Halloween Cupcakes

I sold cupcakes at a Halloween fair this weekend, in Salt Lake City. Always fun to get to meet new people!

I made 7 varieties of fall-themed cupcakes. First, I made chocolate and vanilla cupcakes with whipped American buttercream, colored orange for fall, with fun Halloween sprinkles. Next, I did chocolate orange cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, topped with homemade candied orange peel. Then I did chocolate peppermint cupcakes with peppermint frosting and crushed peppermint candies. I also had chocolate cupcakes with salted caramel French buttercream, always popular. Then I made gingerbread cupcakes, filled them with apple pie filling and frosted them with cream cheese frosting. Last, I made cinnamon roll cupcakes with maple cream cheese frosting. Those were my most favorite of all. 

Cinnamon Roll Cupcakes

Makes 12

7 large egg yolks

1/2 cup buttermilk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups cake flour

3/4 cups sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, soft

Whisk egg yolks, buttermilk, and vanilla together in a liquid measuring cup. In the bowl of your mixer with the flat beater attachment, add cake flour, sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, and salt. Mix on low 20-30 seconds to combine. Increase speed to medium and drop in butter one tablespoon at a time. Mix until butter pieces are as small as peas. Pour in two-thirds of the liquid mixture and increase speed to medium high. Beat just until it smooths out, 30-60 seconds. Reduce speed to low and add remaining liquid. Mix just until incorporated. Spoon batter into a 12-cup muffin tin lined with paper liners. Let the batter sit in the tin for 20 minutes while the oven preheats. Heat oven to 350. Place cupcakes on the middle rack and bake 15-20 minutes until the tops spring back when touched. Cool 5 minutes in the pan, then remove to cool completely.

Maple Cream Cheese Frosting

1 (8 oz) package cream cheese, soft

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1/2 cup heavy whipping cream, cold

2 tablespoons 100% pure maple syrup

In the bowl of your mixer with the wire whip attachment, beat cream cheese on medium until smooth. Scrape down the bowl, add powdered sugar, and beat until smooth. Add whipping cream and beat on medium until incorporated, then increase speed to high and whip until soft peak consistency, 2 minutes. Add maple syrup and whip just until combined. Spread or pipe onto cooled cupcakes.

Raspberry Neapolitan Cake

This sweet little cake has alternating layers of chocolate and vanilla cake with raspberry Swiss meringue buttercream. The color of the frosting is entirely from the fresh raspberries, which I puréed and strained to add to the buttercream. 

I added a simple ribbon and some sweet sugar paste blossoms to the top, to keep it fresh and pretty.

Spider Web Cake

I'll be selling cupcakes at a Halloween fair next weekend, and I wanted a cool display cake to show off.

 I made some homemade black fondant and used it to cover two of the styrofoam cake dummies I used at my last fair. Then I made homemade marshmallows, and after they set up overnight, I melted some and then stretched it into long, gooey strands, which I wrapped around the cake. Definitely one of the most fun things I've done with a cake! Then I used extra black fondant to make a big, creepy spider! 

Homemade marshmallow is really fun and easy to make, and they are so delicious, with an amazing creamy texture. You can flavor them with extracts to be any flavor, with vanilla being traditional. They are delicious melted into hot cocoa or on s'mores. You only need to melt a few cubes of homemade marshmallow to make the web effect on the cake, and then you can enjoy the rest of the batch however you want.

Homemade Marshmallows

Makes 80 jumbo size marshmallows

2/3 cup powdered sugar

1/3 cup cornstarch

1 cup cold water

2 packets unflavored gelatin (about 2 tablespoons)

2/3 cup light corn syrup

2 cups granulated sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons vanilla extract (or other flavor as desired)

Sift powdered sugar and cornstarch together into a small bowl, set aside. Line a 9 by 13 pan with foil and spray with cooking spray. Spray a rubber or silicone spatula with cooking spray and set aside. Pour 1/2 cup of water into the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the wire whisk attachment, and sprinkle the gelatin over the top. Let soften while you prepare the sugar syrup.

In a medium heavy duty saucepan, add the remaining 1/2 cup water, corn syrup, sugar, and salt. Bring to a simmer over medium high heat, swirling the pan so the sugar dissolves. Do not stir. Simmer until the mixture reaches 240 F degrees, 6-8 minutes. 

Turn the mixer onto speed 2 and slowly pour the hot syrup into the gelatin mixture, trying not to get it on the side of the bowl or on the whisk. Once all the syrup is added, carefully increase the speed to high and whip 10-12 minutes, until the outside of the bowl feels lukewarm to the touch. 

Quickly scrape the marshmallow into the greased foil lined pan with the greased spatula, spreading as evenly as possible. Sift two tablespoons of the cornstarch and powdered sugar mixture over the top and let the marshmallow sit 8-12 hours to set up. 

Sift another 2 tablespoons of powdered sugar mixture onto the counter and use the foil to lift the marshmallow out of the pan. Turn it upside down onto the counter and peel off the foil. Sift 2 more tablespoons of powdered sugar over the marshmallow. Spray a very large, sharp knife with cooking spray and cut into 10 by 8 (80) one inch cubes. Toss the cubes in the remaining powdered sugar mixture and shake off the excess. Store in an airtight container up to 2 weeks.

Vanilla Petits Fours

It feels so fancy to serve tiny little petits fours! I had found a great new recipe for poured fondant that is easy to use, and delicious, as seen a couple of posts ago, when I made the chocolate version. Today I wanted to try the vanilla version, and it came out great! Click here for the recipe from my other post.

I made a half recipe of my favorite light and fluffy white cake, and spread it into a thin layer on a parchment lined baking sheet. It baked up fast, and cooled fast, as it was so thin, and then I cut it in half, spread one side with luxurious vanilla French buttercream, topped it with the other half and froze the whole thing until it was firm. Then I cut it into little 1 inch by 1 1/4 inch rectangles and covered them with the white chocolate poured fondant. Then I piped a little rosebud and leaf on each one with some extra French buttercream.

They're so moist and creamy inside, and the not-too-sweet French buttercream is the perfect filling to offset the sweet fondant glaze. Now I just need some lace doilies and a china tea set... Pinkies out!

Pumpkin Spice Sugar Cookies

I got a sugar cookie order this week, and since it's October, I decided to make pumpkin shaped sugar cookies. Then, I thought, of they're going to look like pumpkins, why not make them taste like pumpkin pie? I swapped out part of the white sugar for brown, and added the traditional pumpkin pie spices to the dough. 

As the cookies came out of the oven, I topped each with orange colored modeling chocolate, impressed the lines, and piped on the leaves and vines with royal icing.

These sweet, soft, spicy cookies taste as delicious as they look!

Chocolate Caramel Peanut Butter Cheesecake Cake

I'm very excited about this cake. I took two layers of chocolate cake and put a layer of creamy, rich caramel cheesecake in between them. Then I frosted the whole thing with peanut butter French buttercream, and topped it off with a chocolate ganache glaze and caramel drizzle.

Chocolate, caramel, and peanut butter!

Cheesecake in a Cake

2 9-inch cake layers, in your flavor of choice, baked and cooled

4 cups buttercream frosting, in your flavor of choice

1 crustless 9-inch cheesecake layer, very cold, recipe below

1 pound cream cheese

2/3 cup granulated sugar

2 large eggs

1/2 teaspoon lemon zest from 1 small lemon, minced

1 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 tablespoons heavy cream

2 tablespoons sour cream

INSTRUCTIONS

Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 325 degrees. Line bottom of 9-inch springform pan with foil, tuck foil underneath pan bottom, assemble pan, then pull foil around side of pan, spray with cooking spray. Set pan inside a turkey roasting oven bag, rolling down the top of the bag to be flush with the top of the pan, and set in a 12-inch cake pan. Bring 4 cups of water to boil for water bath.

Meanwhile, beat cream cheese in bowl of electric mixer on medium speed with wire whip attachment until smooth. Gradually add sugar and beat on medium speed until sugar dissolves, about 3 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until just incorporated and scraping down after each addition. (If you don't scrape down the bowl after each egg, cream cheese that sticks to the bowl will ultimately show up as lumps in the batter.) Add zest, vanilla, cream, and sour cream, beating just until incorporated.

Pour batter into prepared pan. Set roasting pan on oven rack and pour enough boiling water to come about halfway up side of springform pan. Bake until perimeter of cake is set, but center jiggles like Jell-O when pan is tapped, 40-45 minutes. Internal temperature should measure 170. Turn off heat and leave oven door ajar, using a long-handled kitchen fork or spoon to hold it open for 1 hour longer. Remove springform pan from water bath and set on wire rack; cool to room temperature. Cover and refrigerate at least 24 hours. (Can be refrigerated up to 4 days.)

Place one 9-inch cake round on a cardboard round and spread with one cup of buttercream. Remove the chilled cheesecake layer from the fridge, pop off the pan sides and invert the cheesecake onto the frosted cake layer. Remove the bottom of the pan and then carefully peel off the foil. Spread with one cup of buttercream, and add the second 9-inch cake layer. Frost the outside of the cake with the remaining buttercream. Serve immediately. Refrigerate leftovers. 

Chocolate Raspberry Petits Fours

I came upon a new recipe for poured fondant that looked better to me than other recipes I'd tried. It contains melted chocolate (dark or white) and doesn't require a candy thermometer!

I made a half recipe of chocolate cake and spread it to make a thin layer in a half sheet pan. I baked it and let it cool, and then spread half of it with raspberry French buttercream. Then I placed the other half of the cake on top and froze the whole thing, so I could cut it cleanly into small squares.

After cutting one inch squares of cake, I placed them on a cooling rack over a baking sheet and made the poured fondant. I placed the warm fondant into a piping bag with a medium round tip and piped the fondant over each square of cake, so it flowed down the sides, coating each piece. After a few minutes, the fondant set up, and I transferred the little squares of cake to mini muffin liners. Then I topped each with a modeling chocolate blossom.

I was quite pleased with the recipe. While still very sweet, it was not as cloying as traditional poured fondant recipes, and was quite easy to work with.

White Poured Fondant Icing

9 cups Confectioners Sugar (1080g)

1/2 cup Corn Syrup, slightly warmed in the microwave (120ml)

4 oz white chocolate chips (112g)

1 tsp Vanilla or other flavor Extract

1/2 - 1 cup Water, Warm (adjust amount for desired consistency)

Mix Method:

Place the sifted confectioners sugar (and cocoa powder if you are making the chocolate variation) in the bowl of your Kitchen Aid Mixer with the paddle attachment.

Add the warmed corn syrup and the melted chocolate all at once, and continue to mix smooth.

Add the warm water starting with a half cup first, then add more to adjust to your desired consistency.

Add extract of your choice and food color as desired.

To Make CHOCOLATE ICING:

Replace the White Chocolate with Dark Chocoloate chips

Replace 1/2 cup of the Confectioners Sugar with Unsweetened Cocoa Powder. 

Banana Peanut Butter Caramel Cake

I got a cake order this week, and the customer said her son, the birthday boy, doesn't like chocolate, vanilla, or anything traditional, but he loves bananas, peanut butter, caramel...

So, I came up with this cake: soft and fluffy banana cake with peanut butter French buttercream, glazed with caramel, and topped with brûléed banana slices.

Banana cake is really wonderful. Made with bananas and sour cream puréed together, it has the great banana taste, like banana bread, but with the light and fluffy texture of cake. All together, it was a delicious combination, and everyone loved it. Part of the fun of being a baker is the creativity involved in creating cool flavor combinations and beautiful decorations.

Cleaning up the kitchen after making caramel... not so fun.