I am back, featuring: Chocolate Cherry Cupcakes!

I know, I know. I took a long hiatus. It wasn’t on purpose, I swear. I went to Brazil for a few weeks, and after I got back to Florida I hadn’t baked anything until now! But don’t worry, I have a few posts planned for the week.
Let me start with this awesomely awesome recipe for Chocolate Cherry Cupcakes! I wish I could take the credit, but the recipe is actually from a book given to me by my boyfriend (500 cupcakes by Fergal Connolly).

Chocolate Cherry Cupcakes:

Cake:

1 1/2 cups self-rising flour
4 tbsp. cocoa powder
1tsp baking powder
1 cup superfine sugar
1 cup sweet butter, softened
4 eggs
1/2 cup chopped cherries (I couldn’t find fresh, so I used frozen- worked great!)
2 tbsp. kirsch (it’s a cherry-flavored liqueur, which I couldn’t find. I used cherry syrup instead.)

Topping:

3/4 cup heavy cream (make sure it’s cold)
3 tbsp confectioners’ sugar, sifted (I didn’t sift it.. oops. made no difference.)
18 whole cherries
3 1/2 oz. semisweet chocolate bar

Preheat oven to 325°
In a bowl, mix flour, cocoa, and baking powder together. Set aside.
Cream sugar and butter until smooth, then add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each egg.
Add the flour mixture slowly, then add the chopped cherries until well combined.
Spoon batter into cups and bake for 20 minutes. Pour a little cherry liqueur (or syrup) over each cupcake.
Note: I actually misread the recipe and poured it over the cupcakes before baking them. It worked for me, but it probably has a stronger taste if you do it after.

Whip the cream and confectioners’ sugar until soft peak is reached. Spread over cupcakes, then top it with dark chocolate shavings and a whole cherry. Ta-da!

This makes approx. 18 cupcakes.

Alright, so keep posted for more yummy baked goods soon.

p.s.: I updated my Coconut Cake post with the recipe.

Apple Tart with Almond Butter

This is a super special recipe, straight from Tuscany, that my mom learned while visiting on vacation.

Apple Tart with Almond Butter

Pasta Frolla (the pie dough)

4 1/3 cups all purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 freshly grated lemon zest
1 1/3 cup cold butter, cut into bits
4 egg yolks

Whisk flour with sugar, salt, and zest.
Add the butter until it resembles coarse meal.
Add yolks and toss mixture until incorporated
Knead lightly, forming a disk.
Chill, wrapped in plastic at least 1/2 hour.

Frangipane (the cream)

1/2 cup butter, room temp.
1/2 cup confectioners sugar
1/2 cup almond flour (just put almonds in a processor)
2 or 3 eggs
1/6 cup flour

Mix butter and sugar. Add almond flour, flour, and eggs. Mix until creamy.

Apples (or Pears)
Peel 4 or 5 apples and slice thinly.

Assembling

Roll out dough and put into pan with wax paper. Add the Frangipane and the apples on top. Cook in oven at 320 for 30 minutes.
Enjoy!

P.S.: I am in Brazil on vacation, so I will be a bit behind on posting and approving comments!

Thanksgiving for two!

I know this is supposed to be a dessert blog, but every once in a while I get really happy with some of my savory dishes. I had planned on posting about Thanksgiving a couple of days ago, but I’ve been really lazy to upload the photos. But I finally took the time to do it, so here are some pictures of the mini-feast the boy and I had on Thursday!
On the menu is: Cornish Hen with a cumin/cardamom spice rub, stuffing, and mashed potatoes. All made from scratch… well except for the mashed potatoes. They weren’t too good either, so will definitely make my own next time.

And now, the best part: Apple pie!

The recipe is a mix of several recipes I found. I didn’t put much time trying to make it look pretty (obviously) but it tastes SO GOOD. So, here we go:

Awesome Apple Pie:

Preheat oven to 425°

Crust:

2 cups flour
1 pinch salt
2/3 cup shortening
ice water

Mix flour + salt. Mix in shortening with blender until it creates loose crumbs. Add ice water 1 tablespoon at a time until it basically forms a ball, but not too sticky. Divide pie dough in half and put in freezer bag and refrigerate for at least a half hour.

Filling:

1/2 cup unsalted butter
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
8 Gala apples – peeled, cored and sliced
2 tbsp cinnamon
1 tbsp vanilla

Coat apple slices with vanilla and cinnamon- set aside. On medium heat over
Melt butter in a saucepan and add flour, forming a paste. Add water, white sugar and brown sugar, and bring to a boil. Simmer for a bit, creating a syrup. Set aside.

Crumbs:

1/2 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1 cup sifted flour
1/2 cup soft butter

Mix it all with a fork, forming crumbs. Set aside.

Assembling:

First half of the crust goes on your 9″ pie pan, and then fill it with the apples. Then, sprinkle the crumbs all over them. After that, use the rest of the pie dough to cover apples with a lattice pattern (which I clearly do not have the patience to do- I just sort of randomly placed strips of the dough over the apples).
After pie is assembled, pour the sugar syrup over the entire pie (crust as well).

Bake for 15 minutes, then lower heat to 350° and bake for 35-40 minutes.

Enjoy the awesome.

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

Baked Eggs

Eggs are probably one of my favorite things in the entire world. If I had to, I would be perfectly fine with eating eggs every day of my life. EGGS RULE!

Erm.

That being said, when I first saw this recipe, I knew it’d be an instant love affair. *_*
Here is my baked eggs adventure! Excuse the crappy photos- I didn’t have my dSLR around for these and had to use my crappy Sony point and shoot.

EGGS! <3 <3 <3

Nonna’s Powdery Coconut Cookies

This is one of the things I made for last Thursday’s catering. I decided to make another batch today, for the boy and I to enjoy here at home!
Here is a photo I just took:

The cookies themselves are not very sweet, which makes them a perfect pairing with the confectioner’s sugar. They don’t taste too much like coconut either- it adds more texture than anything!
To me, these cookies remind me of home, childhood, and of course, my grandma (aka Nonna) who I hear is very happy about me baking her recipes and putting her name in the titles of my blog posts.

Pumpkin Cupcakes

So last night’s catering went great! I think everyone liked my baked goods, and that makes me happy. I ended up rushing so much that I didn’t have time to take photos of every single item!
Though, of course, I took a photo of their cute flyer containing my logo:

I did also mange to snap a photo of one of my favorites from last night: The Pumpkin Cupcakes, with Cinnamon Brown Sugar Buttercream Frosting!
I am actually not a pumpkin fan at all, and the tradition of using pumpkin to make desserts during Fall is not very Brazilian (where I’m originally from), so I am not very used to these ingredients. But I was happy with the results, and got many compliments!

Recipe: (which I gathered online, wish I remembered the source)

Preheat oven to 350°

Cupcakes:

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup dark brown sugar (packed)
2 cups flour
2 teasp. baking powder (And I ran out in the middle of making this! Had to run to the store, so frustrating!)
1/2 teasp. salt
1/2 teasp. cinnamon
1/4 teasp. nutmeg
4 eggs
1/2 cup milk
3/4 cup pumpkin puree
1 stick soft butter

Throw everything in the blender and mix for 20 minutes. Easy enough, right?

Bake for 20 minutes. Renders approximately 18 cupcakes.

Frosting: (one of the best frostings I ever had)

1 stick soft butter
1/4 cup shortening
1/3 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 teasp. cinnamon
3 cups confectioners sugar
3 tablesp. half & half

Cream butter + shortening.
Add brown sugar + cinnamon
Add confectioners sugar slowly, alternating with half & half (depending on what consistency you want, you may not need to use all the half & half)

Done!

I will be remaking some of the cakes and cookies I did for last night’s catering, so when that happens I will post photos and a couple recipes as well.

P.S.: My friend Nancy posted a yummy photo of the cookies she made for last night’s event, so go check out her blog! <3

What I baked today and recipes

As I mentioned before, tomorrow I will be catering for a significantly large (I was told between 60 to 80 people) crowd of hungry people here at my apartment complex. So.

Today I baked:

36 Pumpkin Cupcakes (will frost tomorrow)

1 Creamy ‘Whole Orange’ Cake

1 Applesauce Fruit Cake

1 Pumpkin Pie

1 batch of Nonna’s delicious coconut cookies (will mix with powdered sugar tomorrow)

I will also have a batch of molasses cookies from my friend Nancy!

I’m excited, and hoping this will be a proper amount of baked goods.

Also, I was advised to start posting some recipes here! I don’t know why I didn’t think of doing that. So, I added the recipe for my Orange Cake to that post, and will post recipes with photos whenever possible! (I did decide to keep my family recipes a secret… for now!)

Nonna’s chocolate rum cake

You will often see me refer to my grandmothers in this blog, and that is because, as in most families, their cooking has influenced a lot of my own cooking. In this case, Nonna is my grandmother on my mother’s side. And this is her almighty chocolate rum cake:

Hands down my favorite chocolate cake. No frosting, no chocolate chips, no filling. Just chocolate, and rum!
The secret is in the rum sauce, poured over the cake after it’s baked!
I usually eyeball the measurements for this, but it’s roughly:

1 stick butter
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
1/4 cup rum

Just melt that all together in a pot over medium fire, until it boils and becomes clear.
I recommend everyone try this. Use your favorite chocolate cake recipe, then at the end, poke little holes all over it and pour the rum sauce.

<3

With Fall in Mind…

The cake pictured below is a yummi creamy orange bundt cake. I like making it so much because it actually uses a whole orange, peel and all, blended.

I wonder if I could substitute the orange for something else?

Anyway, I am working on putting together a menu of cakes. The apartment complex I live in has ‘food nights’ every week, and I will be making some ‘Fall themed’ desserts for this Thursday.

So far my list is:

‘Whole Orange’ Cake (pictured)
Pumpkin Cupcakes
Applesauce Cake
Nonna’s coconut cookies (may not sound very fall-ish, but they’re awesome, so I don’t care). Will possibly make two batches.

That’s it for now. I will be baking a lot this week so expect more yummi pictures!

Whole Orange Cake Recipe:

1 cup oil

3 eggs

1 whole orange, cut into quarters (yes, the whole thing, peel and all)

2 cups flour

2 cups sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

Mix eggs + oil + orange in blender until liquid

Mix dry ingredients in a bowl, then add liquid orange mixture

Mix thoroughly.

Pour into greased bundt pan, then sprinkle lots of sugar on top.

Baking:

Now comes the ‘tricky’ part. Start baking at 400°F.

After 10 minutes, lower temperature to 375°F. Wait another 10 minutes, and lower it to 350° . Bake for a remaining 10 minutes (all adds up to 30 minutes total).

Let it cool and remove from bundt pan. Enjoy!

First Post, feat. Cold Cake!

I’m so excited about this blog! I’ve been baking for years and taking photos of my desserts, but never thought of putting them together on a blog.

This post will feature what is possibly my favorite cake in the whole world: Cold Cake (aka ‘Bolo Gelado’)

This recipe is my grandmother’s, and it consists of coconut cake layered with delicious custard. The cake is then refrigerated overnight and served the next day!

edited with recipe!

It took me a while, but here it is. The recipe is adapted, because my grandma often made this with a store-bought Brazilian coconut cake. That obviously cannot be found here. Whenever possible, I make this with a coconut cake mix found at the local Brazilian shop. I have made coconut cakes from scratch, but they were never ‘coconuty’ enough for me. So, my suggestion for the cake is: your favorite vanilla cake recipe + coconut extract. Simple as that!

Now, for the custard:

16.9 oz milk
1 egg yolk
2 teasp. vanilla
1 can condensed milk
1 tablespoon cornstarch

Mix EVERYTHING in a saucepan and heat it up (always stirring) on low heat, until it boils. Remove from heat, let it cool, and layer it in with slices of the coconut cake (first and last layer should be of custard). Refrigerate overnight, and you are good to go!