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.