baking. The result is tender, vanilla-laced cupcakes that have a sweet-spicy swirl of “frosting” baked right into the top.
The cupcakes get their tight, pound cake-like crumb from the amount of butter in the batter. Reducing it, in this particular recipe, will yield a more muffin-like result. The cake isn’t too sweet, and that really allows the sweet spread to stand out in every bite. The cupcakes keep well and are easy to store, since you don’t need to worry about frosting sliding around when you transport them. They’re a good everyday snack and they’re also pretty enough to serve at brunch or for dessert with coffee
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Impossible Pecan Pie Cupcakes are the perfect dessert for anyone who loves pecan pie, whether you’re looking for an easier version of your favorite dessert or simply want to try a new twist on it. This recipe is based on the same idea as my Impossible Pumpkin Pie Cupcakes. Impossible pie is a “back of the box” recipe for baking mixes, like bisquick. These “pies” are primarily pie filling, to which a small amount of the baking mix is added. As the “pie” bakes, a soft, crust-like outer layer around the filling – delivering a pie that you don’t need a traditional pastry crust for. In my Pumpkin Pie Cupcake recipe, I incorporated enough flour and leavening into a pumpkin-rich batter. Here, I use the same technique to transform a pecan pie batter into a batch of easy-to-make and easy-to-serve Impossible Pecan Pie Cupcakes.
The filling for these cupcakes is based on the filling for my Maple Pecan Pie, a pecan pie recipe which uses maple syrup instead of corn syrup to provide the syrupy sweet liquid for the filling. I added just enough flour to hold the batter together, along with baking powder and baking soda to help the cupcakes rise in the oven. The filling is very liquidy, almost like a crepe batter. Pecans are placed into each prepared muffin cup and batter is poured on top of them before baking.
As the cupcakes bake, the pecans rise to the top of the cupcake, just as they do in a traditional pecan pie. The base of the cupcake is an extremely moist cake that captures the flavors of maple syrup, brown sugar and vanilla. The pecan layer is crunchy, and if you use lightly salted pecans, it’ll have a sweet-salty finish to it. It is all the flavors of pecan pie in a completely new, single-serving package. It’s a great twist on a classic fall favorite.
I recommend baking these with muffin wrappers and not simply greasing your muffin cups because the cake is so moist it might be difficult to get them out. I typically serve these plain, or warmed up with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. The recipe makes 16 cupcakes, so it is enough to serve a crowd, but these keep well (they’re best stored in the refrigerator after the first day) and make a great snack even if you’re not going to entertain with them.
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Sweet chocolate and salty-sweet peanut butter will always be a winning combination in my book, and these Mini Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes are a great example of it. These bite-sized cupcakes were inspired by the desire to add even more chocolate to a chocolate-covered peanut butter cup. The cupcakes each have a whole mini chocolate covered peanut butter cup (I used Reese’s, but there are plenty of brands that make similar sized candies) inside of a brownie-like chocolate cake batter. This gives you a good dose of chocolate, a good dose of peanut butter, and a baked good that manages to have the perfect ratio of those two elements.
To make these, I whipped up a relatively small batch of a fudgy chocolate cake batter. I filled each mini muffin cup almost half way up with batter, then pressed a miniature peanut butter cup into the center. The miniature peanut butter cups are the snack sized pb cups that typically come individually wrapped in foil. Then, I added a bit more batter to each one just to ensure that the peanut butter cups were fully enclosed in batter. I used small paper liners in my mini muffin cups, but if you are using a nonstick pan, the bite-sized cupcakes should pop right out after baking.
The finished cupcakes had a dark chocolate flavor and the sweet-salty peanut butter center that I was hoping for. The cake is fudgy and moist, although there is really only a thin layer of cake around the peanut butter cups. The cake is an excellent contrast in color and texture for the peanut butter cup in the center. Be warned: these are addictive, and because of their small size it is very easy to eat two at a time.
I felt that these little cupcakes were rich enough that they didn’t need any icing to top them off. Of course, if you get the urge to take them really over-the-top, you can top them with a bit of chocolate or peanut butter buttercream. These cupcakes are best when baked in mini muffin cups. If you don’t have a mini muffin pan and really want to try them in a full sized muffin pan, I recommend filling the pan only halfway up with batter, creating a flatter than standard cupcake to maintain the fudginess of the cake and the ratio of chocolate to peanut butter.
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When you have a serious chocolate craving, not just any chocolate cupcake is going to fit the bill. A batch of these Dark Chocolate Cupcakes is what you need when that kind of craving strikes. These cupcakes remind me of brownies, with their intense dark chocolate flavor. They also develop a slightly crackly top during baking, like brownies. Unlike brownies, the cupcakes are not dense and fudgy. They have a very tight and tender crumb that almost seems to melt in your mouth when you take a bite.
This is definitely a go-to recipe when I’m looking for a really rich chocolate cupcake. The flavor comes from a generous amount of dark chocolate that has been melted into the batter. I typically use a dark chocolate that is around 70 or 72% cacao, but the recipe will still work with a slightly more or less dark chocolate. You’ll get a lot of chocolate flavor in the cupcakes, so be sure to use a good quality chocolate in this recipe.
These cupcakes are very versatile and can be topped off with any kind of frosting you like. Instead of sticking with chocolate or vanilla, I opted for a more fall-flavored pumpkin frosting here. Pumpkin puree by itself doesn’t necessarily have that strong of a pumpkin flavor (not strong enough that a small amount will be enough for a whole batch of frosting), so simply adding pumpkin puree to a buttercream wasn’t going to produce the flavor that I was looking for. Pumpkin puree can be a bit coarse, as well, and needs to be processed very finely or pushed through a sieve to get a silky texture. Pumpkin butter – a very smooth, sweet and intensely flavored pumpkin preserve – was the answer to my flavoring problem. A small amount of pumpkin butter packs a lot of pumpkin flavor and was the perfect way to introduce a pumpkin element to an otherwise vanilla frosting. Pumpkin butter is available at many stores around Halloween and Thanksgiving, and you can always make your own. If you can’t find it, you can use pumpkin puree that has been strained, but you will also want to add a bit of extra spice to your frosting for extra fall flavor.
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The combination of peanut butter and jelly – or PB&J – reminds me of the brown bag lunches I took to school as a kid. They were definitely my favorite type of sandwich, and I am still a fan of the flavor combination in any form because salty, sticky peanut butter always seems to pair perfectly with sweet, fruity jam. These Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich Cupcakes are a twist on that classic lunchbox sandwich, a more adult cupcake that still embodies those childhood flavors. I would call these an “adult” cupcake because they’re not your typical, buttery cupcakes.
The cake was inspired by a very French type of cake made with ground almonds (I’ve also used macadamia nuts), and instead of almonds, I’ve used peanuts here. Since they use peanuts instead of peanut butter, these little cakes have a very clear peanut flavor to them instead of a strong peanut butter flavor. This means that the overall flavor is a little more subtle than many peanut butter cakes. Salted, roasted peanuts are the best choice for this recipe because they impart the most flavor. If you’re not going to use salted peanuts, add a generous pinch of salt to the batter to help highlight the nuts’ flavor. The cakes also have a light, fluffy crumb that is reminiscent of sponge cake and are not too sweet – which makes them perfect for filling with a layer of fruity jam. I used strawberry here, but you can use grape, raspberry or any other flavor you like.
You could leave the cakes filled with jam and serve (or eat) them as-is, but I wanted to make them a little more decadent with a smear of cream cheese frosting and a sprinkle of coarsely chopped peanuts. The cream cheese adds some additional richness and a bit of extra sweetness to the cupcakes. They’re a little different than those classic sandwiches, but they’re least as tasty as those PB&Js you ate as a kid.
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