When the Levee Breaks Chocolate Cupcakes

This is my 2nd "entry" in Iron Cupcake: Music. My sister C. just graduated from beauty school and we're all really proud of her. She said that she loved Led Zeppelin's "When the Levee Breaks" and that it relaxes her. She was thinking chocolate-chocolate-chocolate - so I came up with this:

When the Levee Breaks Chocolate Cupcakes

Ingredients:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour unsifted
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup butter room temperature
• 2 cups sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 3 ounces unsweetened chocolate melted *
  
• chocolate pudding
  
• chocolate graham cracker crumbs
  

Preheat oven to 350°F. Combine flour, baking powder, soda and salt. Cream butter and sugar together until light in texture. Add eggs and vanilla to creamed mixture. Beat thoroughly. Add flour mixture to creamed mixture alternately with milk, beating well after each addition. Add melted chocolate and beat thoroughly. Pour into prepared pan. Bake 20-25 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Once the cupcakes are cooled, take a knife and cut a cone out of the centre of the cupcake. Fill the hole of the cupcake with the chocolate pudding. Cut off the top of the cone and place it on top of the pudding.** Then frost with chocolate buttercream icing and top with chocolate graham cracker crumbs.

*You can also substitute cocoa + oil for chocolate - 3 T. cocoa + 1 T oil = 1 oz. chocolate. I actually prefer using cocoa - it gives it a more intense chocolate flavour.
**There is a great tutorial on filling cupcakes at Baking Bites.

Iron Cupcake Music: 3 Little Hummingbirds Cupcakes

For this month's Iron Cupcake theme (music), I decided to honour my two sisters with their very own cupcakes based on their favourite songs. My sister B. just got accepted to nursing school and my sister C. just finished beauty school. I was a little lazy and didn't get these uploaded in time, but I do still want to post the recipes.

3 Little Hummingbirds Cupcakes

One of B's fave song is Bob Marley's "Three Little Birds."  She said "3 Little Birds is just a feel good, happy "every little thing, is gonna be alright", put you in a better mood, if things are going badly" sort of song. She thought it should be have pinapple, banana, coconut, and pecans. What better than a Hummingbird Cake cupcake?

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 cups white sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 3 eggs, beaten
• 3/4 cups vegetable oil
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 (8 ounce) can crushed pineapple w/ liquid
  
• 1 cup chopped pecans
• 2 cups mashed bananas (3-4 bananas)
  
• 1 c. coconut
  

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line cupcake tin with paper liners.
Combine flour, white sugar, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon in a large bowl. Add eggs, vanilla and oil and stir until moistened - don't over-mix. Mix in bananas, pineapple, pecans and coconut.
Spoon into liners until about 2/3 full.
Bake for 25-30 minutes, until golden brown.

Icing:

• 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 4 cups icing sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• toasted coconut

To toast the coconut, spread a layer of coconut on a baking sheet and bake at 350 for about 10 minutes or until it gets nice and golden. Check it often and stir so it toasts evenly and doesn't burn.
Beat cream cheese until fluffy. Add butter and vanilla and beat until combined completely. Add icing sugar little by little until nice and fluffy. If you need to thin it, add a little milk.
Frost cupcakes and roll the tops in the toasted coconut.

Makes 24 + cupcakes.

 

Iron Cupcake SF - Squash!

I've had some success in creating cupcake recipes and maybe it has gone to my head as I've been considering becoming an Iron Cupcake. What's that? Basically, it's a monthly theme-based cupcake contest. I thought that before I would dive in, I should check out the local Iron Cupcake SF for a little reconnaissance mission. I took two friends with me and we went to the city to taste and judge. Let me tell you, it was really hard to get volunteers to taste cupcakes. It was at the Leland Tea Company which was a cute venue, but a little small for the number of people that showed up.

There were 20 entries, some good, some bad and all made with squash. My favourite was a pumpkin chocolate chip cupcake. It was moist and had a nice balance of flavours and was made with good chocolate. That entry came in second.

I learned that you have to make sure the cupcake itself is great - great flavour, great consistency, great idea. The other important thing was not to have the icing overpower the cupcake. There was a to-die-for caramel frosting, but I have no idea what the cupcake tasted like, as all I could taste was the frosting.

The aftermath:

Next time, we'll bring moist towelettes to battle the stickiness, clipboards for our ballots, and milk hats (like a beer hat, but with milk). And maybe some insulin.