Chocolate Stout Cupcakes with Mocha Ganache and Mascarpone Cream

Chocolate Stout Cupcakes with Mocha Ganache and Mascarpone Cream.  Sounds amazing, right?  As I've mentioned before, I had a bottle of chocolate stout beer in my fridge that I wanted to make a cake out of.  This one was specifically Cocoa Loco by Arcadia Ales from my hometown of Battle Creek, Michigan!  I came across this awesome chocolate stout cupcake recipe and decided to use it for cupcakes!  Then, I came across a recipe for Chocolate coffee cupcakes with mocha ganache and mascarpone cream and thought the topping would be great for my cupcakes :)  The cupcake recipe was for a dozen, and I didn't need that many so I halved it.  The topping recipe was for 30 cupcakes, and I ended up quartering it.

My ingredients

Chocolate Stout Cupcake Ingredients

•  8 tsp (or 2 Tbsp + 2 tsp) unsweetened cocoa powder
• ½ cup sugar
• ½ cup all-purpose flour
• ¼ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ pinch table salt
• 3 ounces stout beer
• 2 Tbsp melted butter
• ¾ teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 large egg
• 8 tsp (or 2 Tbsp + 2 tsp) sour cream
  

No, I'm not sampling the ingredients...

Directions

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2.  In a medium mixing bowl, whisk cocoa, sugar, flour, baking soda and salt until combined.
3.  In a large mixing bowl, mix the stout, melted butter and vanilla together.

At this point I realized that using cold beer, while tasty, doesn't work when you're mixing it with melted butter. The cold beer made some of the butter hard again so the mixture was lumpy and hard to mix well. Next time I'll have to keep the beer at room temperature.

4.  Beat the egg into the stout mixture. Then mix in the sour cream.
5.  Add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients a little at a time until it’s all mixed together thouroughly.
6.  Grease or line 6 muffin tins. Pour the batter evenly into the tins.
7.  Bake from 18-24 minutes, checking at 18 minutes and continuing to bake until they are set in the middle.

Ganache and Cream

• ¼ cup + ½ cup cups heavy cream

• handful of coffee beans – crushed

• 2 ounces milk/semi-sweet/bittersweet chocolate -- finely chopped

• ½ cup mascarpone cheese 

• 1Tbsp confectioners' sugar -- sifted

I'm not going to get super detailed into the ganache because it didn't turn out.  It was a paste like texture rather than ganache, which is weird because I ended up using more cream than it said so if anything, it should have been too thin, not ticker.  The cool part about this ganache is you boil the coffee beans in the cream, then let it sit and absorb the coffee flavor.

Beans & Cream - Strain out the beans - Mocha Cream!

After straining out the coffee beans, heat the cream again, then pour it over the chopped chocolate and stir until smooth.  If you want to learn the basics of making ganache, you should check out Martha Stewart's guide to making ganache.

My "frosted" cupcakes.

For the mascarpone cream topping, whisk the 1/2 cup cream into soft peaks.  Add the mascarpone and confectioners sugar and whisk until smooth. 

Whip it!  Whip it good!

I'm not sure if my topping turned out right either.  Their picture looks light and fluffy like whipped cream, but my topping seemed heavier and almost a little lumpy.  It still tasted good though :oD

Going to have to try making these again sometime!

Croissants

Well, it's been a while, but that doesn't mean I've been doing any less cooking. Since I last blogged, I've made unsuccessful croissant dough, German bread, successful croissants, mostly successful cupcakes, how-to-bribe-your-editor cookies, not yet successful croissant dough, and started experimenting with my own homemade spaghetti sauce recipe. There will be blogs on some of those coming eventually, but this blog is all about delicious, homemade, fresh baked CROISSANTS!!!

Unbaked croissants, they ended up much more golden brown!

The recipe I used can be found here.  It, as the site explains, is their own personal overhaul of Julia Child's recipe from Mastering the Art of French Cooking.  Her recipe can be found here, and I actually used that with a combination of the first site for the procedure.

My first attempt at these didn't go very well.  First, I tried to convert the ingredients from grams into things like cups, teaspoons, etc.  I think that was my first problem.  No, I take that back.  Even though I proofed my yeast, it was old and I don't think it reacted as much as it should.  THAT was my first problem.  Next, converting was the wrong thing to do.  Then, I was only following the first site.  The instructions weren't as clear, and I ended up with butter breaking through my dough everywhere. For the second attempt, I broke down and bought this little guy:

$19.99 but so far a great investment

Yup, a gram (and ounce) scale.  I have a feeling it's going to turn out to be extremely handy.  Just how differently the dough turned out weighing everything in grams may have been worth it alone.  I also bought new yeast.

Ingredients:

Bread Flour, 228g
Milk, 120g
Water, 13g
Sugar, 14g
Salt, 5g
Instant Yeast, 2.7g (a scant tsp)
Oil, 15g
Roll-in Butter, 125g (I used1 stick-8Tbsp-1/2 cup)

The essentials

 Mix together all of the ingredients except the butter.  Kneed with a bread hook for 3 minutes at a low speed and 7 at a medium speed.

The mixer, doin' it's thang!

Cover (I did with plastic wrap to keep in the moisture), and let rise at room temperature for 3 hours.

It's hard to see, but this is how much mine rose

While this is sitting, you can get the butter going.  I laid out a sheet of plastic wrap, cut my butter in half length wise, and set the 2 peices next to each other about 1 1/2 to 2 inches apart.  I then covered it with another piece of plastic so the rolling pin wouldn't stick.  Give each stick quite a few good whacks to mush it down and soften the butter, then roll it out into a 5 by 5 inch square, like so:

Mmm...  real butter!

Let that sit in the fridge for at least an hour to harded up a bit so it's not just a melty mess all over.  Once the dough and butter are ready, it's time to start folding the butter in.  This is where I combined the 2 methods.  The first site uses a block of rolled out butter where Julie Child spreads the butter on.  Julie Child however only puts it on the top 2/3, the folds the bottom third up, then top third down, so there are 3 layers of dough with a layer of butter between each layer.  The first recipe does this thing where it encloses the butter into a square first before folding.  It was confusing because there are no pictures or explanation.  I actually figured it out by reading the comments.  Someone was confused and asked, then the original poster explained what was supposed to be going on.

Not quite 2/3, but you get the idea

So you "book fold" in thirds, let it rest in the fridge for an hour (or however long it needs/you have time for), roll it out into a rectangle again, and repeat the book fold-resting 2 more times.

My edges weren't even this time but oh well...

After you've done the 3 folds, it's time to roll it out into a 8x16inch rectangle.  It may take a few times and a few rests in the refrigerator.  Any time the dough seems to be getting too warm and sticky while rolling, you're going to want to let it rest in the fridge for a while.  This part (along with the book folds), I'll do over a few days around my working/sleeping schedule to ensure that it was enough time to rest.  Just be sure to cover it in plastic so it doesn't dry out, and lay it flat. 

Once you've gotten your 8x16inch rectangle, it's time to cut your triangles.  Trim the edges and cut into 4 smaller rectangles that are 8x4inches each.  Then cut each rectangle from corner to corner to create 8 triangles.

I used a pizza cutter and it worked really well

 Next is the rolling the croissant shape.  I stretched them a little to get the tip of the triangle centered.  The directions on the first site say "roll up fairly tight, stretch out the tip with one hand when you roll the bottom with the other hand."  And I'm not sure how else to word it.  If you've ever seen a croissant, and if you haven't there are pictures in this blog and on those sites, you can pretty much figure out what you're doing.

For clarification, these already have the egg wash on them

Ooooh, look at that deliciousness!

The first site says that at this point you can put them the the fridge overnight to proof the next day, or freeze them.  I just baked them all, but the next batch I have going I may try to refrigerate and freeze some so I can bake them fresh (and just to see how they freeze).  If you're going to proof them right away, cover them in an egg wash (1 egg beaten with 1 Tbsp of water) and let them proof at 80F until "very soft and jiggly" which is around 3-3 1/2 hours.  It was a warm day, so I just did it at room temperature.

Aww, look at how big my little babies have grown! They're getting so chubby!

Brush with another layer of egg wash, and bake!  The first site says 425F for 10min, then turn down to 375F for 15min, Julie Child says 475F for 12-15 minutes. I followed the first site since that's the one I was mostly following.  However, after 10 minutes at 375F I checked on them and they were already a golden brown color so I took them out.  I'll have to play around with the time on the next batch.  But that's it!  They were done!  I had 8 beautiful, delicious, homemade, fresh croissants to eat!

YUMMY!!!!

They kept pretty well too.  It wasn't until about 3 days later when I was eating the last one that they started to seem stale.  Hence freezing some so I can bake them fresh every few days :)  I stored them in a paper bag, but brought some to work with me in a plastic bag and they stayed crispy in the plastic over night.  Over all they were really good and well worth all of the time put in.  I can't wait to bake the batch that I'm working on now!

Challah French Toast

Yesterday a friend and I went bakery hopping.  At the first bakery we went to I bought a beautiful loaf of Challah bread.  This morning, I made a delicious French Toast with it.  Here's my recipe (adapted from a combination of recipes and general knowledge of how to make French Toast).

Ingredients:

1 cup milk
3 eggs
1 Tbsp brown sugar
2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 Tbsp RumChata

I sliced the bread into 1 inch thick slices, and cut them in half so they would fit in the pan better/cook better.

Whisk all of the ingredients together and pour into a shallow pan/dish/tupperware bottom that's big enough to fit the slices of bread.  Let the slices of toast soak in the mixture on each side for about a minute, or until well coated.  Melt butter in a large frying pan over medium heat and fry on each side about 5 minutes, or until a nice brown color and slightly crispy.  Do in batches and re-butter the pan between batches.

Look out!  Melinda's cooking with real butter!!!

These were amazing with the Agave Nectar I had in my cupboard.  If I make them again, I'll cook them longer on a little lower temperature so they're a little less soggy and more crispy without burning.  Over all, DELICIOUS!!!  :o)

Also last night while experimenting with different cocktails (some of which were really good, I may have to start a drink blog), we made my dad's homemade spaghetti sauce with some of the leftover French Onion Soup.  I'm not going to tell you everything in the recipe though, because I don't want to give away any family secrets ;o)

I browned a bag of veggie crumble, then brought it to a boil with the soup in a sauce pan.

Added the rest of the ingredients, and let simmer for an hour.

The "problem" with using vegetables rather than beef is that it's not greasy.  We ended up adding oil and a lot of water to the sauce because it was super thick.  I think I'm going to create my own version of my dad's recipe.  First trial I'll add crushed tomatoes to give it some liquid, and use fresh ingredients, especially garlic.

Next blog, homemade croissants!!!  (assuming the dough sitting in my fridge turns out...)

BBQ Buttermilk Onion Rings

Ok!  Back to Homemade Barbecue Buttermilk Onion Rings.  I came across this recipe on Joy the Baker's Blog (you may remember her from the Vegan Chocolate Avocado Cake). 

These were actually started the same day my helper and I made Soup.  I mixed together all of the first ingredients and coated the rings of onion.

Next, poured the buttermilk over and let sit.  As they were sitting, we realized the soup was going to take longer than expected and we probably weren't going to have time to finish and fry the onion rings.  So they actually sat in my fridge in the barbecue-buttermilk mixture for over 24 hours.  I think it actually made them a little more awesome because the onion soaked up more of the flavors.  Joy's recipe says to heat them in a pan of oil, but I had a deep fryer, so we used that instead.  Just make sure that if you use a deep fryer it gets the oil hot enough (or at least close, I think were were up to 350 and the recipe says 360).  Dredge the onion in the flour mixture, and fry!

You can only do so many at once, so she says to line a pan with paper towel (to soak up the oil), and put it in an oven heated to 150 (or in my case, the "warm" setting).  We put some paper towel on plate to soak up the oil, then every so often when we had a small pile build up, we threw them on the pan in the oven.  There's also a great BBQ buttermilk dipping sauce in the recipe.  We ran into a little issue with it.  It calls for 1 teaspoon hot sauce.  Well, I grabbed what I thought was the teaspoon, but we later realized that on it was written "1 tsp" with "1 1/2 tsp" written underneath. I'm still not sure what that's supposed to mean, but when I looked at the rest of them there was one a little smaller that just said "1 tsp."  However, my helper thought it would have tasted too bland without the extra hot sauce.  Either way, they were delicious :)

Soup's On!

This blog is all about soup.  It was almost a blog about an insane amount of onions, but since we didn't finish the onion rings, it's just going to be about the 2 soups my helper and I made.  There were still something like 7lbs of onions in the French Onion Soup though!  Plus another onion in the Mushroom Soup.

First off, here's a helpful video we watched on how to slice onions:

The first soup we started was French Onion Soup.  I substituted vegetable broth for the beef/chicken stock and used dry sherry for the wine.  The first step is to caramelize the 6 large onions.   This is where I got lucky having a helper.  I probably would have just sauteed the onions and given up there.  Despite taking longer than the 30-40 minutes the recipe said (my helper kept stirring/flipping them so they took longer to cook), my helper made sure they were thoroughly caramelized.  We started with a large pot and a smaller pan because all of the onions wouldn't fit into my one big pot, them combined them once they cooked down enough.

The onions after they cooked down enough to fit in one pan

When the onions are fully caramelized, they should be brownish in color, and have cooked down a LOT!

After this we added the minced garlic and it smelled SOOOOO good! Then added the rest of the soup ingredients and let it simmer for a half hour.  Next, top it with the toasted French Bread and shredded Gruyere cheese.

Bake/broil until the cheese in melted and browned on top, and voilà!

It tasted like French Onion soup, but it was nothing amazing.  Just awesome knowing it was made from scratch, and it's vegetarian.  Now I can use some of the leftovers to made my dad's homemade spaghetti sauce!  The only thing we would possibly change with this is caramelizing the onions in butter rather than oil, which makes sense being a French dish.

While that one was simmering, we started the Mushroom Soup.  I was told I had to use the Anthony Bourdain Recipe.  It starts out looking a like a mushroom stew, but like the broccoli soup, it gets blended.

The finished product looks a little weird, and seems a little simple, but it's actually really good.  We both agreed it tasted a bit oily, but we think that's because I used margarine rather than real butter.  I've been told I need to start cooking with real butter in general.  My helper also thought more pepper.  I'd like to play around with different garnishing with the leftovers too.

Hopefully, if all goes according to plan, I'll have a blog about homemade barbeque buttermilk onion rings in the next couple of days.  My helper also thinks we should try making croissants sometime, so maybe more baking!  Yay!  :oD

Broccoli Soup

I don't like broccoli.  So someone told me I should make broccoli soup.  They also told me to follow Gordon Ramsay's recipe.  It's simple and only uses three ingredients; Broccoli, Water, and Salt.  Seriously.  That's it!  I was a little skeptical since it's obviously still going to taste like broccoli, but I gave it a try.

All you do to make this is boil the broccoli florets with salt, then blend them with a little of the broccoli water.  I added a little too much water the first time, but I put the rest of the soup back in the pan and let it simmer to boil off some of the excess water.  Even though it tastes like broccoli, I like it!  Ramsay garnished his with walnuts, goat cheese, and a drizzle of olive oil.  We tried it with a little feta I had in my fridge, and some olive oil.  Even though it's just a little bit of oil, we could definitely taste the difference with it.

Look how green it is!

A couple of updates:

Squash casserole - I mixed in more ricotta cheese and basil, and baked for another 15 minutes.  It was really good :)

Avocado Cupcakes - My guest taster took them to his Monday night class.  People ate them, but I guess they tasted a little more like avocado and weren't quite as good.  We assume it was because they sat out at room temperature.

Not sure what I'm going to make next.  I still want to make a chocolate beer cake, someone suggested mushroom soup, and I want to try making vegetarian french onion soup again.  So you'll just have to wait and see :)