Cosmic Delight.

I am really not a very creative person. I am good at taking something, and making it mine, and replicating ideas that are out there. But to come up with something, just out of the blue? Not so much. After about three, maybe four if I am feeling generous, new cupcakes, I ran out of things to make. I am talking new ideas, not the same delicious treats you see in all the cupcakeries. What do you do when you run out of ideas? Well, I decided I should get the input from the people who actually eat the cupcakes. (Another post on that in the future, about how I rarely eat cupcakes, or anything I make for that matter...)

The input I am getting is pretty great. Actually, every time I walk in with some cupcakes, I get "Hey, how about...?" It is fantastic, and that is where the Cosmic Delight comes in. A request came in from Taste Cadet D, for a cupcake made like a Lil' Debbie Star Crunch snack. This seemed like a great idea, especially since it was a childhood favorite of mine. Apparently, as a child, I thought I was Lil' Debbie, and would drop everything to go watch my commercials. This dream must have stuck, as making cupcakes is a favorite hobby, 30 years later.

The recipe itself has been waiting for me, in my handy book I carry everywhere. In fact, I have been holding the ingredients for a couple of weeks, but as D was on vacation, I thought it only fair to wait and make her creation when she was actually there. ;) I have even eaten a couple of Star Crunch snacks, for research purposes, of course! (Can I just point out that these snacks are a lot sweeter than I remember?)

The cake, I decided, needed to be a brown sugar cupcake. The recipe for this was pretty simple, until I thought I knew best and tried to bake it at 325 degrees rather than my usual 350. I don't advise this, in fact, I highly discourage this. Stick with what works, and reference this picture if you think changing your traditional temperature is a good idea.

My second attempt worked much better. Amazing what a proper oven temperature can do!

The second step was to layer in the delicious caramel. All I can say is yum.

Finally, that awesome out layer, where you get delicious chocolate and fun texture. I melted some chocolate into a thick ganache, and added crisp rice cereal. And Voila! Cosmic Delight Cupcakes.

Check back soon for the recipe, once I know it actually tastes good!!

Ah, Tahini...

It has been a few days sine my last post. Cupcakes, while always on my brain, were farther in the back the last little bit. Part of this lifestyle I live means pretty consistently saying good bye to friends. When you have been with certain ones for several years, it is that much harder. Good luck, J & K, in your new very green, very wet home!

Now on to cupcakes. My inspiration for this weeks experiment was a Whole Foods blog. This blog discussed different ways to enjoy Tahini, a spread made of sesame seeds. The concept is fairly similar to peanut butter, but with sooooo many ways to enjoy. Now I must admit, I have never had Tahini. I did, however, happen to have a jar of Tahini I had purchased for a recipe I was never actually going to make. ;)

The blog mentioned a banana covered in Tahini and drizzled with dark chocolate. I am a pretty simple girl, and quite frankly, you had me at bananas and chocolate... It didn't take long to sit down and scribble out a recipe, with a banana cupcake, some Tahini frosting and some chocolate drizzles. After some intense discussion with A, who has actually had Tahini, we decided it would be most delicious if we added some chocolate swirls into the cake itself also.

Swirling cakes has proved to be an interesting challenge. I am pretty sure I ended up with a banana cake with a chocolate layer on top, but that's ok. If the recipe proves tasteworthy, I will have plenty of time to practice my technique. The cake also domes up a bit more than is typical for my recipes, but there is nothing wrong with a nicely rounded cupcake. The cake also has a sheen on it, which is another first for me. I do believe the bananas I used made for a denser cake, but again the jury is still out.

Wanna-be swirls

I decided to make the Tahini frosting the same way I make Peanut Butter frosting. Cream together some butter (or in this case, Earth balance) Tahini and Powdered sugar, with a bit of soy milk for consistency, and tada! Tahini Frosting. I have to admit to sampling this one, which I rarely do. The whole concept of Tahini kind of scared me, but it worked out surprisingly well.

Keeping this one vegan ;)

To finish these off, and make them pretty, I drizzled some melted semi sweet chocolate over the top.

You can almost see the chocolate layers here

Pretty BCT Cupcake!

Recipe

Banana Chocolate Cupcake
makes 24
Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Ingredients:
4 bananas, smashed (the riper the better)
2/3 cup canola oil
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup soy milk + 1 tsp vinegar (let sit about 5 minutes before combining with others)
2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
2 Tbsp cornstarch
dash nutmeg

Directions:
Mix wet ingredients together (first 6). Whisk dry ingredients in seperate bowl. Add in 2 batches to wet mixture, reserving 1 1/2 cups batter. Mix well until no large lumps remain. To reserved batter, add 2 heaping tbsp cocoa powder, mix well.

Spoon white batter into liners until about 1/2 full. Add chocolate mixture to each liner evenly. Swirl with knife to create pattern. (I have trouble with this. Mine became banana layer topped with chocolate layer. Still delicious.) Bake 15-18 minutes.

Tahini Frosting

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter or margarine (Yay for Earth Balance!)
3/4 cup tahini
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
3 tsp (ish) soy milk

Directions:
Cream butter and tahini together. Add sugar, 1/2 cup at a time, followed by dash of soy milk. Mix until desired consistency is reached. (Make sure to test this before frosting your cupcakes, as different tahinis will take different amounts of sugar!!)

Pipe onto cupcake and drizzle with melted chocolate.