Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Website...

Thankfully I was able to purchase the domain poofpastries.com I'm working on a website and will hopefully be able to move the blog and give it a little more attention.

Chocolate Hazelnut Cupcakes with Orange Buttercream










I first made these cupcakes a few months ago while tinkering with using real chocolate over dutch-processed cocoa powder. I prefer the taste of melted down chocolate over that of cocoa powder, the switch doesn't require a much extra effort just a few minutes of careful melting in a microwave or using a double boiler.

In this recipe I also decided to play with the flour a tiny bit. I'm a huge fan of almond meal so naturally I suspected that I might enjoy hazelnut meal and I had a ton of raw hazelnuts on hand. Naturally I thought that orange would be the best topping, but I suspect a nice creamy hazelnut or chocolate buttercream would be awesome in this recipe too. I stole the orange buttercream recipe from 'Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World', my trusty cupcake bible.

The result was nothing more than a food orgasm. The chocolate worked wonders and the hazelnut meal added a great flavor and a little texture. The cupcakes were moist and devoured quickly and were well received by all. I recently made a ton of these for my partner's office and got rave reviews, he's bringing more tomorrow and I've got people asking me if they can get cupcakes this weekend. Good thing I have plenty of hazelnuts.

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Red Velvet Cupcakes



















Summer has been far to hot for baking. Now that things are cooling down in the Pacific Northwest I'm able to whip up plenty of vegan delights that will keep me working out for a lifetime.

A friend of mine recently had a housewarming party and she requested chocolate cupcakes and a red velvet cupcake. My first attempt for a vegan red velvet cupcake was a disaster, so I was eager to try again. I use the recipe from 'Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World' and paid close attention to everything as last time my cupcakes collapsed in on themselves. This time I had success, and I was quite satisfied with the final product. I also used Isa's old fashion frosting recipe which worked well for the cupcake, but the texture was a little grainy for my taste.

The cupcakes were eaten by unsuspecting omnivores who couldn't believe the cupcakes were vegan. The chocolate cupcakes I brought along with the red velvet were topped with a tasty whiskey butter cream.

More to come, I've been trying out a few recipes on my own and I'm looking forward to posting them.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Superb Vanilla Cupcakes




















I've been working on creating a great vanilla cupcake for some time now. I've nailed chocolate but have had a lot of trouble getting a vanilla cupcake that wasn't sub-par. Finally (with help) I made a batch of perfect vanilla cupcakes. I do say that this is by far my favorite cupcake for summer. Its versatile and easy to make. For this first batch I made a delicious blueberry cream cheese frosting that was thick and creamy, contrasting the light airy cupcake. I also topped the cupcake with a few blueberry's as a garnish.

The cupcake is really simple and frankly pretty amazing.

Oven at 375

- 1 cup sugar
- 1 1/2 cups flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon of salt
- 1/3 cup almond meal
- 1/2 cup oil
- 1 cup cold water
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon almond extract

Mix all ingredients well

add;

- 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

Mix again and bake for 22 minutes!

I usually rave about most of the cupcakes I make because cupcakes are a kind of crack for me, but these cakes are truly fantastic, especially with the blueberry.

Saturday, May 30, 2009

Chocolate Coconut Cupcakes











These were an experimental batch that turned out really well. I used this killer chocolate cake recipe that I've used a few times in the past. I substituted half the water for coconut milk to add a little extra depth to the cupcakes. The cupcakes turned out pretty good, I left them in the oven for an extra few minutes and a few of them developed that hard cupcake top.

The frosting was a simple coconut butter cream frosting that I topped off with some toasted coconut.

Happy Birthday Dan! (Belated...)










I made these cupcakes almost a month ago for a friends birthday. Tres bien!

Saturday, May 9, 2009

Cinco de Mayo Margarita Cupcakes (belated)

prinkling of sugar on top.


















We stayed home on Cinco De Mayo, but I made these cupcakes the following Saturday for a belated Cinco de Mayo party. I utilized 'Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World' as a base and updated the recipe for my liking. Lime plus tequila equals yum. The frosting is the same as the whiskey butter cream substituting the whiskey for tequila with a light sprinkling of blue sugar on top.

Thursday, April 30, 2009

Employed

Now that I'll be re-entering the workforce I sadly will have little time to bake and blog. I'll shoot for at least one post a week.

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Birthday Order




















A friend of mine ordered a bunch of cupcakes for his big 45th! I made a combination of chocolate, vanilla, peanut butter and lemon. The vanilla cake was an experiment and I think it came out really well, I used a chocolate cake recipe in the last post but substituted the cocoa powder for almond flour.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Chocolate Cake with Whiskey Buttercream Frosting



















James found this great vegan chocolate cake recipe on the internet and I decided to go with it for a friend's birthday cake. I was amazed to see how simple this recipe is, and its delicious! I made two 9in cakes and assembled them with a whiskey buttercream frosting, truly one of the best frosting's EVER! I have to say the cake pretty much KILLED at the potluck. Hurray.

My only critique is that I don't know how to decorate a cake well. I think I'm getting better, but its still a little on the sloppy side. Next time will be better.

Tangerine Zest and Oreo® Cookie Cupcakes



















I had an order last weekend for a few Tangerine and Oreo® Cupcakes, they turned out really well. I took the leftovers to a family event. I got good reviews from everyone.

Monday, April 20, 2009

Vanilla Blueberry Gluten Free Cupcakes



















I got a special request from a friend to make gluten free cupcakes for an party, we decided on doing a vanilla cupcake with blueberry frosting. Thankfully the frosting was already gluten free. For this cake I used the standard gluten free recipe that you can find in Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World, this book has a lot of good base recipes that you can build off of. For the frosting I used a standard buttercream recipe;

1/2 cup margerine
1/2 cup shortening
3 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 of freshly blended blueberries

You can substitute 1/4 of blueberries for soy milk, juice, booze or whatever to get your frosting to compliment your cake flavor.

I really liked this combination, the blueberries were delicious and the cake was even better.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Order



















Last week I made two dozen cupcakes for an order, I thought they turned out pretty...

Monday, April 13, 2009

Green Tea Reckoning










Baking again after a brief stint in Vancouver B.C. We walked into a few cupcake stores while wandering the city, not impressed. There's a local chain up there that has sub-par cakes that sit out all day long. Gross. I didn't see much in the way of vegan options in Vancouver, but I was only there for a few days.

I adore green tea, I think it works great in so many things, like cupcakes. I had my first green tea cupcake in Boston a year and a half ago, it was fantastic! The recipe came from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World (yes I'm still linking to Amazon® I'm not convinced that they purposely rigged their site to censor poof-oriented things) which is a fantastic book that everyone should own. And I do recommend finding it in a local bookstore, given the economy local is the way to go. I've made the book version several times and I wanted to put my own twist on the recipe.

Matcha (ground green tea) is notoriously expensive, especially the pure stuff. Always make sure that the ingredients read as green tea ONLY, a lot of company's out there mix in sugar and filler junk. You can Google it and find online companies or just go down to your local Asian Market, it tends to be cheaper there.










I use about 4 teaspoons of matcha per batch of cupcakes and they always turn out with a good green tea flavor. For my experimental batch I switched it up and used my favorite base of coconut milk and flax seed and modified a few other recipe aspects and came out with a very moist and delicious cupcake. I topped with a Green Tea Glaze that you can find in 'Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World'.

I'm working on a recipe for Green Tea Biscotti, hopefully I'll get it made and posted shortly.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Blood Orange Cupcakes With a Blood Orange Glaze










I saw some Blood Oranges at Wholefoods® and thought "I bet those would make great cupcakes". Turns out I was right, the Blood Orange flavor was amazing. I've never had Blood Oranges before this recipe, since then I've bought them twice. Apparently Blood Oranges are fairly new to North America which might be why I've never had one (most places don't carry them). The folks over at O'Biolla have this to say about Blood Oranges;

Blood oranges are known for their high vitamin C, potassium, carotene and dietary fiber contents, all of which have extensive health benefits. It has been well documented in the nutritional press that consuming several daily servings of fruits and vegetables, combined with three servings of low-fat dairy products, are effective in lowering blood pressure and other heart-related disease risks, while contributing to overall general good health and disease resistance.
I tried something new with these cupcakes and cut a hole out of them to fill with chocolate, then topped with a Blood Orange glaze and orange zest. Overall the cupcake turned out really well, but I think in the future I'll hold off on adding the chocolate inside, it distracted from the orange flavor. Or I'll fill the cupcakes with glaze and top with a orange butter cream.

Monday, March 30, 2009

Chai Cardamom Cupcakes with Cashew Buttercream



















The poll winning cupcake! And as it turns out one of my all time favorites, but then again a lot of these are my favorites. I knew off the bat that I would extract the chai flavor black tea, I decided to use coconut milk heated up a little on the stove and then steeped four tea bags for 5-6 minutes. Soy milk would work better for this, but I really love to richness that coconut milk brings to a cupcake. After I let the coconut milk cool a little I added a tablespoon of flax seed and allowed the tea mixture to sit for about ten minutes before proceeding with adding the rest of the wet ingredients. While I wait for this process I get the dry goods shifted and ready to add.

Once the cupcakes were finished I ran into a little bit of an internal debate on what to top them with... A spicy chai buttercream, a cardamom buttercream, a powdersugar glaze or somthing else... I settled on cashews. I mixed cashew butter with a vegan buttercream frosting and it turned out awesome. It looked dense but turned out to be light a delicious. I topped them with broken cashews, next time I'll grind them down into finer pieces.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Pineapple Coconut Cupcakes



















We had some left over pineapple juice from a curry we made the other day, so I decided to use the excess in a spring cupcake. This is more of a fruit cupcake (ha ha...), the coconut is very subdued. I used coconut milk and a 1/3 cup coconut flour for the coconut flavor. I used a 1/2 a cup of pineapple juice which seems like a lot, but the cupcakes had a great texture to them and were eaten up by James and I. I love using juices in cupcakes, the sugars from the juice seem to crystalize a little on the top of the cake making a thin hard/crunchy layer of cupcake goodness.

For the topping I made a simple pineapple butter cream frosting and attempted to make flowers on the tops of the cakes. Practice makes perfect.