Watergate Cupcakes

For my boyfriend's birthday, I decided to bake him cupcakes. After all, he thoughtfully gave me that big book filled with cupcake recipes. What better event than now to show off my newfound knack of baking cupcakes to him, after all? A little over a year ago, he told me his and his father’s favourite cake was called ‘Watergate Cake.’ Now, I never had heard of this type of cake before, and he explained it to me – see: filled with pistachios and yummy.

 I did research on the internet for a cake recipe like this, since I couldn’t seem to find it in any cookbooks I had on hand. Even Martha Stewart didn’t have a recipe for it! I did find a few recipes though on it, and they all had pretty much the same features: a boxed cake mix (yellow or white), some sort of fizzy soda (club or lemon-lime usually), and pistachio pudding. No matter how hard I looked, I couldn’t find a ‘Watergate Cake’ recipe from scratch, ie. not using a boxed cake mix. So I figured that if I got the other ingredients on hand, I could deviate from a white cake recipe and add in the other stuff.  So that’s what I did! I also added in some crushed pistachios and walnuts for extra flavouring.

This recipe yields a ridiculously large number of cupcakes! I made about 30 regular sized cupcakes, and a dozen mini cupcakes with the batter.

Watergate cake:

3 ¼ cups sifted cake flour (not self-rising)

1 ½ tablespoons baking powder

¼ tsp salt

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons milk

½ cup plus 6 tablespoons (1 ¾ sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

1 ¾ cups sugar

5 large egg whites, room temperature

1 cup crushed pistachios

1 box pistachio flavoured instant pudding

½ cup walnuts
1 cup club soda

1.   

    2. Preheat oven to 350° F. Line muffin tin with paper liners. Sift together cake flour, baking powder, pudding mix, and salt.

2.       

2. With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, cream butter until smooth. Gradually add in sugar, beating until pale and fluffy. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture in three batches, alternating with two additions of milk, and beating until just combined after each. Add club soda.

3.     

3.   In another bowl, with electric mixer on medium speed, whisk the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Fold one third of egg whites into batter to lighten. Gently fold in remaining whites in two batches. Add in crushed pistachios and walnuts, stir until combined.  (Additionally, I added in a few drops of green food colouring because I wanted my cupcakes to be really green!!

4.    

4.    Fill muffin tin ¾ full. Bake for 18-20 minutes. Transfer muffin tin to wire racks to cool for 10 minutes. Pull out cupcakes and let cool completely before frosting.

The frosting I made was really simple to make. I used the same recipe for the frosting that all the Watergate cake recipes I found were using. This yields about enough frosting for two dozen cupcakes.

Frosting:

Two packets of Dream Whip

One box of pistachio flavoured instant pudding mix

1 ½ cups milk

1.       Mix, with an electric mixer on medium-high, Dream Whip and milk together until the mixture thickens and forms peaks.

2.       Add in pistachio instant pudding mix and mix until combined.

3.       Chill until ready to use.

Everything went according to plan: the baking, the frosting making. And then the unthinkable happened. I had set a tray of iced cupcakes down on the table and as I turned to find a spatula, the whole tray slipped off the table and… splat. Top side down onto the floor. I had unknowingly set it on a potholder that was hanging off the edge, and it carried the whole tray down to cupcake doom.

I ended up making some more. And finished the day off with making chocolate chip cookies. Phew, what a day!

Maple Cupcakes with Brown Butter Glaze

After my chocolate overload with the devil’s food cupcakes and chocolate ganache frosting, my ‘taste-testers’ asked for something less chocolatey. They are men! And I guess not big fans of chocolate. I decided to go in a different direction and tried out a recipe of a brown-sugar pound cake with brown butter glaze.

I love brown butter. I love cooking it and the smell and the taste. Everything! I would put brown butter in every dessert if I could. Mwuahahaha! I first discovered the amazing taste of brown butter when I made brown butter spoon cookies for a bunch of friends one day  (found here). Hook, line and sinker. The nutty aroma of browning butter is to die for and combine it in a sweet treat, and you’ve got a drool-worthy dessert!  So when I saw the recipe for brown butter glaze, I was excited to try this out.

The recipe was quick and easy, as Martha’s cupcake recipes are. On a whim, I poured an extra tablespoon and a half of maple syrup into my pound cupcake batter. Instant heaven. The cupcakes came out beautifully yellow and moist with a very sweet, yummy scent of maple syrup.

The frosting was pretty easy to put together: browned butter and sugar mixed together. As typical with the frostings I’ve been making, it was a bit soupy at first. I knew I wouldn’t be able to put it into a decorating bag but it IS glaze and not frosting, technically. I let it sit and it got stiffer upon sitting. Stirring it up made it a little more pliable if it became too stiff from sitting. I just used a spatula and spread the glaze onto the cupcakes generously. Yum!

My taste-testers declared that this was their favourite cupcake yet! And frankly, it was my favourite too. I ate way too many!

All the recipes I use can be found in Martha Stewart's "Cupcakes" book, or on her website: Brown Sugar Pound Cupcake.

Pancake Day pancakes

As today is Strove Tuesday, AKA Pancake Day, I decided to deviate from my usual cupcake baking and make some pancakes instead. Honestly, I had never made home-made pancakes before, so this was a first for me. For a long time, I wasn’t even a big fan of pancakes (mostly due to the fact that I can’t handle the stickiness that came with maple syrup. And who has pancakes without maple syrup!? Heresy!) But I rekindled my love of maple syrup – we kissed and made up – with some delicious maple cookies I made for a few friends, and a very delicious cupcake that I haven’t posted about yet (brown butter glazed frosting and maple cupcakes – it’s coming up next! )

I found my pancake recipe on allrecipes.com. I wasn’t sure what to choose from the plethora of pancake recipes, they seemed all pretty similar, so I chose the top-rated one and went with it. I threw the ingredients together in three minutes and set up my frying pan. I also added a little bit of vanilla for some extra sweetness.

The frying bit was the big part. I wasn’t good with flipping things in skillets. They usually broke apart or flew everywhere. Or both. Omlettes and I don’t get along other than the fact that I love them a lot, but because I can’t flip them without them getting everywhere and then I get angry at them. I just end up with a pile of scrambled eggs and all the veggies and cheese flung everywhere on the plate.

The  first one I poured on, naturally, broke into a bunch of pieces. I had flipped it too soon. But I browned all the little pieces and took them out and ate them right there. Mmm, good!! The second one came out pretty good, though, as I knew what I was looking for this time. The third one got burnt (I was writing this blog at the time and got distracted) but the dogs enjoyed it. Strove Tuesday is for everyone! After that, and I gained my attention span back, my pancake flipping skills became great! They tend to come out a little wrinkly because I’m not great at pancake flipping, but I count the fact that they’re in one piece and decently round a success. They don’t look like five-star restaurant pancakes, but they are cooked well, and tasty delicious. Especially smothered in maple syrup.

The pictures are terrible because the lighting in my kitchen is awful. The lighting can’t excuse the weird looking pancakes though. I guess I won’t be a professional flapjack flipper, that’s for sure!!

The recipe used for these pancakes can be found here.

Makes 8 pancakes

Ingredients

·         3/4 cup milk

·         2 tablespoons white vinegar

·         1 cup all-purpose flour

·         2 tablespoons white sugar

·         1 teaspoon baking powder

·         1/2 teaspoon baking soda

·         1/2 teaspoon salt

·         Splash of vanilla

·         1 egg

·         2 tablespoons butter, melted

Directions

1.     Combine milk with vinegar in a medium bowl and set aside for 5 minutes to "sour".

2.     Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large mixing bowl. Whisk egg and butter into "soured" milk. Add in vanilla. Pour the flour mixture into the wet ingredients and whisk until lumps are gone.

3.     Heat a large skillet over medium heat, and coat with cooking spray. Pour 1/4 cupfuls of batter onto the skillet, and cook until bubbles appear on the surface. Flip with a spatula, and cook until browned on the other side.

Devil's Food Cupcakes with Chocolate Ganache

Testing my skills in the kitchen again. This time, the recipe: Devil’s Food Cupcake with Chocolate Ganache Frosting, from Martha Stewart’s Cupcakes book.  It looked absolutely delicious, and I had a craving for chocolate – then again, when don’t I?

Chocolate ganache is a decadent chocolate frosting that looks utterly delicious.

For once, everything seemed to go smoothly, cupcake wise. I think I got that down pat! Yay! The cupcakes ended up being wonderfully moist and chocolatey – the absolute perfect cupcake.

Then came the icing. Isn’t this where I go wrong a lot? I followed the directions – they were surprisingly simple. I did almost take my finger off when I was 'finely-chopping' my chocolate. But, me + very large knife = never a good idea.  For the most part, the instructions were mostly: chop chocolate, boil heavy cream, pour heavy cream on chocolate. Then a little tricky part where I had to stir it a lot and refrigerate it to cool, and stir every five minutes until it "thickened."

I stirred and cooled and stirred and cooled. Did it thicken like Martha said it would after 30 minutes? No. Did it thicken after 120 minutes? No.  Once again, I had frosting soup. Really chocolatey frosting soup.  I decided to let it refrigerate overnight and hit the internet to find out any more info on chocolate ganache.
(For the record, the recipe linked has all the same components but the instructions read differently than they do in the recipe book.)

This site here gave me some helpful insight on ganache. They suggested just whipping it with cold beaters and a cold bowl! So easy, right!?

Out came the ganache and my hand mixer. And as I mixed, I watched my ganache soup turn into lovely, fluffy ganache frosting. Oh yea, definitely easy-peezy lemon-squeezy!

 Ganache unwhipped/glazed

Ganache whipped

As the ganache seemed to be holding its shape, I put it into a frosting bag and decided to test out my decorating tips I have. It was fun, until I realized that my ganache wasn’t as smooth as it should have been. Bits of chocolate were still in the frosting (which made it incredibly delicious and rich, but wrecked havoc on my tips.) The smaller tips had problems getting clogged with chocolate chunks, and I exploded two frosting bags before I learned my lesson. Ganache doesn’t taste as good in your hair. Or your eyebrows.

My taste-testers – forced PennDOT guys to eat my cupcakes, the horrors! – all loved them; they were gone in a day! They asked for something with a little less chocolate next time, though.

All the recipes I use can be found in Martha Stewart's "Cupcakes" book, or on her website: Chocolate Ganache Frosting and Devil's Food Cupcakes!