Chocolate Dulce de Leche Cupcakes
Since I recently made Dulce de Leche cupcakes, I thought – what isn’t better with chocolate?! Plus I found these adddooorable Alphabet Pretzels which I thought would make great toppers but also compliment the sweet with salty.
It’s tough looking for letters, I don’t know how Vanna White does it. I spelled out “HELLO” and “LOVE” and got both the kid’s names but that’s about it. I just wish I’d named the kids something short like ‘AL’ – I could have saved a good 10 mins of digging through pretzel remnants…
ingredients:
1-1/2 cups flour
3/4 cup Valrhona cocoa powder
1-1/2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon vanilla sea salt**
2 large eggs
1-1/4 cups buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla
Dulce de Leche
Chocolate frosting ingredients:
2-1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup cocoa powder
6 Tablespoons butter
4 Tablespoons milk
dash of vanilla sea salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Prep a cupcake pan with paper liners.
In a large bowl whisk together flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking soda, baking powder and vanilla sea salt.
**I think the salt adds a lot to the flavor, however I know it’s not readily available so regular sea salt will do.
In the bowl of an electric mixer, add the eggs, buttermilk and vanilla to the dry ingredients. Be careful and keep your mixer on low or you will have flour flying everywhere.
Divide the batter among the cupcake pan, filling about 2/3 of the way. Bake for 15 minutes, depending on your oven. Test with a toothpick for doneness and let cool on a wire rack.
While the cupcakes are cooling, start the frosting. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter, powdered sugar, cocoa powder and vanilla. Beat until combined, then turn the mixer up to medium high and beat until nice and fluffy.
Once the cupcakes are cooled, hollow out a center from each cupcake and fill with prepared Dulce de Leche. This will provide a sweet surprise at first bite. Frost with chocolate frosting, right over the dulce de leche.
I was lucky to find these cute alphabet pretzels, but you can decorate yours making letters out of stick pretzels just the same! Or just a sprinkling of sea salt is nice too, it really compliments the chocolate and dulce de leche!
Buzzin’
I was in San Francisco this weekend for blogHER FOOD ’09 and while I was there I got to stop by the office of Foodbuzz who held an Open House luncheon on Friday. In a weird coincidence, on my way there I found out that I was named the winner of the Foodbuzz Festival logo contest! I am always designing and it’s great to have my work acknowledged and inspired by such a great group of people.
They were so nice, I’m just saddened that I can’t attend the event in November which looks AMAZING. Man, a three day schedule of eating?! That’s heaven right there.
O.G.’s Bacon wrapped Meatloaf
How has O.G. lived for so long? Eating a lot of things that are bad for you, wrapped in more things that are bad for you. As if all that ground beef wasn’t enough, she had to go and wrap it in bacon. Heart attack? Yes. But she is 88 years old, so what can I say?
ingredients:
1-1/2 pounds lean ground beef
3/4 cup milk
2 eggs
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
3/4 cup bread crumbs
5 slices of bacon
1 TB brown sugar
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prep a loaf pan, I have a very cool meatloaf pan that automatically drains the meatloaf as it cooks, great especially since there is bacon in this recipe…
In a large bowl combine the beef, milk, eggs, salt, pepper and breadcrumbs. once combined, press into your loaf pan.
On top of the loaf, lay strips of bacon down. Trim or tuck in the edges on the sides. Now to go even more over the top, rub 1 Tablespoon of brown sugar into the bacon.
Bake in the oven for 1 hour or until juices are clear.
Let sit for 5 minutes, then serve.
WWYE: What would YODA eat? – meatballs
Since the Kid has been complaining about the quality of his lunch (read here) I’ve been trying my best to change it up. I’ve been documenting what’s worked with the help of Yoda. Actually I just think it’s funny to take pictures of him lording over meatballs.
Brown Sugar Meatballs recipe, here.
*Part of a series of posts documenting the Kid’s lunch.
For the Love of Liz
Perhaps you’ve heard of a blog called Matt, Liz and Madeline. It’s a blog started by Matt Logelin that was a way to journal his life with his wife and their new baby. Only…his wife didn’t make it. She died shortly after childbirth and Matt was left to gather himself and raise his daughter all on his own.
It’s a sad story, but a loving story. And his blog chronicles all the fantastic ways he’s showing his daughter how wonderful life can be.
Recently they held a gala to benefit the Liz Logelin Foundation. A charity that helps support families who’ve lost a loved one. I’ve never met Matt. I’ve only read his blog and never commented, much like people do here. But I felt the need to be a part of it, so I donated an assortment of stationery. It’s small compared to the more amazing things up for auction, but I wanted to do something. Feel free to bid on it, or any of the other fantastic things for sale. It goes to a good cause. It’s amazing how blogging can develop an emotional support system. I think we can all use some of that now and again.
(My auction ends on the 27th.)
Liz Logelin Foundation auction
justJENN designs stationery assortment
All auction items
Dulce de Leche cupcakes
Inspiration comes from weird places. I was in the IKEA food section when I saw these ‘toffee laces’. I thought they’d make cute bows for the top of a cupcake – especially one filled with delicious DULCE DE LECHE. They came out looking just like little presents, the perfect gift for friends.
ingredients:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
2 large eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup milk
Dulce de leche
buttercream
toffee laces
Preheat your oven to 325 degrees. Prep a muffin pan with paper liners.
In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the sugars and butter. Add the eggs and vanilla until combined. Alternate the flour mixture with the milk until you get a nice smooth batter. Spoon into the liners equally, about 2/3 full.
Bake for 15-20 minutes, depending on your oven. They are ready when an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Let cool on a wire rack.
Once cooled, hollow out a hole in the center of each cupcakes, using a knife. Spoon prepared dulce de leche into the hollowed out hole. Frost with vanilla buttercream to cover the filling.
I tied the laces into bows – like you would a shoelace. The laces add a cute touch and make the cupcakes look like little sugary gifts!
Chicken Apple Salad with Bacon
The Kid, as a new kindergarten-er, is unhappy with the school lunches I’ve been packing. He said, “Can’t you put together something else for lunch, say…fruit? Maybe some chicken salad with a little mayo?” You’ve GOT to be kidding. Suddenly it’s Top Chef: Lunch Bag edition up in here.
So I’ve been trying out recipes at dinner to see what he likes and doesn’t and what will work in a lunchbox. So I threw together a chicken salad PER HIS HIGHNESS’ REQUEST. I added apples for crunch and bacon, for well – bacon, and the kids ate it up! Great. Now I gotta bust out the silver spoon and linen napkins for the Clone Wars lunchbag…
ingredients:
2 cups roasted chicken, chopped
1/2 cup apples, small cubes
3 slice bacon, cooked and crumbled
3 Tablespoons mayonnaise**
1/2 teaspoon mustard
1 Tablespoon relish
ground pepper
lettuce
4 croissants split
In a bowl, toss the chicken, apples and bacon. Add the mayo, mustard and relish and toss to coat. I like to add a fair amount of pepper to offset the salt-i-ness of the bacon, but it is up to you.
I feel this tastes the BEST with lettuce on a croissant, but any bread will do. But. Try the croissant. You’ll thank me later.
**I am not a fan of mayo. Nope. Like bananas, it is on my hate list. But in salads, I seem to be able to tolerate it. This recipe uses very little mayo, but feel free to add more if you like.
Banana Cupcakes
You know I hate bananas. I really really do. But my kids LOVE them and in an effort to come up with as many recipes as possible for the Kid without chocolate or nuts, I knew I’d have to reach out to the banana and become friends. Or frenemies, who knows. I worked a lot on this recipe and I think I got what I was looking for, a nice banana taste and deliciously perfect cupcake.
ingredients:
1-1/2 cups flour
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, melted
3 mashed bananas
1 Tablespoon honey
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prep a cupcake pan with liners.
In a bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
In a separate bowl, mix together the butter, mashed bananas, honey, eggs and vanilla. Add the flour mixture a little at a time – make sure you don’t overmix!
Spoon the batter into the liners. Bake until an inserted toothpick comes out clean 14-16 minutes depending on your oven. Let cool on a wire rack.
I like to top these with cinnamon frosting. And monkeys, of course.
Cinnamon Buttercream
I love this frosting – I use it a lot because it has that perfect sweetness!
ingredients:
1/2 C. butter , softened
3 C. powdered sugar
3 Tbs. milk
1 Tbs. maple syrup
1 tsp.cinnamon
1 tsp. vanilla extract
Beat the butter, adding the powdered sugar slowly. Add the milk slowly, then the syrup, cinnamon and vanilla. Speed up the mixer to a nice beat until fluffy. Frost the cupcakes and DEVOUR.
Cupcake garden bugs, how-to
Just like the cupcake flower pots, these are the same just…gross.
ingredients:
chocolate cupcakes (recipe, here)
ganache
sugared flowers
cleaned flower pots
You can make these with any chocolate cupcake, you just want to get a ‘dirt’ like look for the top. So I used a Chocolate Chip Mascarpone Cupcake with a chocolate ganache. The ganache is perfect, not only in flavor, but for setting the decorations on. I didn’t want the flowers to get lost in a mass of frosting.
Sure you can use plastic bugs as decoration, but I liked the idea of the gross bugs being edible. I went to my local cake and candy supply store and along with sugar flowers they had ladybugs, ants and some gross centipedes.
The kids were thrilled with the bugs and had even more fun decorating the cupcakes themselves. (Which is why are LOADED with bugs. I also bought some green leaves which were made of wafer cookies!
After you dip your cupcake into the ganache, apply the bugs and simply place the cupcakes into a clean flower pot. When you line them all up in a cupcake tray, they look like you’ve just pulled them in from the garden! These are GREAT for taking to a play date and having the kids help out. However, be warned that once those kids eat all those sugary bugs – they will be bouncing off the walls more than usual. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
