Chocolate Cupcakes

 

I can't believe it's taken me this long to post about cupcakes. Cupcakes are a passion with me. I love making them and I LOVE eating them but I really enjoy making cool, different kinds of cupcakes. This probably began as a small child when my mama threw me an animal themed party just because. She painstakingly made cupcakes look like bears, pigs, elephants, porcupines, tigers, lions, etc.

These animal cupcakes became something of big deal in our house as we continued to make them for my baby brother's kindergarten class, a friend's graduation and other parties. And then I stumbled upon the book 'Hello, Cupcake' which instaneously restarted a need to make outrageous cupcakes.

I started with some the cupcakes in the book:

Spagetti Cupcakes (which tasted awesome!)

and Corn on the Cob Cupcakes (which tasted good when you scraped off the jellybeans)

 

For my parents 35th Anniversary, I made 24 different blue and white cupcakes.

Following that, I made cupcakes for a close friend's engagement party...

and her bridal shower.

And then some random cupcakes for a BBQ...

and for superbowl...

and my last endeavor, a surfboard/beach themed cupcake-scape with surfboards that were 'painted' to look like the surfboards owned by my husband and his friends.

This one was my favorite so far to make. And it was my first adventure into decorating sugar cookies with royal icing. I loved it.

I don't knwo why it's taken me this long to try royal icing but I am hooked. I freely admit that I did cheat and buy a royal icing mix instead of making my own but I do promise to try making my own soon. I did make the sugar cookies from scratch though. Will post that next.

All of these cupcakes were chocolate. I have yet to come up with a vanilla cake that I really like. This is a recipe of my mother's for DARK chocolate cake that mama and I adapted for cupcakes. Warning however, the batter is extremely thin and the cupcakes come out so moist that they are a bit difficult to frost. But they taste amazing so I deal with the frosting issue.

Dark Chocolate Cupcakes

 2 cups flour

2 cups sugar

1 cup cocoa

2 tsp baking soda

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup olive oil

2 eggs

2 cups water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  In the bowl of your electric mixer (or a bowl if you are using a hand mixer), combine flour, sugar, baking soda and baking powder. Add oil, eggs and water. Mix very, very throughly.

Line cupcake pan with choice of paper liners. Carefully add batter to a large ziploc bag or pastry bag. Snip end of ziploc bag. Squeeze enough batter into each cupcake liner 3/4 full.

Bake for 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the cupcake comes out mostly clean.

When cupcakes are completely cooled, frost and decorate.

Chocolate Chip Pancakes

Pancakes, the iconic breakfast food that has an entire restaurant devoted to it. Pancakes are a big deal in my house. They are the breakfast tradition when my niece visits and every snow day that we get to sleep in and take the day off.

Now it must be understood that I was raised to NEVER bake anything from a box. Everything must be made from scratch. I do break that rule occasionally, for example, I still cannot make instant sugar-free pudding so I resort to Jell-o for that. And I also think that my brownies from scratch and Ghiradelli boxed brownie mix taste almost identical. But I digress.

Getting back to the making everything from scratch, naturally that would include pancakes. Mom's pancake recipe is almost as easy as the stuff you buy at the store and it tastes much, much better.

Pancakes

2 cups flour

2 tbsp sugar

4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

2 eggs, lightly beaten

2 cups milk

4 tbsp olive oil

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp cinnamon

In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, combine eggs, milk and olive oil. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients. Whisk JUST until combined. Mixture will be lumpy.

Now, I did name this Chocolate Chip Pancakes so here is the chocolate part. At this point, add as many chocolate chips as is desired. Other add-ins include blueberries, bananas or strawberries.

Heat a griddle pan on medium high heat and spray with olive oil.  With a ladle, pour about a 1/4 of a cup of batter onto the griddle. (My griddle fits four pancakes at once, but that will depend on the size of the pan) When bubbles start to form and pop on the top of the pancake, gently flip pancakes. Check for golden brown colour by lightly lifting one side of the pancake. When both sides are golden brown, remove pancakes to a plate and place in a warm oven until everything is ready.

Since this is another food tradition is my house, there is of course a specific way to observe this tradition. In my house and in my mother's, pancakes are spread with a little bit of butter and a liberal amount of peanut butter and then drizzled with maple syrup. It's the most delicious way to eat pancakes, I promise.

Cheese Fondue and Chocolate Fondue

When my niece is here visiting, we have certain traditions that must be observed. Most of those traditions revolve around food, like everything in this family of mine, and one of them is fondue. Chocolate fondue to be exact. It started when I received a fondue pot at my bridal shower. I had never had fondue or even made it before. So after we were married and my niece came to stay, we had a little adventure creating the chocolate fondue. That created the fondue tradition: homemade pizza, chocolate fondue and a movie.

This year, I thought why not use the fondue pot a little more and instead of the pizza make cheese fondue. Unfortunately, I hate Swiss cheese and that is what most fondues are. So I found a cheddar cheese beer fondue recipe from Rachael Ray and modified it a little. Her recipe called for Gruyere, which is way too expensive, so I skipped that part. It was still good.

Before I made the cheese fondue, I made all the stuff for dipping. Bratwursts, fried and cut into rounds; breaded and fried chicken tenders; blanched broccoli and cauliflower pieces; and put out breadsticks. Of course, I kept the meat and veggies warm in the oven until we were ready to eat. Then I made the fondue...

Beer and Cheese Fondue

16 oz shredded cheddar cheese
1 1/4 cup Sam Adams Boston Lager or other lager beer
1 tbsp flour
2 tbsp deli mustard, the spicy kind
1/2 tsp Frank's Red Hot
1/2 tsp Worchestershire sauce

In a medium saucepan, heat beer to a light simmer. Meanwhile, combine cheese and flour. When the beer is heated, slowly add cheese, stirring well after each addition.

Add mustard, red hot and worchestershire sauce and stir. Remove from heat and pour immediately into fondue pot.

Serve with the dipping thingys.

(there is another tradition that goes with fondue: if anybody drops something in the fondue pot, they have to kiss everybody else's cheek)

Moving on to dessert:

Chocolate fondue. Who can say no to warm, drizzily, delicious chocolateyness?

Again, I prepare the stuff for dipping first. I usually get any berries I can find, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, snozberries...just kidding. But really, any berries will be great. I also cut up bananas and/or apples, and pound cake and add large marshmallows and pretzel rods.

When all of that is assembled, I make the fondue.

Chocolate Fondue

1/2 cup heavy cream

12 oz semi sweet chocolate chips

1 tsp vanilla

In a saucepan, heat the cream until the steam is starting to rise. Remove from heat and stir in the chocolate until melted. Stir in the vanilla and pour into the heated (and cleaned) fondue pot. Voila. Wasn't that easy?

What to do with the leftovers?

I find that leftover chocolate fondue is delicious eaten with a spoon right out of the fridge. I've also scooped it out and rolled it into little truffles that I then rolled in chopped nuts, powdered sugar or cocoa and made myself bon bons.

We did have an awful lot of cheese fondue and broccoli and cauliflower left over and that is going to go bad if just left to itself. The next day, we made steak and baked potatoes at my mother-in-law's Extended Stay hotel complete with another tiny kitchen and outdoor grill. I steamed the leftover broccoli and cauliflower and turned the cheese fondue into cheese sauce to top the veggies. To turn fondue into sauce, pour leftover fondue into a saucepan, add a splash of milk and a little butter (the ratios all depend on how much of the fondue is leftover) and heat, stirring occasionally. Add a little more milk to reach desired consistency and pour over your veggies and baked potatoes. It was quite good, if I do say so myself.

Feta Stuffed Chicken (low-carb)

To continue the low-carb/almond meal kick I've been on, I made chicken again last night. I always make chicken and sometimes the same old thing gets boring. I wanted something different and kind of exotic and fortunately a friend had just brought me a brick of really amazing feta cheese. I decided to stuff the chicken breasts with feta and herbs and bake them in the oven. They were amazingly delicious. The feta didn't really melt so much as just become warm and crumbly. I also had the leftover chicken cold the next day; equally as delicious!

Feta Stuffed Chicken

3 boneless skinless chicken breasts, filet in half (or you could get 6 thin sliced chicken breasts)

1 small brick good feta, sliced into 6 1inch by 2inch pieces

2 tbsp olive oil

2 garlic cloves, crushed

1/2 cup almond meal

2 eggs, beaten

1/2 cup white wine

1 tbsp butter

2 tsp Dijon mustard

1 tbsp cream

dried oregano

In a small bowl, combine the olive oil, crushed garlic and a sprinkling of dried oregano. Set aside. Spray a large glass baking dish with olive oil.

Coat one side of each chicken breast with egg and then almond meal and lay, almond meal side down, in the baking dish.  Place one feta piece on each chicken breast and sprinkle with dried oregano.

Roll the chicken breast over the feta and arrange, seam side down, in baking dish. With a basting brush, brush each breast with the garlic olive oil (liberally). 

Bake at 350 for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a small pan, combine butter, white wine, Dijon mustard, cream and a little dried oregano. Simmer to reduce.

To serve, pour white wine sauce over chicken.

It was fabulous!

Eggplant Parmesan (low-carb)

I am attempting to write this post as my cat battles the laptop for supremacy over my lap. It makes it very difficult to type.

Moving on, as I said, I am on a six week very low carb diet under the supervision of a nutritionist. Six weeks of no bread, pasta and sugars makes one very creative. For one thing, this means there is no breading that I can have on meat, or in this case aubergine. However, I can have all kinds of nuts including almonds. Almond meal is readily available at grocery stores, Trader Joes and health food stores. It's very finely ground, similar to fine breadcrumbs, which makes it a great substitute. My husband can't tell the difference between the almond meal breading and other breadings. And I think that the almond meal gives whatever it's on a nuttier flavor and a nice crunch.

Eggplant Parmesan

1 medium sized eggplant, peeled and sliced into 1/2 inch disks

2 eggs, beaten

1/4 cup olive oil

1 cup almond meal

1 28 oz can crushed tomatoes

2 garlic cloves, crushed

1 tbsp basil

2 tsp oregano

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

mozzarella cheese, shredded

Parmesan cheese, shredded

In a large saute pan, heat olive oil on medium low heat. In a medium saucepan, heat 1 tbsp olive oil. Add crushed garlic and allow to cook until just golden brown. Pour the crushed tomatoes into the saucepan. This WILL spit and sputter so please be very careful. Add basil, oregano and cayenne to tomatoes, stir and allow to simmer. Meanwhile, on a large plate or shallow bowl, beat eggs. On another plate or bowl, pour almond meal. Dip slices of eggplant first into the egg and then into the almond meal, shaking off the excess gently. Place 'breaded' slices in the saute pan. Work in batches so as not to over crowd the eggplant. Cook on one side for about two minutes or until that side is golden brown, then flip. Cook for another two minutes. Remove to a platter to keep warm.

To serve, I pour a little sauce on the bottom of my plate and place the slices on the tomato sauce net to one another instead of layered. I add more tomato sauce on top and top with the cheese (the amount if cheese is at one's own discretion). I like to put the plates under the broiler for a minute so that the cheese gets a little burnt and bubbly.

This isn't the greatest picture, sorry.

Low-Carb Crackers

Since I am currently on a low carb, very very low carb, diet, I have to get a little creative. Since regular crackers are off-limits, I have improvised with almond meal. Most grocery stores carry Bob's Red Mill Almond Meal or if you live near a Trader Joe's, they carry it also.

Almond Meal Crackers

1 1/2 cups almond meal

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

2 tbsp water, plus more if necessary

In a food processor (I use my teeny one for this), combine almond meal, garlic powder and cayenne. Pulse to combine. Add 2 tbsp water. Pulse well. Mixture should be slightly wet and sticking together to the walls of the food processor bowl but not be soupy. It might need a teeny bit more water, I'd add it in teaspoon fulls and continue to mix between additions.

Dump mixture onto a piece of parchment paper and cover with another piece of parchment paper. With a rollong pin. roll out dough between the two pieces of parchment. When dough is 1/8 of an inch thick, peel top piece of parchment paper off and discard. Slide the bottom piece of parchment with dough onto a cookie sheet.

Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes, then start checking every couple of minutes. There is a fine line between cooked and burnt. Burnt crackers are NOT a nice kitchen smell.  When crackers are golden brown, remove from the oven and allow to cool.

These are great with cheese and pepperoni; a piece of lunchmeat or even peanut butter. Yum!

Tzatziki (the most wonderful dip EVER!)

I have a very good friend from Greece that taught me to make this. This 'dip' is fabulous on pork, chicken, veggies, sandwiches, french fries, anything really. But it is especially amazing with pork. I make it often with pork tenderloin and then use the leftovers to make sandwiches the next day. It's a favorite meal in my house. And bonus: it takes 5 minutes to make.

Tzatziki

1 small container very good Greek yogurt (I use Fage)
1 cucumber, peeled and shredded using a cheese grater
1 small bunch of fresh dill (4 -5 long sprigs), chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper

Combine all ingredients in a medium bowl and stir well. Cover and refridgerate at least one hour but preferably overnight. (You could eat it right away; it is good. But it's much better if you wait) Before serving, taste to make sure it doesn't need a little more salt, pepper or oil. Serve with virtually anything.

Guacamole

I was very in the mood for guacamole today and happily in possession of two ripe avocados. Unfortunately, I was not in possession of the fresh Cilantro and lime juice that is supposed to be the other main ingredients to guacamole. I also lacked a sufficiently delicious sounding recipe for it, so I made up my own.

Guacamole (without the correct ingredients)

2 ripe avocados
2 medium tomatoes, chopped
1/2 small red onion, diced
1 garlic clove, crushed
1/2 tbsp dried cilantro
1 tsp lemon juice (as I said, I was out of limes)
salt and pepper

The best way that I have found to chop avocados is to slice it all the way around the pit and twist to release the two halves. Smack the pit with the cutting edge of your knife to embed the blade into the pit and twist to remove. (Being careful not to accidentally hit your hand) Using a paring knife, slice through the flesh of the avocado, but not through the skin, first lengthwise and then crosswise creating a checkerboard pattern. Using a large spoon, scoop out the diced avocado into a medium bowl.

With both avocados now safely in said bowl, squash lightly with a fork. (I like guacamole to be substantial and with texture instead of the consistency of whipped mousse) Add tomatoes, onion, garlic, cilantro, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Stir. Cover with plastic wrap, pop in fridge and allow to marinate happily. (All food marinates happily. If it wasn't happy, it wouldn't taste good.)

While my guacamole was happily marinating, I sliced a few pitas into little triangles and arranged them on a baking sheet. After brushing with olive oil and sprinkling with salt and pepper, I toasted them in a 350 degree oven for 8 minutes, until lightly golden brown. Voila! Homemade, un-fried pita chips with homemade guacamole!