Maple-Bacon Cupcakes

Ohhhh!  Hi!  I haven't seen you in quite some time!  I've been.. not making cupcakes.  I'm not exactly sure why the hiatus happened, but I know this summer has been very busy, leaving me with no cupcake time at all.  I was working as the music teacher at a wonderful arts camp and I'm very sad that it's over.  However, I have ample time to make cupcakes again!  (Maybe I used the word "ample" because I have "maple" on my mind.)  So last night I perused my Martha Stewart cupcake book and thought these would be perfect, since I'm planning a trip to Canada in the next few weeks!

Ah.  Maple syrup.  (Not "pancake syrup," mind you.  Martha was very specific!!)  For Maple Cupcakes.  The cake is maple, the frosting is maple.. the marzipan leaves are maybe supposed to have maple in them (I didn't do that part.  Let's not go overboard!!).  The recipe asked if I wouldn't mind bringing home some "grade B" syrup, but I couldn't find any besides "grade A."  You can't stop well-educated maple from going to the top of its class.

Martha called for a standing mixer.  I usually use a hand-held one but the frosting required a whisk attachment.  From the description, it seemed that I'd end up with lopsided muscley arms (right arm muscley, left arm not) after trying to use a plain hand-held whisk on the eggs.  So welcome back, Kitchenaid!  

It always reminds me of the alien from Alien.  That oblong head.  Anyway, I mixed 2 sticks of butter with 2 cups of maple syrup and this is what it looked like.  

Nope, those are not almonds.  It's butter.  And I got worried.  

But all for naught!  Once I added the flour (and be sure to really read the directions because when it says "flour mixture," it means flour, baking soda and salt, which I almost didn't catch), it mixed perfectly and became a real cupcake-mix-looking batch.  

I put this into my Hello Kitty cupcake molds (and some square silicone ones my friend Jeff got me) and stuck them in the oven.

Then I brought the maple syrup to a boil for the frosting.  It looks purple!

While waiting for that, I separated 6 yolks from 6 eggs and began to whisk them with the power arm.

I don't have much experience whipping eggs.  I was worried that it might never become thick and light-colored.  But again, all for naught!  This robot arm works perfectly.  Meanwhile, I thought the syrup looked pretty cool.  "What are you doing, boiling pot of maple syrup?" I decided to take a picture.  It looked cooler and cooler.  As soon as I took this picture, that imploding center of foam quickly burst forth and spilled over in every direction and onto the fire below.

"Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!" I cried.  (Seriously.  Like I said to Jim, at least I know I don't swear when under pressure.)  Eventually I figured out which direction to turn the knob so the fire would go out.  I lost a good amount of syrup.

Oh, I'd emptied what was left into the egg mixture before I took this picture.  It wasn't all lost!  But you can see the giant puddle.

No matter!!  The 4 sticks of butter had to be cut up and emptied slowly into the mixture.  (I will tell you, I could have done it much slower.)  Again, I worried that it would never congeal.  It was an egg-and-syrup mixture that should NOT go near a cupcake.  I put the mixer on a higher setting and went about my other business.

When I checked on it again, I saw this beautiful frosting in place of what I had.  What magic is this?  Oh, it's science.

I was done with Martha's instructions.  Everything was complete.  Except I took it further.  There is a wonderful bacon-on-baked-goods trend going on (it has been for a while, I know).  Maple-bacon donuts, bacon in candy bars, etc.  I don't eat bacon (it's a pig-loving thing) so I've missed out on it so far.  Until today!!  I bought turkey bacon (thin and crispy--the best) and cooked it up!

Oh man.  Bacon.

Nice 'n crispy.  I split it up into little bits and decorated the tops of half of the cupcakes (not everyone wants meat on their cupcakes).

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!  You are correct.  They do taste delicious.  Which would you rather?

I'm not sure what's next, but I've been eyeing a banana recipe, and a gingerbread one.  Stay tuned!

maltshop memories

It has been OVER A YEAR since I've posted anything and boy, I feel really badly about this. What can I say? I finally finished my master's degree in early childhood education and early childhood special education. YAY!!! I graduated this past May and still had two state exams to take (out of 4 for NYS teacher certification) and finally took my last one in July, and found out in August that I passed it. PHEW! Now I'm just waiting for the OK from NYS to tell me that I'm certified (believe me, I have applied to places). So, since I have no teaching job for the fall, I am essentially back to where I was before I was in school. Working at a bookstore and not doing much else. So now I have time for blogging, baking (and eating) cupcakes, playing guitar & learning banjo, playing shows (at bars AND toy stores), etc etc etc. So hello everyone once again, and here is my latest cupcake adventure:

Chocolate Malted Cupcakes!!

I was flipping through Martha Stewart's cupcake book looking for a new recipe to try. My boyfriend Mike loves anything malted (whoppers, milkshakes, beer) so I thought I'd give the chocolate malted cupcakes a whirl and see how he liked them. He works at a supermarket so I met him as he got off his shift & he got me to the ingredients right quick! Without Mike I would've been wandering around the store squinting at aisle signs like an idiot for half an hour.

Here I am looking like Julia Child. I was still in my work clothes--fortunately I got this cute red apple apron from Target a few months ago. Martha says to mix the dry stuff first, so here I am whisking flour, cocoa, sugar (granulated and light brown), baking soda and salt. I had Mike measure out the malted milk powder and liquid milk since he likes malt so much.



And whisking, too! We're already making such a mess. Then I combined the dry bowl with the milk bowl and started adding the 3 eggs.


Then came a surprising ingredient, but one I'm sure really made these cupcakes.


Sour cream!


I couldn't believe how moist and rich these cupcakes were. Yum yum yum! Let's continue...

Martha also suggests using an ice cream scoop to measure out just enough batter for each cupcake. Great tip! Thanks, Martha! Except of course it was for a previous recipe I'd done (the classic yellow on her website, which I'll discuss later) that was only for 12 cupcakes... This recipe makes "about 28." So we made 24 plus three large cupcakes (in my large 6-cupcake tin).

So that's about a scoop and a half each. Into the oven you go! Then it was time for the frosting. This is one of my favorite things about cupcakes. For what is a cupcake without its frosting? A sad little cakey muffin. (Still very tasty, though. Like these. For once I wasn't eating a cupcake solely as an excuse to eat frosting).

Martha Stewart's frostings usually call for a ton of soft unsalted butter and confectioner's sugar. I guess that's what most frostings call for, period. I don't have a lot of frosting-making experience outside of my Martha book. I tried vegan frosting once but I wasn't very happy with the outcome. Remind me to try that again.

Mike sifted 4 cups of confectioner's sugar, one cup at a time. He actually enjoyed this. I mean, I don't hate it, but it was very nice to have helping hands :) I just realized that I always bake alone, and having some help not only makes everything go quicker, it's also so much more fun!


Butter, sugar, vanilla. Yum, yum, yum! Meanwhile, we took the cupcakes out of the oven and I had Mike put them on the wire racks to cool.

Frosting's ready, cupcakes are ready...

We did some dishes and cleaned up while the cupcakes cooled enough to get frosted.

Here I am with my trusty offset spatula. Where would I be without it? Mike got me a pastry bag a few months ago that I tried using once. I used it to make little mitten and house decorations on cupcakes for my friends' housewarming party (get it? houses and mittens?), which I will post later, but I haven't yet used it for the whole top of a cupcake, which I really want to do. Anyway...

Here they all are, 24 regular-sized cupcakes, all frosted with that lovely delicious Fluffy Vanilla Frosting (also from Martha's book). Martha puts sprinkles on them for decorations. While Mike & I were at the supermarket, I had an idea.

I thought it'd be cute to put chocolate shavings on top. We'd just watched our first full episode of Cupcake Wars (maybe he'd seen it before, I don't remember, but I certainly hadn't seen a full episode, which doesn't make much sense, considering how much I love cupcakes and how often people who know me tell me to watch it), and I was feeling pretty inspired. That (and my sudden freeing up of time) is what really made me want to get back to this blog.

So, I know, chocolate shavings aren't Cupcake Wars contender-worthy, but it was my little gourmet-ish touch. So Mike took me to the aisle where they have chocolate bars. He had been wanting to try the Cadbury chocolate bar, so we got that. (He doesn't eat candy or dessert really EVER, but he does now, because he's dating me). While exiting the aisle, I stopped, whacked his arm and said, "You know what would really be great?? Whoppers!!" He agreed (since that's pretty much his favorite candy) and we bought a box.




(This was the first plate. I realized after this that I should put the shavings on before the Whoppers.)


(Pre-Whoppers)

Then on the drive home I whacked his arm again and said, "You know what else would be great? Straws!! To make them look like little milkshakes!" So he helped me cut the straws to little sizes and bent them (of course we keep bendy straws at my house) and we stuck them into each cupcake with chocolate shavings and a malt ball on top. And I thought, Martha Stewart didn't think of that. ;)



By now we hadn't tasted them yet. My brother David had walked in asking if he & his husband Hiro could try one and I said, "No, we have to finish decorating them!" Well after Mike & I finished one plate, we tried them. Then we told David.

We made so many, I took them into work the next day. I really do think these were the best cupcakes I've ever made. So moist, so tasty, the frosting was great, the silver liners made them look fancy (thanks to Katherine for that suggestion--she's on a cupcake wrapper kick & noticed, as was my complaint too, that cute decorated cupcake wrappers always come out oily and blotted so you can't even see the cute decoration anymore! So she said your only sure bet is metallic wrappers. If anyone has tips for how not to grease up your paper wrappers and still have them come off without destroying the cupcake, please let me know!), plus they were so much fun to make. Just delightful!

Once again I used my Cupcake Courier from Bed, Bath & Beyond that my parents got me a few years ago. I can't live without it... and transport cupcakes. And what did we do with those 3 large cupcakes I mentioned?

Well, Mike bought some sprinkles when they were a new product at the supermarket and surprised me with them. They were Barn Pals and Zoo Accents. So cute!!


Barn Pals has chicks, cows, pigs and bunnies. Zoo Accents (I love that name) has gorillas, elephants, lions and dolphins.

We used the rest of the frosting to make 3 different colors and use the sprinkles. Mike wanted to use the cows (black & white) & decided that black would be an appetizing color. "No one ever uses black, so I thought it would look really cool," he says.  What I love most about his cupcake is the square of chocolate he put on the top.


I was laughing at him for doing black, though. It got all melty and I really couldn't stop laughing.

Especially compared to the other cupcakes we made:

My pink cupcake with pink & white piggies, and our (I frosted it and he chose the sprinkles) blue cupcake with blue & green dolphins.

He said he didn't use the offset spatula so that explains his.


But all together they don't look so bad!

You gotta love big cupcakes!!