I've gone vegan!

Well.. ok, only partially vegan. I guess technically I'm not vegan at all. But for about 2/3 of my day, usually all except one meal, I eat animal-free. No meat, eggs, dairy. That can be pretty hard for a baker that likes to taste everything through every step of the baking process. But so far I've done good, and the best part is; this is a diet that lets me eat all the sweets I want!

That brings me to the real topic of today's post: Cupcake Hero! Yes, the contest is back again, which makes me realize both how little I post, and how quickly summer is going by (why does it have to be that way). Anyway, I love this month's challenge: coconut; and the added challenge that my friend, Amy, and I have put on ourselves to make a great tasting vegan coconut. Of course, I like to think out of the box with my flavors, so I've created two delicious creations that are all vegan from the first bite to the last.
In creating my cupcakes, I knew i wanted to make a cupcake that was delicate, had a recognizable coconut flavor, and had a punch of spice. Being from a Swedish background, and loving Swedish Cardamom Bread and the potent, chai-like aromas of the cardamom pod, I wanted to include cardamom in one of my version. Cardamom pairs well with orange, which would make a tropical pairing with coconut; made delectable by a vegan cream cheese frosting. So ca-boom! my first vegan cupcake creation!


Zinger Coconut Cupcakes

2 cups cake flour

1 1/3 cups sugar

1 tbsp. baking powder

pinch of salt

the zest of 1 orange

1 1/2 tsp. cardamom

6 oz. Earth Balance Buttery Sticks (or other non-hydrogenated vegan margarine)

1 1/4 cups coconut milk (I used like)

2 tbsp. flaxseed meal

1 tsp. vanilla

1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Line a standard, 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners.
3. Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, orange zest and cardamom in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment.
4. Add the margarine and 2/3 cup of the coconut milk on low speed. Mix until incorporated, then increase to medium-high speed and beat 2 minutes, or until fluffy.
5. Meanwhile, combine the remaining coconut milk, the flaxseed meal and the vanilla. Add to the fluffy mixture and beat on low speed until incorporated.
6. Fold in the coconut.
7. Distribute the batter evenly among the prepared muffin cups.
8. Bake in the preheated oven for 18-25 minutes, or until golden and just barely bouncy to the touch. Cool completely before filling or frosting.

Orange “Cream Cheese” Frosting

2 oz. Earth Balance Buttery Sticks Margarine (or other vegan margarine

4 oz. Tofuti Imitation Cream Cheese

2-3 cups powdered sugar

1 tsp. vanilla (a couple splashes; whatever you like)

1 tbsp. orange juice

1. In an electric mixer, cream the margarine and Tofuti until smooth.
2. Add about half of the sugar and blend well.
3. Add the vanilla and orange juice, then whip, momentarily, until smooth.
4. Add enough powdered sugar to make the desired consistency of frosting for your cupcakes. This frosting does not taste like tofu, even though I thought it would at first.

Frost the Cardamom & Orange Coconut Cupcakes with a generous amount of frosting (don’t frost to close to the edge, the frosting will naturally make its way out). Garnish with toasted coconut.

Thoughts about sickness, Oregon and... Blueberry Cupcakes

Have I said how much I love Oregon? Well I do LOVE it! Maybe it's just the fact that I need a total charge from the long winters and endlessly humid summers, or just need a change of lifestyle; but something about it has always appealed to me. So, a couple weeks ago, I finally got to see if it was all true. And boy, was it ever! Granted, I only saw like a fraction of what there is to see, but I could certainly see myself packing up and moving there.

And, well... I came very close to doing that, right now!

But I guess it's good because now, here i am recovering from a stomach bug.

My darn immune system!

Anyway, so I've spent a lot of time in the house during this last week or so, and before I got sick on Friday, I'd been experimenting with my new favorite kind of baked good. Cupcakes. Being on an Oregon high, I wanted to make something with blackberries and hazelnuts. Turns out, we didn't have anything blackberry in the house, except for about 2 tbsp. of Smucker's Jam. Nor did we have any butter. There went all my ideas!

But then, I found this contest at Kitchen Koola (thanks to my friend... in Oregon) which challenged me to create a cupcake highlighting blueberries. An easy enough switch. And quite tasty too!

I must admit that the frosting I made for these cupcakes was a shortening/cream cheese/seven-minute icing mix (due to the lack of ingredients), so I improvised a bit from what the recipe actually says- the Italian Meringue would much better compliment the cupcakes and would look great too!

Cascade Cupcakes

Hazelnut Butter (needed for cake and filling)

Spread 10 oz. whole hazelnuts on a standard sheet pan.

Roast, at 325 to 350℉ for 5-10 minutes, or until fragrant. When sampled, the nuts should have a deep flavor and a slight crunch.

Immediately pour the nuts onto a clean kitchen towel. Gather up like a pouch, then vigorously roll the nuts to remove the skin. If some skin remains, that’s okay, but it’s papery and bitter, so remove as much as possible.

Place the warm nuts into a small food processor and blend until a smooth, liquidy butter forms. You should not need to add any oil; the nuts should smooth themselves out.

Cupcakes

Yields: about 30 cupcakes

2 oz. hazelnut butter

6 oz. oil

19 oz. sugar

4 eggs

8 oz. buttermilk, microwaved until very hot

7.5 oz. sour cream

the juice of 1 lime

1 tbsp. vanilla

1 lb. flour

2 oz. cornstarch

1 tbsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

2-3 cups blueberries (to taste)

Preheat oven to 350℉ (though it should already be on from toasting the nuts). Line 3 standard 12-cup muffin tins with paper liners.

Combine the hazelnut butter, oil and sugar and mix until smooth.

Beat in the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

Scrape down the sides of the bowl and mix more, as necessary to create a well emulsified mixture.

Slowly stream in the hot buttermilk. It may have separated into thick curds, but that’s okay. Continue beating on medium speed until all the buttermilk is incorporated.

Mix together the lime juice, vanilla and sour cream. Set aside

Toss the blueberries in the corn starch, coating well. If frozen, put back into the freezer until ready to use.

Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

With the mixer on low speed, add the dry ingredients in three additions, alternating with the wet ingredients, in two additions. Mix just until incorporated. After the last addition (which should be flour) goes in, mix only until about half of the flour is incorporated. Remove the bowl from the mixer.

Fold in the blueberries, being sure to get all of the cornstarch from the bottom of the bowl. Mix only until berries have been easily dispersed.

Distribute among paper-lined muffin tins, filling only 2/3 of the way towards the top. These cakes puff up a lot.

Bake in preheated oven for 18-25 minutes, or until just beginning to brown.

Cool completely before filling.

White “Nutella” Filling

8 oz. cream

8 oz. white chocolate, finely chopped (or use good quality chips)

8 oz. hazelnut butter

vanilla extract, to taste

Pour the cream into a microwave safe bowl. Heat, on high, until boiling, 2-4 minutes.

Add the chopped white chocolate and mix, just until smooth.

Stir in the hazelnut butter and vanilla extract, to taste.

Cool to room temperature and thickened before using to fill cupcakes.

Cream Cheese Icing

8 oz. cream cheese, at room temperature.

8 oz. butter, at room temperature

12-16 oz. powdered sugar

vanilla, to taste

Beat cream cheese and butter until smooth and creamy.

Add vanilla and beat until smooth.

Add about half of the powdered sugar and blend until smooth.

Continue to add just enough sugar to create a smooth, spreadable, not-too runny frosting. Cream cheese frosting is hard to pipe and will not get as thick as a pure-butter or shortening basic buttercream frosting would.

Fluffy White Italian Meringue (what I should have used as icing)

24 oz. sugar

12 oz. water

1 vanilla ban, slit in half lengthwise and scraped of its seeds

12 oz. egg whites

1½ tsp. cream of tarter

¾ tsp. salt

Combine sugar, water and vanilla bean (both seeds and bean pod itself) in a high-sided pot. Stir until the sugar is the consistency of wet sand.

Bring sugar to a boil, stirring constantly. Remove the vanilla bean pod, then stop stirring. If any sugar crystals appear to have formed along the side of the pot, use a pastry brush dipped in water to wash them down. Otherwise, put a thermometer in the sugar and walk away.

Meanwhile, prepare the egg whites. Put egg whites, cream of tarter and salt in a clean bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a clean whip attachment (tools must be clean because whites will not whip if there is even a slight amount of fat). Attach the bowl and the whip, but don’t turn on the mixer yet.

When the sugar reaches 235℉, begin beating egg whites on high speed.

When the sugar reaches 240℉, your egg whites should be at stiff peak. If they are not, add a small amount of water to the sugar and continue cooking until stiff peaks form.

Slowly drizzle the hot sugar into the beating egg whites, still on high speed. Aim the stream of sugar down between the beater and the bowl so that it hits the egg whites and cooks them, instead of seeping down the side of the bowl of making a mess.

Once all syrup has been added, continue beating until cooled to room temperature. You can determine this by feeling the bottom of the bowl. It should feel slightly cool, not warm or hot.

Assembly

About 1 cup blueberry jam, jelly or preserves (softened, if necessary) to a pourable consistency)

2 piping bags

1 filler tip (a long tip with a narrow, angled opening that is good for poking into your baked product and filling it; but you could also use a paring knife and a medium-size round tip)

1 large star tip

small offset spatula

Fit one piping bag with the filling tip. If you don’t have a filling tip, fit a bag with a medium-size round tip, and prepare your cooled cupcakes by making a deep insertion into each cake with a paring knife, then opening it with a round object.

Fill the piping bag with a small amount of cooled White “Nutella” filling. Put only as much as you can comfortably squeeze.

Jam the tip into the top, center of one of your cooled cupcakes, going almost to the bottom. Applying gentle, even pressure, squeeze filling into the cavity of the cake as you slowly pull up. Once the filling pokes up through the hole on top, stop applying pressure. Frosting will cover up this hole, so don’t worry about how it looks.

Continue filling all cupcakes, then chill until ready to frost. With the cream cheese frosting, the task is much easier when the cakes are cold.

For Cream Cheese-Iced Cupcakes

Pipe about 2 tbsp. worth of cream cheese onto the tops of each cupcake. Spread using a small offset spatula, smoothing over the top of the cake. If your frosting seems really runny (best if it’s cold too), do not spread it all the way to the edge.

Place a dollop of blueberry preserves in the center of the frosting, swirling if you’d like.

For Italian Buttercream-Iced Cupcakes

Fit the second piping bag with a large star tip. Open the bag up and, holding almost horizontally, spoon some jam along one edge. Spoon in frosting on top. You should have two pretty distinct layers of jam, then frosting.

Pipe frosting in a spiral motion on top of the cupcakes, creating a high peak.

Garnish with chopped hazelnuts, if you wish.

At Home with the Passionista and Raspberry Vanilla Cupcakes

Today showed the culmination of my year of schooling. I am finally home, and very much enjoying my first full day of summer; keeping in mind that if I were in high school, I would be in school for another 5 weeks. I''m now officially a sophomore, I'm out for the summer, and I still have not graduated high school.
Amidst all of these realizations today, I created some tasty treats. Out of the oven came some "raw" chocolate raspberry macaroons that I dehydrated overnight, and out of the drawer came fat free chocolate brownie cookies so that i could give them the "next day" evaluation. Then, I set to work creating cupcakes to serve the team at Relay for Life, going on tomorrow. But always spinning with ideas, I could not just make ordinary vanilla cupcakes. No, I had to make my favorite vanilla bean cupcakes, and then I had to make them low fat. Therefore, I had to make half of them raspberry.
 In the end, i made 8 vanilla bean cupcakes, and 8 raspberry cupcakes, made by replacing the milk (not the butter, as I was originally going to replace, as the method used in the formula would be severely impacted), then spread white chocolate Italian buttercream though you can't taste much white chocolate or other flavor) over top and decorated them with shell borders and a piped "cancer ribbon".
Now, if only I could have presented these cupcakes for my practical!

In the next few days, I will be experimenting to hopefully find the perfect, innovative, creative fat-free cake recipe that describes my personality and culinary point of view. For now, indulge your eyes and salivate over this photo of the raspberry cupcakes. Summer is finally here!

The end is near!

8 days until school is done and I get to go home! Yay!
i mean, let's face it, culinary school can be very tough. Sure, it can be fun, like the class I'm in now, where all we do is experiment with healthy ingredients in ordinary products. There, it doesn't matter if the products we make come out well. We taste it, take our notes, and move on, hoping that the next product will be better and will be something we can use in the future.
Then there are the classes that just want to throw you off balance. The chocolate, petit fours, and cakes. If only we all like our cake unfrosted, uncut, and undecorated. "Frost your own cake" should be a store, don't you think? Cake frosting and decorating is an art; from start to finish. Making the cake, deciding on the flavors to be used for the filling and frosting, and pairing the components is easy and definitely my forte. When it comes to the assembly... well, let's just say it still isn't a piece of cake.
What does pastry school teach you? Sure you find out how to make cookies, pies, cakes, puff pastries, viennoiserie, ice cream, chocolates, breads, sugar and plating. More important than that though, it makes you realize your strengths and weaknesses, finds you new people, and test your boundaries. During every day I've been in school this year, that's what has happened. There's been surprises, uncertainty, shocking introductions to reality, and some unforgettable lessons and memories.
But now, I'm ready for summer! Maybe I'll have time for some more posts then!

Ok. I can't believe that it's only been a week since I was happily baking in my own kitchen at home and enjoying spring break. Two days before that I was falling in love with a little place known as Charlotte, North Carolina. Now, I'm back in he dorm room and while I'd definitely take this over high school, where I'd be taking a bunch of worthless classes and be bored and sad with no friends. So I'm very glad, thank you, to have just finished my high school requirements and to officially be a college freshmen. Plus, I'm in the new culinary arts building, and the state of the arts chocolates lab for my Chocolates and Confections class. And I have no extra classes. Done for the day at 1:00. But I'm usually exhausted. Dehydrated, frustrated, excited, hungry, exhausted. After a day of cutting peanut and mocha squares that have to be cut in 13/16" squares and make my mouth water, I'm so glad it's the weekend. Wish I had more andy to enjoy, but unfortunately we can't take much home. So, instead I'm filling my time looking at recipes I can't make right now. I mean RIGHT NOW! I want to step into my own kitchen and have my own agenda making things I can keep. And eat as much as I want without any guilt, exercise or whatnot. Anyone with me? Well, if you are, take a step into dreamland, and take a look at one of my favorite recipe destinations. Tastespotting.com. all It's a place that gathers information from countless food blogs and depicts a glorious, mouth-watering array of pictures for your clicking fancy. I'll try to make that help me this weekend, but... why is it that dorms in culinary school don't have kitchens? Enough for now.