There's a reason...

... I don't trust cake recipes that call for adding a whole lot of hot water at the end. I've tried a few of these, and although Taraka's birthday cake turned out well it did lead to some improvisations. And the last two times I've made a cupcake version they've turned out like this:

(These are from about a month ago. I found the photo in the camera today.)

Flavor is good, hard to go wrong with dense dark chocolate. But the sag factor is considerable. I'm willing to concede that I'm doing something wrong, but don't know for sure what it is: wrong oven temp, too short a bake time, something. But they're DONE, not underdone, and still, the collapse as they cool.

Not that it's a total disaster, because what's a cupcake without frosting, and with these, you get a LOT of frosting, because that nice big dimple holds a lot.

I'm not going to make them again, though. I wouldn't have made this second batch if I'd remembered I'd been disappointed the first time. Clearly I'd been so perturbed I'd forgotten to make a note on the recipe page to try another version instead, next time. This time I wrote that down.

Lilikoi Cupcakes

I wasn't sure, until it had defrosted, whether that container of deep orange something from the freezer was tangerine or lilikoi (passionfruit), but it was the latter: cupcakes seemed like the perfect thing to make from it. I'm especially happy with the frosting, which is a completely natural (no food coloring needed!) beautiful yellow, with a very intense tart-sweet lilikoi flavor. I might top it someday, but right now I think it's the best frosting I've ever made.

LILIKOI CUPCAKES

(makes 1 dozen; preheat oven to 350)

1 C whole wheat pastry flour

1/2 C all purpose flour

2 T cornstarch

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 stick unsalted butter (soft)

3/4 C light brown sugar

3 eggs

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 C lilikoi juice

Sift together the dry ingredients and set aside. In bowl of stand mixer, beat butter and sugar until very light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each. Add half the flour mixture and blend on low (or by hand) just until mixed in. Add the lilikoi juice and vanilla and mix in. Add the rest of the flour and blend just until mixed.

Spoon into prepared muffin tins (I used fluted paper liners) and bake for 22-25 minutes, or until done (tops should be lightly browned).

LILIKOI FROSTING

1/2 C lilikoi juice

1/4 C light brown sugar

1-1/2 sticks (12 T) unsalted butter, soft

2 T heavy cream

2-1/2 cups confectioner's sugar

Mix the lilikoi juice and brown sugar together in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Boil, stirring frequently, until syrupy. (I don't have a candy thermometer, so had to guess when it was done enough -- a drop into ice water just held together rather than dissolving, probably not quite to "soft ball" stage.) Set aside to cool to room temp.

In bowl of stand mixer, with paddle attachment, beat butter and 1 C of the confectioner's sugar until well blended. Mix in the cream and another C of the sugar.

Very slowly, just a little bit at a time, pour the lilikoi syrup into the butter/sugar mix, with the mixer running. Take your time with this, especially if the syrup is still a bit warm: you don't want to melt the butter. When all the syrup has been incorporated, add the rest of the confectioner's sugar and blend in.

This frosting will be very soft, but the high butter content means it gets quite stiff when cold. Refrigerate briefly if it seems too runny to work with (mine was fine at room temp), but don't overchill or it will not be spreadable.

BTW: Both the cupcake and frosting recipes use light brown sugar 'cause I don't have any white sugar in the house at the moment. I think it adds a nice richness to the flavor, but you could substitute white sugar if that's what you've got.

Pumpkin Muffins

It looks like we're moving (again) in late May or early June. Only to the other side of town, but still, moving is always a hassle. It's a great house, though, and I wish I could move in tomorrow... instead we're hanging around waiting to hear from the owner when his current tenant will be out (still not certain) so we can set a definite move date and sign a lease.

It's a little too soon to start packing things up in boxes, but I've begun to look at my pantry and freezer with an eye to eating up as much as possible before then. Every frozen pea we don't consume before the move is gonna add to a cooler full of stuff to be hauled across town.

One item found in the pantry: a large can of pumpkin puree (the two-pie size). Making these muffins only used up some of it. In other words, I turned one can in the pantry into a batch of muffins and two 1-cup containers in the freezer, which feels like one step forward and two steps back on the "use it up" road. That's okay, 'cause these are yummy and I won't mind at all making them again two more times before we go. They're as delicious as cake, but a bit more healthy.

Pumkpin Muffins
Loosely based on the Apple-Zucchini Muffin recipe in Moosewood Restaurant New Classics. (makes one dozen)

Preheat oven to 350. Line a 12-muffin tin with fluted paper cups. Mix up the Streusel Topping (at end of post) and set aside, ready to go.

In a large mixing bowl, sift together or mix up well with a fork:
1-1/2 C whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 C oat bran
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cinnamon

Stir in:
1/2 C chopped pecans (or 1/2 C pecans, chopped, either way; it matters in some recipes, but not this one)
1/2 C golden raisins
1/4 finely shredded unsweetened coconut
Set aside.

In the bowl of a food processor, combine the following and blend well:
2 eggs
1/2 C yogurt
1/4 C safflower oil
3/4 C light brown sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 C pumpkin puree

Scrape the wet stuff into the bowl with dry ingredients, and stir to combine (briefly with a fork, then with a rubber spatula to make sure the dry stuff at the bottom is all mixed in).

Spoon batter into muffin cups (they will be full) and top with Struesel topping (below).

Bake for 35 minutes or until done, rotating pan half-way through cooking time. Cool in pan on a rack for a few minutes, then remove muffins from pan and allow to cool to room temp on rack. (If you don't wait for the muffins to cool, they'll fall apart when you try to peel off the paper liners. Guess how I know.)

STREUSEL TOPPING
1/3 C all purpose flour
2 T cold, unsalted butter
2 T brown sugar (light or dark)
1/4 C chopped pecans
2 T finely shredded unsweetened coconut
1/4 tsp cinnamon

Place all ingredients in bowl of a mini-food processor and pulse to combine well.

I've been eating these for breakfast the past couple of days. My husband (a die-hard oatmeal fan in the breakfast department) thinks they make a fine dessert. If dessert's your plan from the get-go, I suggest you skip the topping and go with a cream-cheese frosting instead.

Lemon Cupcakes - first attempt

The long-awaited Lemon Cupcakes turned out quite tasty (lovely lemon flavor), but too dense/heavy to be worth sharing the recipe yet. Not sure what the problem is. Could be:

~ too many ground almonds weighing the batter down?

~ too much whole wheat pastry flour?

~ overmixing? I used the KitchenAid stand mixer, but was only making a small batch (six cupcakes), and the quantity of batter was too small for the machine/bowl. I had to run it longer to get things mixed in.

I'll try again, and post when/if I get it right.

The frosting is nice and lemony, but again, no recipe, as I started with a small bit of leftover cream-cheese honey icing I found in the freezer, added some butter, lemon juice, more conf. sugar and whipped it all up until fluffy. It was too cold to come through the piping star tip well, as you can see, but that didn't interfere with our dining enjoyment.

We'll be eating the last two of these tonight as we ring in the New Year in our usual low-key, at-home, early-to-bed way.

I've probably done the least holiday baking of any cook in blogland, BTW, one reason it's been so quiet here. I didn't make even a single batch of cookies this year. Things I have made have been mostly thrown together with no recipe at all, like the apple crisp I made for Thanksgiving, using some stale multi-grain pancake mix that needed to be used up, plus some rolled oats, a little butter, an egg, and a couple of big spoonfuls of yogurt. It was quite tasty, too, and achieved my goal of being equally good as either dessert or breakfast. But I forgot to take a picture of it before it was gone.

XMas dessert was also a dual-duty effort: pear coffee cake. I do have a snap of that, and it's on my list of blogging topics to catch up on (here and elsewhere) as we get into the new year. First, though, hubby and I are heading to Waikoloa for a long weekend, hoping to see some sun (22" of rain since Christmas!) and hit the beach.

(Don't know what's up with Blogger today, have tried to insert paragraph spaces three times with no success. Sorry it's all run together, but fixing it appears to be beyond my power.)

Chocolate Cupcakes

It's been a long time since I made cupcakes, but a new era may have begun. The post-birthday week celebrations weigh-in was a setback--not a monster one, but indulgences did show up--and I'm refocusing on my goal to be 10 pounds thinner on Jan. 1, 2009, than I was at the beginning of this year.

I figure cupcakes are the way to go if I want a small indulgence of the cake kind without derailing my late-year slim-down efforts. These little beauties are not much more than half the size of a modest piece of snack cake, and delicious. I frosted them with mocha buttercream leftover from my birthday cake (which I have not yet blogged about, but will get to eventually), yum:

Chocolate Cupcakes

Steps 1-3 can be done ahead of time, which makes final prep quick and easy. Makes one dozen, double the recipe if you want more.

Step 1)

Melt together and set aside to cool to room temp (slightly warm is okay):

6 T unsalted butter

4 oz. semisweet or bittersweet chocolate

Step 2)

Sift together and set aside:

3/4 cup flour (whole wheat pastry or all purpose, or a combination)

1/4 cup cocoa powder (unsweetened)

1 T cornstarch

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

Step 3)

Combine and set aside (it will curdle, that's okay):

1 tsp instant coffee dissolved in 2 T hot water

2 T plain yogurt

1 tsp vanilla

Step 4)

Beat together at high speed until very light and fluffy:

3 large eggs

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup dark brown sugar (do not pack down)

When the eggs and sugar are nice and fluffy, reduce mixer speed to medium and slowly add the cooled butter/chocolate, then half the dry ingredients, then the coffee/yogurt mixture, then the rest of the dry stuff. The batter will be runny.

Divide batter evenly among twelve cupcake cups with paper liners, and bake in preheated 350 oven until done (about 18 minutes).

Cool on a rack, and frost as desired.

I'm thinking lemon cupcakes would be good for the next batch. But first I have to go buy a new cupcake tin. I threw the old one out, because after years of exposure to ocean-side air it was looking pretty funky (thank god for paper liners!). One reason the chocolate cupcakes are on the small side is I very carefully did not overfill them (I got 15 from the recipe): I wanted to be absolutely sure that no part of the batter had any kind of contact with anything other than the paper liner.