Archive for the ‘Cakes – Frosting’ Category
Refreshing isn’t a word that you often associate with cupcakes, but these Lemon Lime Cupcakes definitely have a refreshing element to them. The cupcakes are bright with both fresh lemon and lime zest, and have a lemon lime buttercream on top. It is sweet, light and surprisingly palate cleansing, for a cupcake. They’re quite different from most cupcakes, as the combination of lemon and lime doesn’t show up that often in cupcake form, and that also makes them a very nice change of pace for those of you getting bored with chocolate and vanilla.
The cake for these cupcakes is very moist and tender, with a soft, tight crumb. The lemon lime flavor comes from fresh zest that is grated into the cupcake batter. Zest – the colored, outer portion of a citrus fruit – is extremely flavorful because that is where all of the intense citrus oils are. . I used one large lemon and one large lime to get enough zest for one batch of cupcakes, but you might want to have an extra lime on hand in case yours turn out to be a bit small. A microplane is the perfect tool for easily zesting your fruit. Don’t skimp on the zest when making these to get the best lemon-lime flavor in the finished cakes – and if you have to cut back, you can boost the flavor with some lemon or lime oil, which you can buy bottled.
The cupcakes are topped with a lemon lime buttercream, where I used the juice from the fruits I zested for the cake to give the frosting a bright citrus flavor. The lemon and lime juice blend well together, and this frosting is one that you could easily use to make a batch of yellow or vanilla cupcakes more exciting. If you find that you don’t have quite enough juice from your zested lemon and lime, and you don’t have any more fruit on hand, you can add a little bit of water to the frosting to make up the difference.
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There are many flavors that pair well with chocolate. Coffee is one, and it is often included in chocolate cakes to bring out some of the darker notes of chocolate. Believe it or not, but dark stout is another. These dark beers often have an intense malty flavor and an almost chocolate-like profile to them, and they can enhance the bitter and malty notes that you find in dark chocolate, giving a cake a great chocolate flavor and a lot of character.
This Chocolate Stout Sheet Cake is made using a stout beer. I used a beer called Boatswain Chocolate Stout, which is actually brewed with cocoa to enhance the chocolate-like notes often found in stout beer (although it doesn’t have more than a subtle hint of cocoa to it). It is worth noting that any stout beer will do the trick in this recipe. The cake is very moist and tender, using butter, vegetable oil and yogurt in it. It has a great dark chocolate flavor to it thanks to both the beer and a generous amount of cocoa powder. You won’t taste the beer in the finished cake, but it definitely takes the edge off what would otherwise be a fairly sweet cake and gives it a grown up chocolate taste.
I topped this cake off with a Chocolate Stout Buttercream, adding a little bit of my chocolate stout beer to a simple chocolate buttercream. This introduced a distinct malty note to the frosting (again, giving it a grown-up flavor) and really tied it in well with the cake. You can leave out the beer and opt for a plain chocolate buttercream by simply adding milk to your frosting instead. This cake is also good with vanilla frosting, and is satisfying enough to eat plain – with a cup of coffee or even a glass of that chocolatey stout that you used to make it.
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These Midnight Chocolate Cupcakes are the perfect recipe to make if you’re in the mood for a very dark, chocolate cupcake. They get their name from the fact that they’re almost pitch black in color. They’re based on a much loved Betty Crocker recipe for Black Midnight Cake (which has been in dozens of Betty Crocker cookbooks over the past several decades). The cupcakes deliver as much chocolate as they promise with their dark coloring. They are moist, fluffy and pack a lot of flavor into every single bite.
The recipe has slightly more sugar than many other cupcake recipes, but that sugar helps to keep the cupcakes moist and tender, and also adds much needed sweetness to the very large amount of cocoa powder in the batter. I typically add a small amount of instant coffee to highlight the darker notes of the cocoa powder, but that can be omitted if you prefer not to have a hint of coffee in your cake. The finished cupcakes are not too sweet, even when generously spread with chocolate buttercream frosting.
These cupcakes are also made with shortening, rather than butter. Shortening is also used in the old BC recipe (in my 1950s-era cookbooks) for this type of cake. The shortening, like vegetable oil, helps the cakes to retain moisture and stay fresh and soft for several days after baking. Since it doesn’t add any flavor of it’s own to the cake, unlike butter, the chocolate flavor also seems a little more pronounced than it does in some other recipes. All that said, you can substitute butter back into this recipe with no problems whatsoever and still end up with a great chocolate cupcake.
I topped my cupcakes off with a simple chocolate buttercream and a square of star-spangled chocolate. The buttercream also has a rich chocolate flavor, even if it isn’t as dark in color as the cake. I used a chocolate transfer sheet – a sheet of acetate with a colored cocoa butter design printed on it – to make my starry night garnish. A few chocolate sprinkles would also make a lovely way to finish these off.
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A traditional whoopie pie is a pair of cake-like chocolate cookies sandwiching a fluffy, marshmallow frosting center. It’s a good combination, to be sure, but whoopie pies are a lot more interesting when you mix things up with different flavors and, fortunately, it is very easy to add some flavor to a whoopie pie. These Chocolate Whoopie Pies with Raspberry Buttercream pair soft, chocolate cake and a fruity raspberry filling. Flavor-wise, it’s a great combination, but the bright colors in the finished dessert make this a lot of fun, too.
The cake portion of the whoopie pies is a simple, chocolate cake that has a generous amount of cocoa powder in it to ensure that each pie has a strong chocolate flavor. They’re moist and tender, but they are a little sturdier than chocolate cupcake would be so that they are easy to handle when filling and serving. The raspberry filling is a simple American buttercream – butter, vanilla and confectioners’ sugar – spiked with some raspberry puree. You can buy the puree at some stores, but I make batches by defrosting frozen berries and pureeing them in the food processor, then straining out the seeds. It takes a little extra time to make a puree, but they pack a lot of flavor and the raspberry really turned this buttercream a beautiful shade of pink. Chocolate and raspberry is a good flavor combination in any kind of dessert and this one is no exception.
The recipe makes about 16 generously sized whoopie pies, so they’re good for serving to a crowd or at a party. I think they’re an especially good Valentine’s Day treat because of the lovely pink filling inside of the pies. They keep well for several days when stored in an airtight container and they can even be frozen if you want to tuck one or two away for another day.
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You know you’re on the right track with a cake recipe when the kitchen smells fantastic while your cake is in the oven. In fairness, not everything that smells great will turn out perfectly, but I tend to think that it increases the odds. This pumpkin cake is one that will fill your kitchen up with the fantastic scents of cinnamon, ginger, cloves and nutmeg while baking. It’ll put you into a fall holiday spirit, inspire you to bake more and – of course – make you very hungry for that first slice of cake.
The cake is extremely moist and tender, with a fluffy crumb that melts away on your tongue and only leaves pumpkin and spice behind. Most of the spice comes from my homemade pumpkin pie spice mixture, although there is vanilla and a generous splash of brandy in the cake. I think that sweet and spicy brandy (bourbon is a good substitute) works well with with the pumpkin in both the cake and the frosting, although you get a much more generous dose of the brandy in the frosting than you do in the cake!
Like many other recipes that use a small amount of alcohol for flavoring, you’re not going to get much alcohol in the finished product. I can guarantee that no one is going to get drunk on this even if they eat the entire cake (I suspect that you might get sick if you try, though). That said, if you prefer to leave out the brandy because you intend to serve the cake to kids, you can substitute water or orange juice. Alternatively, you might just opt to take the brandy out of the frosting, where its flavor is much more distinct, and simply add milk and vanilla extract to the buttercream that tops the cake.
Any way you slice it – and hopefully you’re slicing this in large pieces – this is a delicious fall cake that is perfect for serving a crowd. As a sheet cake, it’s not too fussy to make or to serve, and it is very easy to enjoy. The cake will stay moist for several days when well wrapped, too.
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