Deliciously Deadly. Cupcakes, that is.

Why are these cupcakes deliciously deadly, you ask? I shall tell you. They are Devil's Food cupcakes (there's your first clue) with a whiskey caramel filling (second clue) and a salted whiskey caramel buttercream frosting (final clue). As my friend so dramatically labeled them, deliciously deadly. I made up these cupcakes this past weekend for one friend's fiance and another friend's boss basically as bribes. The fiance demanded something baked with chocolate and whiskey and caramel in exchange for getting his future wife for a whole weekend and the boss wanted something delicioius in exchange for letting my friend off early so she could drive up to my place (a 7 hour drive). Of course I obliged (not that I really needed an excuse to bake something with chocolate, whiskey, and caramel--3 of my favorite things). I used a classic, reliable Devil's Food cake recipe that I wrote down a few years ago in my ever-expanding notebook of favorite recipes then made up the whiskey caramel and buttercream recipes on the spot after browsing through numerous of each on Foodgawker  (my favorite website after Facebook).

These cupcakes were a hit with my friends and their respective blackmailers. Which is good because if they hadn't turned out I would have been slightly upset about using a whole cup of one of my good whiskeys. Oh yeah...I'm a whiskey girl. We counted...I have 7 bottles of whiskey in my cupboard--though in all fairness 3 of the 7 bottles were gifts. I'd also like to point out that 1 of the 7 is a bootleg rye and it is fantastic (and approx. 180 proof--it'll knock you on your ass). Be jealous.

Devil's Food Cupcakes (makes 32 cupcakes, though you can substitute a boxed cake mix, which would make 24)

3/4 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder

3/4 cup hot water

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1  1/4 tsp coarse salt

1  1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter

2  1/4 cups sugar

4 large eggs, room temp

4 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup sour cream, room temp

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. Whisk together the cocoa and hot water until smooth. In another bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Melt butter with sugar in a saucepan over medium-low heat, stirring to combine. Remove from heat, and pour into a mixing bowl. With an electric mixer on medium-low speed, beat until mixture is cooled, 4 to 5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until each is incorporated, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Add vanilla, then cocoa mixture, and beat until combined. Reduce mixer speed to low. Add flour mixture in two batches, alternating with the sour cream, and beating until just combined after each. Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each three-quarters full. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until a cake tester inserted in the centers comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Transfer cupcakes to wire wracks and let cool completely before filling and frosting. Once they are completely cool, fill with whiskey caramel filling (recipe below) and top with salted whiskey caramel buttercream (recipe also below). When you're done making the whiskey caramel filling, reserve 1/3 cup of it to use in the buttercream frosting--the rest evenly distribute as cupcake filling. I find with this caramel sauce the easiest way to fill them is to cut little cone shapes down through the top of each cupcake and spoon filling in (and of course, eat the little cones while you're doing so).



Whiskey Caramel Filling

1 cup whiskey (better quality will equal better tasting caramel, just saying; I recommend Jack Daniels)

1 cup butter

1/2 cup brown sugar

Heat a medium saucepan over medium heat. Slowly add whiskey and half of the butter, stirring until butter melts. If you use a gas stove just remember that alcohol is flammable--be careful when adding the whiskey! I'd hate for these deliciously deadly cupcakes to actually become literally deadly (on that note, you also should not feed these to recovering alcoholics or people born with fetal alcohol syndrome or people who are allergic to alcohol). Next stir in the sugar and stir continuously until the sugar melts. Add the rest of the butter. Stir until the butter melts and continue to slowly stir until the caramel becomes thick (I stirred for around 10 minutes or so). Be careful not to scorch it. Pour the caramel into a heat-proof bowl and place uncovered in the fridge to thicken, about 1 hour. If you don't let the caramel thicken enough, it'll be super messy when you try to fill your cupcakes and the cupcakes will just absorb it throughout, instead of leaving you a nice, creamy center of delicious filling.

Salted Whiskey Caramel Buttercream

1 cup salted butter, room temp

3 1/2 cups powdered sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp salt

1 Tbsp heavy cream

1/3 cup whiskey caramel filling (recipe above)

Beat butter, sugar, vanilla, and salt until incorporated. Increase speed and whip 2-3 minutes, until smooth and creamy. Beat in heavy cream, then caramel sauce. Whip on high until light, smooth, and fluffy. Pipe onto filled cupcakes.

Marriage Proposal-Inducing Cinnamon Rolls

Yes. I'm dead serious. From this particular batch I received 3 marriage proposals (one from my chiropractor, one from the head of accounting at my workplace, and one from a good friend). Also received numerous hugs, compliments, and exceptionally heartwarming praise from my baking goddess of a grandmother, who has inspired my baking aspirations since I was little. This recipe I found while I was in college on The Pioneer Woman's website, and it has never, EVER let me down. On her website it's made with a maple-coffee glaze (which is what you can see in the pictures) but I have also made this with a vanilla bean cream cheese frosting and it was equally delicious.

I've found the biggest deterrent for people to not make this heavenly, heavenly cinnamon rolls is the time commitment. I'm not gonna lie--these babies seem to take FOREVER, between the rising, the rolling, and the baking (roughly 3.5ish hours start to finish). But they are SO. WORTH. IT. And people will idolize you for them. Trust me. I took some to my office, the rest went on a big family camping trip. When I took a couple of the tins to the office, they were half gone within 30 minutes of my being there and I watched a fellow coworker honest-to-God lick one of the empty tins. It was pretty awesome. And I intend to tease her for, well, forever about it.

Now, this recipe makes a huge batch (7 pie tins of 7 rolls each, aka 49 good-sized cinnamon rolls). I suppose you could half it...but...yeah I'm too lazy for that. Plus they're so good; you'd half it, and then be depressed because they ran out twice as fast as they normally would. So just make them all, ok? Ok.

Maple-Coffee Glazed Cinnamon Rolls (courtesy of The Pioneer Woman)

CINNAMON ROLLS:

1 quart whole milk

1 cup vegetable oil

1 cup sugar

2 packages active dry yeast (0.25 ounce packets)

8 cups (plus 1 cup extra, separated) all-purpose flour

1 tsp (heaping) baking powder

1 tsp (scant) baking soda

1 Tbsp (heaping) salt

Plenty of melted butter (I think I usually use around 2 cups)

2 cups sugar

Generous amount of cinnamon

Mix the milk, vegetable oil and sugar in a pan. Scald the mixture (heat until just before the boiling point). Turn off heat and leave to cool 45 minutes to 1 hour. When the mixture is lukewarm to warm, but NOT hot, sprinkle in both packages of active dry yeast. Let this sit for a minute. Then add 8 cups of all-purpose flour. Stir mixture together. Cover and let rise for at least an hour. After rising for at least an hour, add 1 more cup of flour, the baking powder, baking soda and salt. Stir mixture together. (At this point, you could cover the dough and put it in the fridge until you need it – overnight or even a day or two, if necessary. Just keep your eye on it and if it starts to overflow out of the pan, just punch it down). When ready to prepare rolls: Sprinkle rolling surface generously with flour. Take half the dough and form a rough rectangle. Then roll the dough thin, maintaining a general rectangular shape. Drizzle 1/2 to 1 cup melted butter over the dough. Now sprinkle 1 cup of sugar over the butter followed by a generous sprinkling of cinnamon. Now, starting at the opposite end, begin rolling the dough in a neat line toward you. Keep the roll relatively tight as you go. Next, pinch the seam of the roll to seal it. Spread 1 tablespoon of melted butter in a seven inch round foil cake or pie pan. Then begin cutting the rolls approximately ¾ to 1 inch thick and laying them in the buttered pans. Repeat this process with the other half of the dough. Let the rolls rise for 20 to 30 minutes, then bake at 400 degree until light golden brown, about 15 to 18 minutes (reaaaally watch them so they don't over or under bake).

MAPLE-COFFEE GLAZE:

1 bag powdered sugar

2 tsp maple flavoring

½ cups milk

¼ cups melted butter

¼ cups brewed regular coffee, room temp

⅛ tsp salt

For the frosting, mix together all ingredients listed and stir well until smooth. It should be thick but pourable. Taste and adjust as needed. Generously drizzle over the warm rolls. Use it ALL. Don't let any of that glaze go to waste. I mean it. YUM! I've noticed in the numerous times I've made these that the quality/flavor of coffee you use does have a subtle effect on the frosting (and I am not a coffee drinker, so if I've noticed, I'm sure others have). Oh, and if you're on Weight Watchers or anything like that as some of my co-workers are at the moment, these are definitely like...10 points or something probably. Sorry in advanced.

Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue...Cupcakes.

I have a feeling that this year's 4th of July is going to be a little depressing.  No, there wasn't a recent death in the family or anything along those lines (fortunately). It is depressing because I am living in Iowa this 4th of July, not Missouri. Why is that depressing? Because fireworks are legal in Missouri and they are illegal in Iowa, and well, I'm a bit of a closet pyro. Shhh, don't tell anyone. So, in an attempt to make this coming weekend better, I decided I was going to make some red, white, and blue cupcakes. I remembered seeing a recipe for rainbow cupcakes in one of my Taste of Home magazines I'd had for years and thought, why not do something like that but just do patriotic colors? Can't be that hard. Don't be quick to judge me, but yes, tonight I made up a white cake mix batter...from a box. GASP! Now, I have a wonderful white cake recipe from my grandmother, but since I was making this up on the fly I didn't want to waste a whole bowl of batter on a screw up. Once my box cake mix (I know, I know) was all mixed up, I  divided into thirds, intending to dye one bowl blue, one red, and leave one white. Then I decided that just wasn't good enough...I needed to up the ante. But how? Flavoring the layers! So, since I luckily live across the street from a grocery store, I ran over quick thinking I'd find some blueberry flavoring and strawberry flavoring. Wrong. No such thing, at least in my small town grocery store. So, after purusing the shelves for a while, I decided to REALLY up the ante and go with Blackberry POM and Dragon Fruit POM for the blue and red layers, respectively. Oooooo. I got home and proceeded with my usual method of winging it, and I'm happy to say on my first try my winging it worked and produced these delicious cupcakes, which I topped with a vanilla cream cheese frosting:

Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue...Cupcakes

*makes 24 cupcakes

1 box white cake mix (and ingredients listed on box to make batter)

2 teaspoons Blackberry POM and 3-4 drops blue food coloring

2 teaspoons Dragon Fruit POM and 3-4 drops red food coloring

--I used blackberry and dragon fruit POM juices, but you could use probably any juice or flavoring here

Preheat oven to 325F. Prepare white cake batter according to package directions. Divide batter into thirds. Place blackberry POM and blue food coloring in one bowl of batter, dragon fruit POM and red food coloring in a second bowl of batter, and leave one bowl of batter untouched. Line 24 regular muffins cups with paper liners or spray generously with nonstick spray. Layer batter evenly (make sure to use a clean spoon for each color of batter) between muffin cups. I layered mine blue, then white, then red. Bake for 18 minutes then cool on a wire rack. Once completely cool, top with vanilla cream cheese frosting.



Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting

8 oz package of cream cheese, room temperature

2 sticks (1 cup) of unsalted butter, room temperature

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extra

1/2 bag of powdered sugar, roughly

1-2 tablespoons of milk

Beat cream cheese, butter, and vanilla until thick and fluffy. Slowly beat in powdered sugar. Add 1 tablespoon of milk and whip on high, about 5 minutes. Beat in more powdered sugar to thicken or more milk to thin.



Salt River Bars. OMG.

So I just got home from a beautiful two hour hike at the state park south of town. Beautiful hike on a beautiful day. And it reminded  me of a funny story (though some of my friends may not find it quite as funny as me). A few summers ago, while still in high school, I took 3 friends on a 7 mile canoe trip down river. I love kayaking and canoeing, but Megan, Nikki, and Kelsey, the friends I brought with me, were not particularly experienced. But regardless, off we went on a beautiful summer day, and for the most part the trip went pretty smoothly.

That is, until we reach a set of rapids. Long story short, Meg and I decide we're adventurous and going to paddle over them, and we end up getting stuck. We tell the other girls to hang back while we try to get out. But they let the river's strong current pull their canoe up against ours and get stuck as well. Meg and I decide to get out of our canoe and try to pull it loose, so we tell Kelsey and Nikki to be ready. Meg and I pull our canoe loose, and in movie-like slow motion I see the other canoe starting to tip. I let go of my canoe (and Megan is just a wisp of a girl--I don't know how she held on to it herself) and lunge for the other canoe as it flips and throws Kelsey and Nikki into the water. Meg is yelling, I am yelling, there's a few seconds of utter chaos--and then Kelsey and Nikki both pop up a little ways downriver past the rapids. I let go of their canoe so I can help Meg get ours down the rest of the way. Their canoe rolls down the rapids, filling with water as it goes, and then lodges against a fallen tree at the bottom of the rapids, half submerged in water. Mind you, this is not MY canoe, this canoe belongs to a nearby state park. Well, shit. After getting our canoe to the beach and making sure Kelsey and Nikki are ok, I go to the other canoe, which is slowly bending in half at the middle from the force of the river's current. I am so screwed. I can't get the canoe out of the water myself, and have to wait for the DNR officer to come later that afternoon at our scheduled pick-up time (oh yeah, because my cell phone was in that canoe that is now half buried in the river). Fortunately, when the DNR officer comes to get the canoes, he decides to call it an accident and not make us pay to replace the canoe. THANK. GOD.   

So, what does that story have to do with salt river bars? Ok, so here's the thing you have to know about me: I tend to have very random thought processes and connections that don't make sense to anyone but me. This is how this post came to be: I was hiking across a set of rapids at the state park today which made me think of that canoe trip which made me think of the river which made me think of river bars. So rapids > canoe trip > river > salt river bars. Which are sinfully delicious and ridiculously easy to make. And which will now make my two hour hike today null and void. But I don't care, because they are that good. So here is the recipe:

SALT RIVER BARS

1 box Club crackers (I've used Saltines before but I don't think they taste as good)
1 cup unsalted butter
1 cup brown sugar, lightly packed
1 cup peanut butter chips
1 1/2 cups dark chocolate chips
Coarse sea salt (or fleur de sel if you want to be fancy/spend more money than me today)

Line an 8x8-inch pan with foil, allowing the edges to hang over the side, and lightly spray with non-stick cooking spray (this is VERY important because these bars are VERY sticky when setting). Place 15ish crackers in the bottom of the pan (3 rows of 5). For three layers, divide the peanut butter chips into thirds and sprinkle 1/3 over the crackers. Melt butter and brown sugar in a pan over medium heat, stirring constantly, until bubbly and smooth and a creamy caramel color, about 4ish minutes (another thing to learn about me--I'm tend to be a "just wing it" person who doesn't necessarily time or perfectly measure). Pour 1/3 of the caramel over the peanut butter chips and crackers, then add another layer of crackers, peanut butter chips, and caramel, then repeat again for the third layer, topping the last layer with crackers. Melt the chocolate chips and pour over the crackers, spreading evenly. Sprinkle coarse sea salt over the top. Allow chocolate to start setting in refrigerator (about 30 minutes), then lightly cut through the partially-set chocolate (VERY imporant-once these babies set all the way through they can be verrrry hard to cut if you don't do this first). Place bars back into the fridge. Once cooled completely (about 3 hours), remove bars by lifting out foil. Cut accordingly and serve. Store in a sealed container a week (as if they'd last that long, HA). OMG. So good.

Oh Goodness...

Well...I finally caved. Drat you, peer pressure! After blatant prodding by friends, I've decided to go ahead and start a food blog to map my experiments in baking. I love to try new recipes and new techniques, as well as make stuff up as I go along, so this should be fun, yes?  We shall see. Unfortunately at the moment I don't have a good working camera to photograph my creations, successes, and failures, so for the time being I may just have to borrow some pictures (because let's be honest, no one wants to read a chocolate chip cookie recipe if there isn't a mouthwatering picture to make them crave chocolate chip cookies along with it). No worries, I'll give credit where credit is due. So stay tuned, as I think you will be pleasantly surprised once I really get this cake ball rolling...