Page 97: Red Velvet Cupcakes

Velvet? Not exactly.

As expected, these cupcakes turned out dry and dense and were only marginally improved by the addition of BabyCakes vanilla frosting.  

They weren't "ick! spit it out!" bad, but they were so dry they just crumbled when you tried to take a bite. I found that eating the top half only made the frosting ratio higher, and therefore made them slightly more enjoyable.

The good new? THAT WAS MY LAST CUPCAKE RECIPE! Hooray! I have to admit I'm rather sad that in the entire book there was only one cupcake that I would even consider making again (see Meyer Lemon and Bing Cherry Cupcakes), but I totally blame the gluten free flours and not the absence of eggs, milk, or butter.  

Another silver lining to the story? I took leftover cupcakes and finally had the chance to try out these cake balls I hear so much about (I'm looking at you, Angie and Amy). I crumbled the red velvet cupcakes, added a generous amount of BabyCakes vanilla frosting, and rolled them into balls before dipping them in melted chocolate chips.

Now these... they were downright good. Definitely the best use of a BabyCakes cupcake so far!

Page 100: Meyer Lemon and Bing Cherry Cupcakes

It's cherry season!

I always know this because Whole Foods has their annual one-day cherry sale.  I now consider this day one of my favorite holidays of the year.  Last year I purchased five pounds and tried the BabyCakes cherry cobbler.  This year, I own a dehydrator... so I bought ten pounds!

How did I use ten pounds of cherries you may ask?  Well first, after I pulled out a bowl for us to munch on over the weekend, I spent the better part of Friday night standing over my sink pitting the remaining cherries.  And despite the purchase of a cherry pitter since last year's sale, my fingers remain slightly stained. 

First off, I removed 24 cherries to make the much anticipated BabyCakes Meyer Lemon and Bing Cherry cupcakes.  That didn't make much of a dent.  Next, I loaded my dehydrator - all five trays - with halved cherries and set it to dry.  We're set on dried cherries for awhile!

But I still had a couple pounds of pitted cherries looking for a delicious home.  So I began googling... and ended up making my first ever batch of jam.  Cherry jam!  Using this easy-peasy recipe.

It's so yummy ... and I love having jam in my fridge that I made myself.

But back to the highlight: the cupcakes.  I've been wanting to make these for quite awhile and finally got to check them off my list.

The cupcakes are lemon - made with both lemon extract and lemon infused agave nectar.  They are supposed to be Meyer Lemons but I couldn't find them on the island, so I just used regular lemons.

You add a cherry filling by inserting a layer of chopped cherries (bathed in the infused agave), between scoops of cupcake batter.

The frosting was the traditional BabyCakes vanilla frosting with some of the chopped cherry mixture folded into the frosting. Thanks to Jen, who recently left me a comment about the frosting - I used less milk this time which definitely seemed to help. I was short on coconut oil though so I need to give it another try and see if it sets up better with half the milk.

These were really good - definitely my favorite BabyCakes cupcake recipe so far - and likely the only one I would make again. They were still dense - but unlike other BabyCakes cupcakes they stayed really moist and were very tasty!  They also got rave reviews from the office-mates.  Hooray for a BabyCakes success story!

Page 88: Healthy Hostess

It was time for another bake sale at work and I decided to be adventurous. This was, of course, after I had already made the obligatory chocolate chip cookie sandwiches. Plus I think these healthier hostess-like treats are just adorable and I couldn't wait to attempt to recreate them.

I'm still not a fan of the BabyCakes cupcakes, but with the filling inside these babies it did help keep them moist!

Unfortunately I made this batch before I perfected the half-batch-in-the-Vitamix approach, so the chocolate frosting didn't turn out so well.  The recipe calls for vanilla frosting on top, so perhaps I brought this curse upon myself. Anyway, without chocolate frosting I improvised with a fudge frosting made mostly from melted chocolate chips. I thought this ended up being more hostess-like anyway.

Could have been better, but I was tired and have all but given up on the BabyCakes cupcake. Still a few to go in the book, but probably won't be making these babies again. Sad... they have such cuteness potential!

This being Thanksgiving week you should look forward to not just one but TWO new recipes this week! That's right... making up for lost time here! 

Page 76: Macaroons and Page 115: Vanilla Crumb Base (and various other birthday treats)

I'm back with the promised Macaroons! See... that didn't take long did it?

Today's productivity is largely due to the fact that my friend Brooke's birthday is tomorrow. Brooke has gluten and dairy sensitivities, and therefore is the only other person I know that gets as excited as I do about dairy free wonders. Brooke has also been out of town visiting family for several weeks so I decided to whip up some BabyCakes staples - and one totally new recipe (because I do need to work on my stats here) -  for a Happy Birthday/Welcome Home package! Timely enough, our Labor Day was cloudy and overcast so it was a great day to do some baking.

First up, I knew I wanted to make Macaroons. However, I actually got to knock down three individual recipes (two of which I've never made before) in the making of said Macaroons. I'll explain...

On the surface, the Macaroons appeared to be quite simple... like four ingredients simple. Except one of the ingredients is "Vanilla Crumb Base".  So I flip to page 115 for the Vanilla Crumb Base. And again... four ingredients. Nice! Except, one of those ingredients is "6 unfrosted vanilla cupcakes (Page 86)". There it is. So much for simplicity! Not to mention I felt like I was back in the fourth grade reading a "choose your own adventure book". While I'm sure this is an incredibly efficient use of resources in a commercial bakery kitchen, it's slightly less than ideal for me at home.

But regardless, in order to make the desired Macaroons I first had to make cupcakes. And you know how I feel about cupcakes. Or, more accurately, how low my success rate has been with cupcakes to date. But I went for it anyway. Today, I did something slightly different and instead of using hot water as the recipe called for, I used almond milk right out of the fridge. Not sure how big of a difference it made but the cupcakes seemed to be more moist than my last venture into BabyCakes cupcakeland. They were so moist in fact, that once they cooled and I went to crumble them for the crumb base, they didn't want to crumble like the less moist chocolate version did last week. This is progress!

So, here is how you make BabyCakes Macaroons:

Step One: Make fluffy cupcakes

Step Two: Crumble six such fluffy cupcakes into bowl

Step Three: Add sweet and salty to make Vanilla Crumb Base recipe

Step Four: Add more sweetness, salt, and coconut to make Macaroon batter

Step Five: Spoon onto baking dish and bake until golden

I only made a half batch of the cupcakes and used half for the crumb base and frosted the other half for eating just as cupcakes. I was making the legendary favorite chocolate chip cookie sandwiches so I needed frosting anyway!

The sandwich making went pretty well this time. I'm still trying to master the perfect cookie, but fortunately when you put frosting between them and freeze the bundle, they are much more forgiving than when enjoyed solo.

I also made a half batch of frosting. As much as I love the stuff, I do think that a smaller batch is easier to manage. I'm still learning interesting things about the chemistry of this concoction - I think it has to do mostly with the coconut oil - and it's proving quite helpful. Today I discovered that even though it was chilled it wasn't setting up like frosting. That is until I whipped it up with a rubber spatula. This seemed to activate some previously untapped coconut oil super powers and it was suddenly the consistency of icing. It was amazing. And I was relieved that I had frosting instead of frosting flavored sauce.

The final product: a BabyCakes Birthday/Welcome Home goodie package for my dairy free/gluten free friend! And, plenty of leftovers for the officemates.

The end.

Oh wait... I decided to start a recipe countdown, both to keep me motivated and give you some perspective, and when I sat down to tally my progress I was surprised to discover I am over a third of the way done! There are 51 recipes, including five recipes in the drinks chapter. And, as of tonight, I have 18 down and 33 to go!

Page 87: Chocolate Cupcakes and Page 93: Chocolate Frosting

Oh, cupcake... why do you torment me so?

I gave the cupcake another chance, and it once again got the best of me.

I incorporated all my lessons learned this time.  I didn't fill the cups too full and baked them for a significantly shorter time. When they were still warm out of the oven I sampled and was so excited because they seemed much lighter and fluffier than all prior versions. "I MADE CUPCAKES!" I declared! "Not muffins, not tea cake, CUPCAKES"! Even hubby thought they were more cupcake-like and commented how much lighter they felt just by weight.

See how they even look more cupcake-like? It was wonderful. And I strutted around the house the rest of the day thinking I finally mastered the gluten free/dairy free BabyCakes masterpiece.  But by the time they all cooled and I frosted them, not so fluffy anymore. And... once frosted I keep them in the fridge because the frosting is so fragile and by the next day they were pretty much as dry and dense as all previous attempts. Maybe not refrigerating them would help, but then my frosting would just be a disaster. Perhaps the trick is to make and frost them immediately before serving (oh sure, that's not inconvenient at all...).

Sigh. There are two more cupcake recipes in the book, so I'll keep trying with Red Velvet and Meyer Lemon and Bing Cherry versions eventually. But if I fail there too it may all be over. There are just too many better things going on in that book to keep making disappointing cupcakes!

In related news, I continue to learn and master the intricacies of frosting making. I had to make a couple adjustments to this batch.... I had almond milk instead of soy milk, which won't hold up as well in the frosting, so I substituted canned coconut milk - which made it very creamy. I also ran out of agave nectar (I have been burning through that stuff like crazy... thank goodness they sell it at Costco) about 1/8 of a cup shy of what was required, so I substituted maple syrup for the remaining amount which seemed to work out just fine.

The texture was pretty good after chilled, but I wanted it a bit thicker so tried the food processor trick and added a little coconut oil to the chilled frosting. DISASTROUS! It all clumped up like curdled milk and I nearly cried. But I let it warm up to room temperature again and put it through the blender a second time in small batches.  This seemed to do the trick and got it back to the original texture, and after it chilled all was right with the world again.

Looks better than it tasted. Oh well.

So here is what I think: I love BabyCakes, but either I do not care for, or cannot adequately replicate her cupcakes. So, I'll continue to adore and remake many other BabyCakes recipes, but perhaps research a way to make a better gluten free/dairy free cupcake. I heard the woman who started Sticky Fingers Bakery in D.C. uses soda water to make them lighter, so maybe I'll start to experiment with other tricks like that. But for now, onward with other BabyCakes recipes!

Page 98: Carrot Cupcakes

It's been so long since I actually made these cupcakes that I have to take a minute to jog my memory about the endeavor. I'm sorry... I've been busy. Okay, I remember. Let's go...

So first of all, BIG props to my amazing food processor! I love having this thing and it made grating three cups of carrots a cinch. Removing the orange tinge from the bowl was the only semi-annoying part of that ordeal.

These cupcakes included spices like cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg.  I'm not a fan of ginger... at ALL... but I do not dare depart from the recipes during my adventure through the book so I put it in and, of course, they were still delicious. I think the cinnamon and nutmeg covered it up. It may also have a little bit to do with the fact I went a little light on the ginger and no, I do not consider that cheating.

Bottom line: these were very yummy. But still not like cupcakes. Still more like a dense tea cake. They could be lighter and definitely more moist. I did discover that if I don't fill the muffin cups too full it helps a lot because in the end the frosting to cupcake ratio is more appropriate that way. However, I didn't do this on the first batch so I improvised by serving them to the girls at girls night like this:

And... this is the ONLY picture I have. So sorry. I guess I need to invite Kim over when I bake to appropriately document the process!

I also think I could maybe bake them for a little less time and that might help make them less dry. There may also be some secret about "cupcake tins" as opposed to "muffin tins". The latter of which I guess I own. Or maybe not. I cannot tell from this slightly cryptic explanation in the front of the BabyCakes NYC book:

Muffin cups are slightly larger than cupcake cups, by about 1 inch in diameter. Because these vary in size, try to get the correct one for each recipe to ensure accurate baking times.

Does anyone understand this? Is she talking about the Texas size muffin tins or is there really a third size of muffin tins out there? If you get this or know anything about it, please interpret for me and, just possibly, save my cupcakes. Thank you.

One great thing about this bake session is that I think I finally mastered the frosting. Even if it isn't easy. The process seems to be, for me and my kitchen equipment at least, as follows:

1. Mix liquid ingredients in the blender

2. Slowly add coconut oil and lemon, as directed

3. Once the mix gets to thick for your blender, pour into a bowl and mix the rest of the oil in by hand. (Really need that VitaMix... I'm convinced it will change my life. Much like the food processor I love.)

4. Chill

5. Once fully chilled, pour into food processor and blend. If it's still too thin, add a little more coconut oil which, when it comes in contact with the chilled frosting, will thicken the mix.

6. FROST! Yay!

See, simple? Well, okay, not simple. But at least it's predictable. I'm good with that for now.

Page 85: Vanilla Cupcakes

As you may have noticed, I've slowed down on the posting a bit. This is partly because nightly baking is just not sustainable in any person's schedule, but also because my friend Kim and I started a bootcamp. In more ways than one, baking is not so compatible with bootcamp. First, because getting up a 4am requires going to bed at 9pm, and second, because an hour of burning calories with drill-sargent-like workouts every morning makes me more selective about the calories I consume.

However, before this week's "absolutely zero sugar" diet mandated by my bootcamp instructor (not kidding... sniff), I whipped up some BabyCakes vanilla cupcakes last weekend (just in the nick of time - there are severe penalties for cheating this week which include sprints, planks, and some tortuous move called burpees I don't even want to know about).

As I stood at my kitchen counter flipping through the BabyCakes book on Saturday, I looked longingly at the pictures of the Chocolate Cupcakes. However, according to Erin McKenna, Vanilla Cupcakes is "the recipe that started it all." How could I argue with that? I figured if it was the recipe that started it all, it should at least be the recipe that started my trek through the cupcakes chapter.

In keeping with the spirit of BabyCakes, these cupcakes are gluten free... and baking them was the first time I got to use the garbanzo-fava bean flour and potato starch I had stocked in my pantry. After one batch of dry ingredients wherein I mistakenly added 1/2 cup of xanthan gum instead of arrowroot (gotta get around to labeling those containers soon), I started over and got busy filling muffin tins.

Let's just jump to the finished product, shall we? Because that, after all, is really the point.

Notice how they do not look like cupcakes? Yeah, me too.

At this point I really just wanted to call up Ms. McKenna and say "ummm... was this the plan?" Now, they were still delicious. But more in a pound cake or muffin kind of way rather than a cupcake kind of way. You kind of expect cupcakes to be more spongy and light and smooth on top. Because I didn't try the cupcakes at the BabyCakes store (I know... what was I thinking?), I do not know if this is is the way they were supposed to be. I did a bit of googling and noticed several people commented on the "dense" texture of BabyCakes cupcakes so maybe I did do it right. I mean the things are delicious, dairy free, and gluten free - perhaps we can give a little leniency to the texture?

Moving on...

Frosting! The frosting for the cupcakes was the same frosting as the filling for the reigning champion chocolate chip cookie sandwiches. But this being batch two I discovered that my blender was just not cutting it and switched to mixing it up in the food processor. Much better! I struggled with the texture before - it was so soft if not frozen. This time, when chilled, it was a perfectly frostable spread.

Not so light, but the perfect amount of sweet and just a bit lemony. I enjoyed them and so did the co-workers and my girls at girls' night!

I think this is another recipe which needs another go around in an effort to improve and become worthy of the BabyCakes name. Unfortunately, I have a whole book ahead of me but we'll see what I can do! This weekend I'll be baking for our Memorial Day get-together so look forward to a review of brownie bites and *da da dum* more chocolate chip cookie sandwiches! It's official - they are every one's favorite so far and we can't get enough of them. Particularly when I ate almost all of them on my own and saved too few for my friends...