Chocolate Cupcakes with Flaming Strawberries - StumbleUpon. Call me easily amused, but these little torch-topped cupcakes delight me. Besides being a cute novelty item for a party, I think they would add a little drama to the end of a romantic meal. I've been looking for something different to serve for Valentine's dessert, and this is definitely different.
The strawberries are hollowed out and filled with a bit of liquor, then ignited with a match. For the cake portion, I chose a One Bowl Chocolate Cupcake recipe because 1. it's quick 2. it is easy, and 3. it fits my prerequisite for a light ending on date night. I should say, a light ending provided you don't eat too many. The cakes are just sweet enough, and have a light, fluffy crumb - the perfect vehicle for rich chocolate buttercream. Notes for flaming strawberries:Any alcohol below 80 proof will not ignite well. Shaina made a margarita version of this on Babble Food.
Chocolate Cupcakes with Flaming Strawberries Yield: About 20 cupcakes [click to print]Cupcakes: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Pumpkin Cream Sandwiches. Tiramisu cake. Last Saturday was my darling Jocelyn’s birthday and you just know I wasn’t going to even think about showing up without birthday cake. Fortunately, just about everyone we know agrees that two of the best desserts on earth are cannolis from Venieros on First Avenue and homemade tiramisu. I was actually kind of obsessed with figuring out a way to make a cannoli cake, but in the end copped out, not feeling daring enough to invent a recipe and having waited until the very last minute (3 p.m.) to actually start baking.
Not for the first or last time, Dorie Greenspan came to the rescue. As if Baking: From My Home to Yours wasn’t awesome enough, it actually includes two cake sections, one devoted solely to “Celebration Cakes,” or the exact type you’d want to bring to a birthday party. Which ended up like this: And was received like this: I’m very particular about tiramisu, by the way. [Photo by our friend Lexxie.] Tiramisu CakeBaking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan. Pumpkin swirl brownies. When I first saw this recipe on the homepage of marthastewart.com last month, my first thought was “ooh, how perfectly fall!”
But then a second later, “wait, this can’t be right.” I mean, chocolate and pumpkin together? I have to admit, it sounds off to me. In my overly-analytical head, pumpkin goes with nutmeg and cinnamon and ground ginger and pecans and bourbon and cream cheese and gingersnaps; chocolate, however, goes with a whole different slew of things, like scraped vanilla beans and walnuts or mint or peanut butter or cream cheese and maybe occasionally some chipotle powder. They’re different, you see, different, different, different. And then? Well, everyone but me. One year ago: Pumpkin Bread Pudding Deb and Alex went to Paris and all I got were these lousy brownies! Pumpkin-Swirl Brownies Adapted from Martha Stewart Living 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
Homemade devil dog, ding dong or hostess cake. There is a certain kind of cake so ubiquitous in grocery store checkout lanes, beneath lottery-stickered counters in bodegas and beckoning to office workers in a 3 p.m. slump through vending machine window and so lodged in American nostalgia that I am always surprised that more people don’t make it at home. I’m talking about a Ding Dong.
Or a King Don. Or a Ring Ding. Confused yet? But it doesn’t end there. My pining for a homemade Devil Dog Cake started when I saw a recipe for one in the February issue of Gourmet. Having already found a recipe for the dreamiest, easiest and most moist chocolate layering cake in the entire world, I saw precisely no reason not to use that. Frankly, all that’s left is assembly.
Seriously, you will never be tempted by their cellophane-wrapped namesakes again. One year ago: Red Split Lentils with Cabbage, Indian Spiced Cauliflower with Potatoes, Cucumber Scallion Raita Chocolate Cake Layers Preheat oven to 300°F. and grease pans. Finely chop chocolate. Pumpkin cupcakes. Oh, people. I know you’re pumpkin-ed out and it is not even Thanksgiving yet. But if there could be room in your gullet for one more pumpkin love — perhaps even as a last minute, the-heck-with-pie, Hail Mary pass of a Thanksgiving meal dessert — I think that these wee cakes are a worthy cause. So many pumpkin cakes and loaves and muffins are heavy, playing off the dense qualities of pureed squash, and the deep, warm spices we like to eat them with. But these cupcakes — originally envisioned as a two-layer cake I believe my sister is frosting right! Now! The original recipe is from our friend David Leite, of the Consummate Chocolate Chip Cookie fame. How to make roses: I worked at a bakery in high school where I picked up some party tricks — ha!
One year ago: Curried Lentils and Sweet PotatoesTwo years ago: Fettuccine with Porcini Pumpkin Cupcakes With Maple–Cream Cheese Frosting Adapted from David Leite Yield: 17 to 18 cupcakes Make the cupcakes: 1. 2. 3. Coffee toffee. I seem to be on a bit of a coffee kick these days — Exhibit A being Alex’s Espresso Chiffon birthday cake with Fudge Frosting and Exhibit B being Thanksgiving’s ridiculous Cappucino Fudge Cheesecake. I’m sure that’s it just coincidence that the coffee kick began just as the number of hours I slept each night decreased, which also coincided with me getting weepy with joy when I wrapped my fingers around my first coffee of the day each morningafternoon. Amazing how you can drink something your whole life but it then all of the sudden one day it becomes a transcendent experience, you know?
Nevertheless my fascination with the intersection of coffee and toffee goes back much longer than that, at least as far as the Espresso Chocolate Shortbread Cookies I made two years ago, and realized that the only thing that could make it more delicious would be to use a chocolate that had toffee bits in it. Toffee, previously: Chocolate Caramel Crack(ers) and Chocolate Toffee Cookies Coffee Toffee. Bread Pudding with Warm Bourbon Sauce Recipe at Epicurious. Apple cider doughnuts. I have never met a variety of deep-fried dough I didn’t like. Yet, given that most doughy fried items out there are rather mediocre* — say, the chain donut shop steps from my apartment — I don’t find myself indulging this habit as often as I’d like. The exception to this rule is apple cider doughnuts, which I am absolutely weak in the face of. Despite the fact that even the loveliest looking ones at the farm stands tend to disappoint, I eat them anyway. Because it’s fall and crunching through ochre-tinted leaves, wrapping your fingers around a paper cup of mulled cider and eating even lackluster apple cider doughnuts is the right and proper thing to do.
Or it was. Okay, fine. We’ll get to that now. Or maybe he will. Back to the doughnuts. . * My Favorite New York Doughnuts: People often ask me for local eating recommendations but I always dodge these questions because restaurant reviewing, dissecting and generally telling people where to spend their hard-earned money is so not my bag. Lime yogurt cake with blackberry sauce. Seeing as I can’t get enough of those I Don’t Need A Special Occasion To Make Cake Cakes and also those Of Course You Can Stop By At The Last Minute (psst, ’cause I’d already made some cake) Cakes, I am clearly long overdue to make a classic French yogurt cake. I first learned about yogurt cakes nearly five years ago from Clotilde; they’re perfect anytime-of-day cakes (bless the French for understanding the utmost importance of this), not too sweet, fluffy and perfect just from the oven or wrapped in plastic for a day or two, as the corners soften.
Most people don’t measure them — the math is based on the volume of your yogurt cups (they use two), to which you add an equal amount of sugar, a double amount of flour, a little less than one of oil, two eggs and some leavener and flavors. Those flavors are usually gentle things, like a bit of lemon zest, or vanilla, a splash of rum or maybe a handful of berries. Make the cake: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butterscotch Pudding Recipe. I recently got hooked on Le Grand Perdant 2. Unlike French cinema, which has a way of importing the best of America, French television has a way of importing the worst of America. Which often means reality shows. I have little patience for watching women named Bambi and Jennie compete for husbands named Tristan and Chad, but at least this one has a positive spin. Even people voted off have achieved a personal goal of fitness and weight loss. So The Biggest Loser 2 isn’t necessarily The Biggest Winner. Call me sappy, but it’s nice to see a program where competitors support each other to achieve their goals.
I guess I’ve been away from the states for too long…I know, I know…pas américain! Hence, every Monday night for the past few weeks, I’ve tucked myself into bed and watched 3 episodes of The Biggest Loser 2 back-to-back. Unless there’s something you guys aren’t telling me… Speaking of big losers, boy, do I feel like a loser for not giving you a recipe for Black & White Cookies. 1. 2. 3.