Sesame Caramel Rice Fritters & Tres Leches Cupcakes - Belated Cinco de Mayo

I didn't get a chance to make these for Cinco de Mayo like I had planned to, but I made them happen anyway over the past week.

Rice Fritters with Sesame Caramel
(see recipe from Food Network)

If you search for Cinco de Mayo desserts, churros, or variations of fried dough dipped in sugar, are likely to turn up. I thought these rice fritters would be slightly more interesting and challenging, so I decided to give them a try. Delicious, and well-worth the effort! But perhaps no healthier than churros (they are deep-fried afterall) . . .

 

Tres Leches Cupcakes with Dulce de Leche
(adapted from Saveur Magazine, see also theurbanbaker.com)

Ingredients
Makes 24 cupcakes

• 2 cups flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 ½ teaspoons salt
• 6 eggs, separated
• 1 ¼ cups sugar
• ½ cup whole milk
• 1 ½ tablespoons dark rum
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 14-oz can sweetened condensed milk
• 1 12-oz. can evaported milk
• 1 cup heavy cream

Directions

1. Heat ¾ cup of the heavy cream in a saucepan until it boils/simmers. Pour over white chocolate in a heatproof bowl. Let sit for a couple minutes before stirring with a spatula until the white chocolate is melted and smooth.
2. Preheat oven to 350°. Line cupcake pans with paper liners.
3. Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt into a bowl and set aside.
4. Beat the egg whites with a whisk attachment until soft peaks form. Continue beating while adding the sugar.
5. Separately beat the egg yolks until fluffy. Using the paddle attachment, add the flour mixture and whole milk, alternating between the two and ending with the flour.
6. Add the rum and vanilla and beat briefly until smooth.
7. Folk in the egg whites.
8. Scoop batter into cupcake liners, and bake for 16-18 minutes until slightly golden. Be careful not to overbake. Since the cake will be soaked in tres leches, it will ultimately be "moist" in any event, but the cake texture is spongy and can get stiff.
9. After baking, let cool slightly (~30 minutes), and then poke holes in the top of the cupcakes with a knife, making sure to penetrate to the base.
10. Peel off the paper liners. Whisk together the sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk, and heavy cream, and spoon the mixture over the warm cupcakes (3-5 tablespoons should do the trick, with the excess sitting in the cupcake pan to ensure that the bottom of the cupcakes are moistened). I wouldn't worry about oversoaking.
11. Cover the cupcakes with plastic wrap and refrigerate until well-chilled and the liquid is absorbed (at least 4 hours).
12. Spread/drizzle dulce de leche on top of the cupcakes, and top with whipped cream.
    

Home-made dulce de leche is quite easy. It is essentially caramelized condensed milk. Some recipes prepare it directly in the can by placing the can in a boiling pot of water. I decided to go with the oven method (see, e.g. David Lebovitz's recipe):

Pour a can of sweetened condensed milk into a shallow pie pan or baking pan. Place that pan in a larger roasting dish / baking pan that has a lid. Fill the outer pan with water until near the top of the inner pan. Cover with lid and baking at 425° F for 75-90 minutes. Check occasionally in case you need to add more water. A darker crust/layer will form on the top of the condensed milk / dulce de leche. Whisk the dulce de leche until it is smooth (you may need to strain out pieces of crust). Voila!

Ivoire Royale - White Chocolate Mousse & Berry Cake

According to Extraordinary Desserts' website:

"Ivoire Royale -- An exquisite torte made of fine layers of vanilla bean soaked pound cakes and creamy white chocolate mousse. Bursting with fresh raspberries, strawberries, blackberries and blueberries, this delicate mousse torte is hidden by white chocolate shaving dusted with powdered sugar."

This is a 10" cake, with sour cream pound cake layers, brushed with vanilla simple syrup. In between the layers are white chocolate sour cream mousse, fresh whipped cream, and berries. I only used strawberries and blackberries in my cake, but I think any combination would work. The decoration is white chocolate shavings and curls.

I'm not sure the recipe for mousse in the cookbook quite worked. For a better mousse consistency, I suggest the following:

White Chocolate Sour Cream Mousse

• 4 egg yolks
• ⅓ cup granulated sugar
• ¾ cup sour cream (room temperature)
• 6.5 oz (1 ¼ cup) white chocolate
• 2 cup heavy cream
• ⅓ cup powdered sugar

Directions

1. Heat ¾ cup of the heavy cream in a saucepan until it boils/simmers. Pour over white chocolate in a heatproof bowl. Let sit for a couple minutes before stirring with a spatula until the white chocolate is melted and smooth.
2. Beat the egg yolks and sugar in a stand mixer until pale yellow and fluffy.
3. Add melted chocolate to the whipped egg yolks.
4. In a separate bowl, beat the remaining heavy cream and powdered sugar together until peaks form.
5. Gently fold in the whipped cream and sour cream into the white chocolate-egg yolk mousse base.

I played with this while in-process, so the measurements may not be exact, particularly with respect to the whipped cream addition. I think that part can be made to-taste and to-texture, depending on what consistency and level of sweetness you are aiming for. The important addition here to the cookbook is the whipped egg yolk base, which gives the mousse a sturdier structure that won't run.

I had previously attempted this in cupcake form, but because this cake relies on being soaked in vanilla simple syrup, and having almost as much (or perhaps more) mousse and whipped cream than cake, I don't think the cupcake form delivers the same texture and flavor. Not to mention, I also dropped my entire batch of cupcakes before delivering them to a potluck event, so it is not quite a happy memory. One day, I will post a collage of all my disasters (usually in transit), when it doesn't pain me so much to think about it!

Yellow roses for my SYZters:

Milo | Dog Beach Day at Carmel-by-the-Sea

It's been a while since I have posted about Milo. But this romp earlier in the year at the Carmel-by-the-Sea dog beach is a fun moment worth sharing!

Milo is a keen and observant dog, but perhaps a bit too skeptical to be foolishly joyous and happy-go-lucky around strangers (both humans and dogs). As a result, he tends to come across as shy around new people. But when you get to know him, he is one funny pup who likes to tease and challenge you. It's hard not to anthropomorphize him!

This video is an especially happy one for me because Milo's wild play times in public have been more infrequent ever since he got attacked by a big dog last year. In addition, when we used to go to the Del Mar dog beach, the crowd of big dogs there always seemed to intimidate him, so he never quite got to appreciate the beach. Here, during a sunny moment of a rainy weekend, he finally finds a friend and learns firsthand what a wave is . . .

Blueberry Buttermilk Cake

If you ever buy blueberries at Costco, and realize you have more than you can finish before the blueberries go bad, here's one for you:

Blueberry Buttermilk Cake

Makes 1 (12-cup) Bundt cake, or 32 cupcakes

Crumb Topping:

• ½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• ⅓ cup firmly packed light brown sugar
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• ¼ cup unsalted butter, chilled

 Cake:

• 2 cups fresh blueberries (or raspberries)
• 3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (more for dusting)
• 4 teaspoons baking power
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ¾ teaspoon salt
• ¾ cup unsalted butter, room temperature (plus more for pan)
• 1 ½ cups sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 ½ cups buttermilk

Directions

1. Make the crumb topping: mix the dry ingredients, and then cut the cold butter into the dry ingredients, rubbing the dry mix and butter between your fingers until it takes on a crumbly texture.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 
3. Rinse the berries, air dry, and then toss with 2 teaspoons flour.
4. Generously butter and flour the Bundt pan.
5. Make the cake: In a medium bowl, combine the dry ingredients, except for the sugar. Separately, whip the butter and sugar together in a stand mixer (paddle attachment) until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, beating for about 15 seconds after each. Scrape the bowl, add the vanilla, and whip for another 1-2 minutes. On low speed, add the dry ingredients and buttermilk to the butter mixture, alternating between the two. Fold in the berries with a spatula, being careful not to break any.
6. Scrape the batter into the pan, level the batter, and sprinkle generously with the crumb topping.
7. Bake for 45-55 minutes, and then let sit for 10 minutes before un-molding the cake. Flip the cake back one more time so that the crumb topping is on top.

This recipe is from Fine Cooking Annual, which, by the way, is filled with amazing recipes. I don't think we've ever hit upon a bad one in there.

For cupcakes, bake for approximately 25 minutes at the same temperature.

I have had some trouble with the crumb topping sinking in the Bundt cake (including the one pictured above). First I thought the crumb topping was too warm; then I thought it was too cold; then I thought perhaps I got the the crumb ingredients or consistency wrong, but no tweak was fixing the problem. My next idea was to watch what was going on while the cake was in the oven. As I watched, I saw that the batter along the outer and inner Bundt pan surfaces was rising faster and folding over the center. Consequently (because I'm a ChemE major . . .) I thought that this must be some fluid/thermodynamics issue, and surely I could fix it. Perhaps my batter was too cold, or there was otherwise some other reason for too high of a temperature gradient. But nothing I tried seemed to fix the problem.

This past weekend, I finally realized the issue. I recalled the first couple times I made this, when I had no problem at all, and was certainly less careful and meticulous about my preparation process. Back then, in law school, my kitchen was pretty sparse and I didn't bother getting creative with recipes. I hand-buttered and floured the pan because the recipe said to, and I didn't have one of those baking sprays with flour. My crumb wouldn't sink then, but my cake would sometimes break as I tried to un-mold it. At that time, I thought the cake broke because I didn't grease the pan properly and the cake was getting stuck. So I switched to those baking sprays with flour, thinking I'd get a more even coat. The problem is, that's not why my cake was breaking. I was simply underbaking it in my crappy law school apartment oven. And what I now realize is that, while the flour baking spray does evenly and consistently grease a pan surface, it provides less insulation versus buttering and dusting flour on the pan. As a result, with less barrier layer insulation, the outer batter cooks much more quickly than if I had stuck with a hand-dusted flour layer. So . . . it is a fluid/thermodynamics issue after all. Did you really just read all of that?

Strawberry Cupcakes - Is It Springtime Yet?

I have a sweet tooth, no doubt about that. But don't worry mom, I do eat food categories other than "dessert". When I say I love desserts, it's not so much about eating desserts, as it is about appreciating that intersection of culinary science and art. So it's probably no surprise that I love Extraordinary Desserts in San Diego and would go work with Karen Krasne in a heartbeat if I were to ever attend pastry school. She never fails to deliver art and beauty (and incredible flavor) in her creations.

This Toutes Fraises (translation: all strawberries) from her cookbook is a sour cream cupcake containing freshly diced strawberries in the batter. The cake is filled with a strawberry jelly, and topped with a strawberry cream cheese frosting. Extraordinary Desserts is known for decorating desserts with fresh flowers and petals. Here, I decided to work on my gum paste skills and came up with these gum paste rosebuds for decoration. Tedious, but very satisfying to make. I definitely eyed some flower bouquets at Safeway in case my efforts failed, but fortunately these were presentable enough (although a bit on the "toxic pink" side in color).

I'd venture to say that the 250 degree oven setting may have been a typo in the recipe, as 350 is typical for cakes, and 250 definitely did not get the job done. The cupcake was yummy, but perhaps next time starting at 350 degrees or closer to 350 will avoid temperature adjustments and give me better control over the cake's texture.

Can't wait to try more of my favorites from the cookbook!

A Box of Chocolates (Strawberry, and Champagne) - Happy Valentine's Day

Milo's Bonbons three-ways for Valentine's Day! Now if I could just get that to arrive in my next Birchbox . . .

Vanilla Cupcakes with Strawberry Meringue Buttercream: An oldie but a goodie.

Champagne Cupcakes with Champagne Buttercream: Another repeat, this time with Martini & Rossi Asti to really deliver the sweet champagne flavor. I think the Swiss meringue buttercream had a stronger champagne flavor and a sturdier texture as I reconstituted the meringue powder with the sparkling wine directly, instead of using water.

Ultimate Chocolate Cupcakes with Frangelico: These chocolate cupcakes have a Frangelico-infused chocolate ganache filling and frosting. Frangelico is a hazelnut liqueur, and the folks at BevMo! tell me that you should chase a sugar-coated lemon slice with equal parts Frangelico and vodka. Apparently this "Chocolate Cake" shot is a real winner. While that remains to be tested, I can say that Frangelico does magically evoke chocolate, and is a great addition to dark chocolate ganache.

Guinness, Chocolate and Potato Chips - Super Bowl Sunday!

Hope everyone had a fun Super Bowl Sunday! The game ended on an exciting note . . . but of course you know I was only watching for the commercials, and for an excuse to bake more cupcakes.

These two cupcakes draw inspiration from Chuao Chocolatier again, this time from one of their newer flavors, the "Potato Chips in Chocolate" bar. This first cupcake is a simple chocolate cake. I tried to work with an even simpler recipe than my prior chocolate cupcakes, in case I ever needed to pull it together with basic ingredients, and I think this one worked out well enough. The frosting is a Swiss meringue milk chocolate buttercream frosting, topped with crushed potato chips and some added sea salt. Mildly sweet with a bit of crunch.

 

Chocolate Cupcakes

Makes 21-22 cupcakes (or 54 minis)

• 3 ounces finely chopped bittersweet chocolate
• ¾ cup Dutch-processed cocoa (2 ¼ ounces)
• 1 teaspoon espresso powder
• 1 ¼ cups boiling water
• 1 ½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour (7 ½ ounces)
• 1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 ½ cups sugar (10 ½ ounces)
• 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 6 tablespoons vegetable oil

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 
2. Combine the chocolate, cocoa, and espresso powder in a large bowl. Pour the boiling water over the chocolate mixture, cover, and let sit for a few minutes to help melt the chocolate. Whisk until smooth, then set aside to cool slightly, about 2 minutes. In a separate bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, and salt together.
3. Whisk the sugar, eggs, and vanilla into the cooled chocolate mixture. Slowly whisk in the oil. Whisk in the flour mixture in two portions, mixing gently until most of the lumps are gone (do not overmix).
4. Bake for 20-22 minutes for regular cupcakes, or about 10 minutes for mini cupcakes.

Milk Chocolate Frosting

Makes 2 ¼ cups

• ⅓ cup (2 ⅓ ounces) granulated sugar
• 2 large egg whites
• pinch table salt
• 12 tablespoons (1 ½ sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 6 ounces milk chocolate, melted and cooled
• ½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

1. Combine sugar, egg whites, and salt in bowl of stand mixer; place bowl over pan of simmering water. Whisking gently until sugar is completely dissolved and mixture is slightly foamy.
2. Place bowl in stand mixer with whisk attachment. Beat on medium speed until stiff peaks form. Add butter, about 1 Tbsp at a time, and beat until smooth. Then add cooled melted chocolate and vanilla; mix until combined. Increase speed to medium-high and beat until light, fluffy, and thoroughly combined.

The second cupcake is a Guinness draught chocolate cake with a Guinness cream cheese glaze, topped with a potato chip dipped in milk chocolate. Because of the Guinness, this cake is a bit more bitter, but that makes for a nice contrast to the sweet glaze and salty-crunchy topping. 

Guinness Cupcakes

Makes 21-22 cupcakes (or 54 minis)

• 1 cup of Guinness® Draught
• 1 stick plus 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• ¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 cups dark brown sugar
• ¾ cup sour cream
• 2 eggs
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 ½ teaspoon baking soda 
• Pinch of cinnamon

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 
2. In a large sauce pan over low heat, combine Guinness® and butter, stirring until butter melts. Remove pan from heat and whisk in cocoa powder and brown sugar. 
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together sour cream, eggs and vanilla. Combine with beer mixture. 
4. Sift together flour and baking soda, then fold into batter.
5. Bake for 20-22 minutes for regular cupcakes, or about 10 minutes for mini cupcakes. 
6. Make the glaze. With a mixer, whip 8 oz. cream cheese until smooth. Sift 1 ¼ cups confectioner’s sugar into cream cheese, and beat. Add ⅓ cup Guinness®, and beat until smooth. Note: The recipe I found stops there; however, I added a stick of unsalted butter to provide for a sturdier frosting. Dip the top of cupcakes into this glaze/frosting and twist when lifting for a smooth coating.