Banana Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

Another birthday, another "cake" to make.  I was given free reign this time around.  I wanted fruit to be involved, but I had limited time and couldn't whip up the mousse cake I would have preferred.  So instead, I went for creativity over complexity.  Or at least that's what I thought.

So I found the how-to on cupcake cones at the blog House of Hepworths.  She describes this fantastic holder cut from a foil pan, which appeals to my crafty senses.  Well, I might have gone a bit overboard.  I bought a deep roasting pan, since the cake takes like 90 minutes to cook through (it's a sloooooow cake recipe) and therefore I didn't have three hours to spare by the time I rolled home at 10pm (That's right, I got suckered into post-work drinks and forgot about my ambitious cake-making plans).

Well, let me warn you:  Do not use a roasting pan to get 18 holes in for your cones.  The cones don't rest on the cookie sheet below and the pan is left to support their weight.  It will sink in the middle as it heats up.  The batter will spill out into the great big lake of batter in the middle of your aluminum holders.  The cheap ice cream cones will then get soaked with batter, soften up and holes will form in the sides further allowing more batter to pour out.  It's not pretty.  At all.

It was so distressing that I forgot to photograph the massive oven disaster.  I was too busy in how-can-I-fix-this mode.

So how did I fix it?  I removed all of the cones and placed them upright in a high-sided baking pan.  I topped off the batter with my extra (thank goodness for the double batter recipe!), and then placed them back into over at 350F.  The majority were still a little lop-sided, prone to leaking or a little crusty, but overall they TASTED fine. Right?  And I could cover up the tops with the delicious frosting.



Lesson?  Well, this is amazing cake.  This is amazing cream cheese frosting.  This should not be wasted in a styrofoamy ice cream cone.  Just bake the cake by itself.  And if you want to do the cone thing, use a half dozen loaf pans that will hold 3 cones each.  It's tedious, but if you have a giant oven, lots of time, or just stick with the traditional box mix cake, you should be fine.

Banana Cake in Ice Cream Cones with Cream Cheese Frosting
Recipe circulating the web a million times over with one source at allrecipes.com


Batter (this makes twice as much batter as you need for 24 cones, so plan on make a little loaf too):
3 bananas, mashed, ripe
2 teaspoons lemon juice
3 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup butter, softened
2 1/8 cups sugar
3 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 1/2 cups buttermilk

Frosting:
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups confectioners’ sugar
**
cinnamon & sugar, for dusting

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 250°.
2. In a small bowl, mix mashed banana with the lemon juice; set aside.
3. In a medium bowl, mix flour, baking soda and salt; set aside.
4. In a large bowl, cream 3/4 cup butter and 2 1/8 cups sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time, then stir in 2 tsp vanilla.
5. Beat in the flour mixture alternately with the buttermilk. Stir in banana mixture.


6. In a 9 x 13" baking pan, place as many upright ice cream cones in the pan as possible.  Pour batter into  each of the ice cream cone cups to apprximately 1/2 inch from the top of the cone.  There will be approximately 1/2 of the batter left after 18 cones.  Save it or pour it into a loaf pan for a cake on the side.
7. Bake in preheated oven for one hour or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Remove from oven.
8. For the frosting, in an electric mixer with a whisk attachment, cream the butter and cream cheese until smooth. Beat in 1 teaspoon vanilla. Add confectioners' sugar and beat on low speed until combined, then on high speed until frosting is smooth.
9. Scoop the frosting into a pastry bag without a tip, just the plastic tip-attachment piece (or a wide open round tip), and create soft serve-like swirls on top of your cake-cones.  Dust with cinnamon sugar (or I used the cinnamon dolce topping from Starbucks).

Fluffy Coconut Cheesecake

You're probably beginning to get the idea that I do 85% of my baking for work.  You'd be right.  There are about 18 coworkers that I actively and daily interact with, each of whom has a birthday.  As a result, every few weeks I have a reason to whip up something sweet and get immediately feedback from a captive audience.

This week my co-worker Mitchell had a birthday.  He loves coconut.  Last year, I made him these jazzy super-duper coconut cupcakes.  They were actually coconut-ized box yellow cupcakes.  I like to think that I took the box to a new level.  If you know anything about my history with cake, it's that I'm actually pretty terrible at making it from scratch. It's a bit like rice.  I can't for the life of me make proper rice.  Something always goes wrong - too hard, too soft.  With cake, it's too dry or too dense.

So this year when I asked Mitchell what he wanted for a cake, he said again: Coconut.  I had free reign.  Having not make cheesecake in some time (and my fridge had three bars of malingering cream cheese), I thought 'Perfect!'  And I found the perfect recipe.

Now I found the cheesecake on The Novice Chef, but the recipe itself was written by a guest blogger from food + words.  Everything positive that was said about this cheesecake is absolutely true.  And I only changed a couple things based upon the ingredients in my house (per usual).  To quote agnes in Despicable Me: 'It's so fluffy!' So let's just to it!

As a brief overview of my changes:

1. I love to make my cheesecake crusts with crushed pretzels, since it's super absorbent and makes this unique sweet + salty flavor.  So I subbed pretzels for the graham crackers.
2. I doubled the whipped cream topping recipe because frankly, with the amount in that recipe, even using my KitchenAid, it went to only 1/2 the height of the towering masterpiece on The Novice Chef blog.  You definitely want twice as much fresh whipped cream, trust me

3. I also scooped the coconut cream off the top of the coconut milk to set aside for use in the whipped cream.  This thick cream is frequently used as a dairy-free substitute for whipped cream.  So really, this makes sense.
4. I really want to emphasize temperature when it comes to cheesecake.  Make sure your ingredients are at room temperature, whether its the softened cream cheesecake, butter or the eggs.
5. I have never once used a water bath, and I've made cheesecake in a wide variety of ovens, so I just skipped out on that step and my cake didn't crack.  So, not a big deal if you don't want to use a water bath, in my opinion.

Triple Coconut Cheesecake
Adapted from The Novice Chef with guest blogger from food + words.

Ingredients:

For the crust:
1 cups of crushed pretzels (food processor!)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/2 cup shredded sweetened coconut
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

For the filling:
24 oz cream cheese, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
3 large eggs, at room temperature
7 ounces coconut milk, separate from the thick cream on top and just use the milky part
1/2 teaspoon coconut extract

For the coconut whipped cream:
2 cups heavy whipping cream
1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar
1 cup of the thick cream off the top of the coconut milk
1/2 teaspoon coconut extract
1/2 cup toasted coconut, for topping

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
2. In a bowl, combine pretzel crumbs, granulated sugar, cinnamon and shredded coconut and stir until evenly mixed. Next, pour in the melted butter and mix until the dry ingredients are saturated.
3. Dump the crust mix into a springform pan and then press it against the bottom and sides until it create an even layer throughout. It might be a little crumbly, but just make sure there are no blatant gaps.

4. Bake for 10-12 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool. Reduce the oven temperature to 325 degrees F.
5. Using an electric mixer, use a paddle attachment to whip the cream cheese until light and aerated. Add the granulated sugar, cornstarch, vanilla extract and salt. Beat until smooth and combined. While still mixing, add one egg at a time. Add the coconut milk and extract and beat until combined.

6. Pour the filling into the cooled pretzel crust, and place it on a baking sheet (to catch spills) in the oven.  Bake for an hour or until the filling is set and golden at the edges.  Remove and allow to cool.
7. While your cheesecake is cooling, or the next morning, prepare the coconut whipped frosting.  In your electric mixer, add heavy whipping cream, coconut cream (reserve from before!), coconut extract and confectioners’ sugar. Whisk until stiff peaks have formed.  Spread a thick layer on top of the cheesecake, and top with the toasted coconut flakes.  Keep chilled in the refrigerator until ready to serve.

Orange, Pineapple and Banana Muffins

I originally found this recipe on Cafe Sucre Farine and had every intention of following it to the letter ... up until I looked in my fridge and realized that I was missing some key ingredients.  But never fear, I can substitute like a champ!

Glazed Pineapple, Orange & Banana Muffins

For muffins:
1 stick butter, softened
½ cup sugar
1 large egg
2 cups flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup greek yogurt, plain
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 medium ripe banana, diced
½ cup chunk canned pineapple, drained and diced (reserve juice)
1 naval orange, segmented

For glaze and topping
½ cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon of reserved pineapple juice

⅓ cup granulated sugar
½ teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon orange zest

Directions for muffins:


1. Preheat oven to 350˚F.

2. In a small bowl, toss together pineapple, orange and banana like a fruit salad.

3. Using either an electric mixer or separate bowl, whip together softened butter and sugar. Add the egg, continuing to mix, and lastly beat in the greek yogurt and vanilla.

4. In a third bowl (yes, three!), sift together the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt).

5. Now bring it all together: Slowly add the wet batter to the dry ingredients, one spoonful at a time. Once combined, then gently fold in the fruits.

6. Divide mixture evenly into a mini-muffin pan, either nonstick or using muffin cups. This should make approximately 24 mini muffins.




7. Place muffins in oven. Bake 15 to 20 minutes or until golden. Allow muffins to cool before applying glaze.

8. Combine powdered sugar and pineapple juice until smooth for the glaze, and then drizzle it atop the cooled muffins.  Combine sugar, flour orange zest and cinnamon and sprinkle atop the glaze before it sets.

Homemade Cranberry Bliss Bars

Homemade Cranberry Bliss Bar

I've had my mind set on replicating the Starbuck's Cranberry Bliss Bar from the first time I bit into one.  Years ago. You know the one.  The million calorie holiday treat that's here for a mere two month showing but causes you to gain 10 lbs?   Don't worry, this version is no healthier.

While I'd like to consider myself a baking genius who just digs into the encyclopedia of her mind to retrieve a base recipe for whatever strikes my fancy, I'm totally not.  I always google or crack open a cookbook.  So when I searched for "Starbucks Cranberry Bliss Bar recipe", much to my delight, hundreds of recipes showed up.  And frankly, they all pretty much looked alike.  So when I post the recipe that I used here, I'm not referencing any one source - it is a general mash-up of the same recipe circling every baking blog or site on the net.  You can do the google math.

Cake:

2 stick unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
3 eggs
2 tablespoons crystallized ginger, minced
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 cup dried cranberries, minced
4 oz white chocolate, coarsely chopped

1. Preheat the oven to 350F.  


2. Whip together the softened butter and brown sugar in your electric mixer. Add in the eggs, minced ginger and vanilla extract, and continue to whip.  At this point, the consistency was a bit frothy (the eggs) and lumpy (the ginger).  




In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt.  Slowly add the dry ingredient mixture to the wet mixture with electric mixer on a slow speed to prevent flour clouds.


Lastly fold in the minced dried cranberries and white chocolate by hand, until evenly distributed.  



Pour into a butter-greased 9" x 13" baking pan.  Bake for 30 mins or until golden on top, and the cake tester draws out clean.  Allow to cool in the baking pan.

Frosting:
3 cups powdered sugar, sifted
4 oz light cream cheese, softened
Juice from 1/2 naval orange, squeezed
2 tablespoons grated orange rind
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 cup dried cranberries, coarsely chopped

1. Using an electric mixer, whip the softened cream cheese, powdered sugar, juice, rind and vanilla together until fluffy. 
2. Then fold in the chopped cranberries by hand until evenly distributed.
3. Frost the top of the cooled cake base while still in its pan.  Allow several hours to set.

Drizzle:
2oz white chocolate, coarsely chopped

1. Using a double boiler, melt the white chocolate.
2. Drizzle over the top of the frosted cake.

The final product, cut for serving.

Eggnog Bread Pudding

Eggnog Bread Pudding

This has been a comfort food kind of week for me.  Or rather, after feeling a bit sick to my stomach the first half of the week and not eating, I was ready to have a yummy treat that would both settle my tummy and provide a big warm and fuzzy hug.  And you know what kind of food does that the best?  Bread pudding.

When I bought the day old bread for the bread pudding, I had visions of a spicy pumpkin souffle in mind.  But last night when I realized that the only liquid dairy product in my kitchen was eggnog, plans had to change.  I had to get in the Christmas spirit and let go of the squashy autumn flavors.

Unfortunately, I didn't accept this change to my (complete lack of) recipe until after I had photographed the ingredients.  Thus no ingredient snapshot.  But I did my best to capture some of the vitals add-ins after the fact.  Next time I think that I might toss in dried (or fresh?) cranberries as opposed to raisins and apples, along with a stronger hint of nutmeg.


The great part about this recipe is that the eggnog and whiskey is already sweetened, so there is no need to add sugar into the mix.  The raisins and apple also add a bit of sweet, fruity flavor in each bite.  I'm very pleased with the portions in this recipe also.  Often times my bread will be a bit too stale, or I won't use enough liquid in the mix, or a bit too much egg so that it almost quiche-ifies (my word!).  So proportionally, I was very pleased with how this came out.  Everything came together in a soft, but thoroughly cooked treat.

Ingredients

1/2 loaf of Portugeuse bread, torn into bite-size pieces
3 large eggs
1 cup of light eggnog
1/2 cup of American Honey
1/2 cup golden raisins
1 apple, diced into 1/2" cubes
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, diced

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 375F.

2. Whisk together eggs, eggnog and whiskey in a small bowl.


3. Toss together bread, raisins and apple and when mixed place into a medium-sized (8-9" diameter) baking pan.


4. Pour the eggnog mixture over the dry ingredients in the baking pan, using a large spatula to fold it in and coat all of the bread.

5. Evenly sprinkle the diced butter over the top of the bread pudding and place in the oven.


6. Bake for approximately 30 minutes or until a knife or cake tester draws clean.  Remove from the oven and allow to cool. Best served warm with a dollop of ice cream!

Mini Pumpkin Whoopie Pies with Maple Filling

Mini Pumpkin Whoopie Pies with Maple Cream Cheese Filling

A recipe arrived in my inbox on Friday that could only make magic with that one last pumpkin perched on my counter.  My favorite newsletters/blog from thekitchn.com was highlighting the joys of Thanksgiving treats, namely pumpkin-derived treats.  And standing out in their collage of autumnal food porn was the Mini Pumpkin Whoopie Pie from Brown Eyed Baker.  It was destiny.

Now I'm including the recipe below because I made some modifications - as usual.  So what happened?  Well, the first problem was that I ignored the keyword "chilled" in front of "pumpkin puree".  I literally steamed my pumpkin, pureed and dumped it directly in with the wet ingredients.  The sugar melted from its fluffy state and became an egg-sugar-pumpkin soup.  There was really no recovery from its liquid state, so I tossed in the dry ingredients to see how bad the damage was.  It was bad.  It was like cake batter, not cookie dough.

Melted sugar-egg-pumpkin batter

Lesson:  Don't be so impatient! Cook and chill pumpkin before starting the recipe.

So if, in spite of my warnings, you do this anyway, this was my solution:  Add another egg.  Add another cup of flour.  Add 1/4 cup of sugar.  So the recipe below is the Oops! recipe.  I did test out some of the liquid batter to see how it baked compared to the Oops batter, and I saw little difference, honestly.  The added egg/flour only managed to fluff it up by a mere 1-2mm.  No where near the fluffiness of the ones on the BEB blog.  The flavor was not compromised.



You'll also note that I halved the filling.  I seriously had 1/2 bowl left from the original recipe, so unless you want to get diabetes in one sitting or toss out half your food stuffs, stick with the recipe below.  I also felt that the tart cream cheese heavily overwhelmed the maple syrup, so I kicked the maple up a notch.

Maple cream cheese filling whipped up in the KitchenAid

Pumpkin Whoopie Pie Dough:

4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 cup granulated sugar
1 1/4 cup light brown sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
3 cups chilled pumpkin puree
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Maple-Cream Cheese Filling

1.5 cups powdered sugar
4 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
2 ounces (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
5 tablespoons maple syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract


1. Preheat oven to 350F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.  You can brush and flip the parchment to cycle through, since I ended up putting 6 professional-sized baking sheets-worth of cookies inside and ran out of parchment.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, salt, ginger and nutmeg. Set aside.

3. In your mixer with the whisk attachment, whip the granulated sugar, dark brown sugar, and oil together. Next add the pumpkin puree (when its chilled!), eggs and vanilla.

4. Lastly, gradually add the flour mixture to the pumpkin mixture.  You may want the shield on your mixer bowl since it tends to splash up a lot of flour in the process of mixing.

5. Use a small cookie scoop to deposit mounds of dough on the prepared baking sheets, about 1 inch apart.

6. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes.  They'll puff up a bit and look a little golden on the edges.  If you lift the underside of a cookie, it will be just beginning to color.  You may want to test a cookie at this point also, just to make sure it's baked thoroughly.

Now I brought these puppies into work, since that's where I pawn off all my treats before I gluttonously eat themself.  Best response yet!  Here is a selection of the e-mails and verbal comments I was made!

"I went home last night feeling so terrible because I didn't tell you how amazing the whoopie pies were!"  "Me too!  I meant to e-mail you and felt so bad that I didn't give you feedback!" - Meridith + Dov
"You should seriously consider opening your own bakery. They are delicious. Thanks for sharing." -David
"Your pastries were SO delicious yesterday." - Chris (and I don't think he was just sucking up to me because I'm his new boss)
"I went back for seconds but... they were all gone!" and holds up the empty tupperware container with a sad look. - Mitchell

Bloody Broken Glass Cupcakes

Bloody Broken Glass Cupcake

Halloween is my favorite holiday of all time.  I actually think that it should be a national holiday that gives people that day off from work.  That way we can spend our day putting on costumes and hosting lengthy themed parties.  Parents will easily be able to take their kids trick or treating mid-day rather than rush home after work.  We get time off for religious observances, right?  Can Halloween be my religion?

This year I decided that I was stepping my Halloween cupcakes up a notch.  I always stick with cupcakes, since they're easy to grab at parties.  There can be individuality to each cupcake as well.  Usually I do frosting-and-candy based monsters and creepy creatures.  But this year, I came across a pin on pinterest that took my breath away.  Bloody shattered glass stabbing into a perfectly pristine white cupcake.  Gruesome.

Not only do they look impressive, but easy on an effort scale.  I mean, individual monsters actually cost me more time than bringing sugar to the hard crack stage, and whipping up a batch of syrupy blood.

I consulted multiple sources for the concoction of realistic looking blood and the easiest, clearest sugar glass recipe.  In the end, I adapted a Martha sugar glass recipe for similar cupcakes and followed a great tutorial on edible fake blood from the Clockwork Lemon blog.

 
Bloody Broken Glass Cupcakes

Classic buttercream topped vanilla cupcakes

This is all up to you. Homemade, box, whatever. Just put together your classic white cupcakes. White so that the blood shows in stark contrast. I also recommend picking up some black cupcake liners, or thick premium white liners. The regular store bought white liners tend to discolor with the cupcake.



Sugar Glass
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup water
1/4 cup corn syrup

For the sugar glass, combine all of the ingredients in a saucepan set to medium-high and clip your candy thermometer onto the side. Bring the mixture to a boil, drop the stove temperature down to medium and simply stir. And stir. And stir. Seriously, stir for like 45 minutes until the water evaporates off and your thermometer reaches 350F. Once your sugar reaches temperature, remove it immediately from the heat and pour it in a thin layer into a greased baking metal baking pan. I used butter to grease mine with, which was a poor plan. It turns your glass yellowish. So make sure to use something clear like shortening to avoid yellow swirls and cloudiness in your sugar glass. Allow to set until hard. Twist the pan to pop out the sugar glass and crack as desired.

Edible Fake Blood
1/4 cup corn syrup
Wiltons no-taste red gel dye
Wiltons black gel dye
Hot cocoa powder




You don't really need much of this, so my recipe creates only a small amount of this fake blood. I found that the Wilton gel dyes created a much stronger color. Make sure to mix the dyes and syrup in Pyrex or other glass because it will otherwise stain plastics. I used the tiniest dot of black (it goes a looooong way) and quite a bit of red. Experiment. You can use the cocoa powder to create opacity in the blood. Just make sure to mix well so that it doesn't look gritty.

The final product can be styled in a most gruesome fashion to wow all of your friends and coworkers!