Monday, February 8, 2010

Chocolate Ghost Chili with Orange Buttercream










This is take two of the ghost chili cupcake, the first one was very successful but had a fair amount of room for improvement. In the first attempt I had a few proportions off which I was able to correct I also used a simple ganache to top the cupcake which I replaced with an orange cream cheese icing. The reviews were very good, not a single cupcake was left that night. ( I made four dozen).

Chocolate Trinity










We decided a few weeks back that we would once again host a Vegan Sunday now that we're in a new space that's quite a bit larger than the last. The theme was pre-Valentine's Day and as an extra bonus I decide to get tiny pink pastry boxes so that everyone could take a few cupcakes home with them. At first I wasn't sure what I was going to do and then I settled on about ten different kinds of cupcakes and then decided I didn't know what I was going to do.

I finally came to my senses and kept it easy, I was going to make simple chocolate and vanilla cupcakes and do something different with the frosting. A chocolate cupcake with chocolate ganache and chocolate cream cheese frosting to round out the choco-overload. The hardest part was trying to tame the chocolate cream cheese frosting that had the consistency of feta. Sadly I was never able to spread it in the way I hopped, it was still delicious.

Chocolate Fennel Cupcakes

These were a last minute dessert for a dinner a few weeks back. I'm kicking myself for not taking any pictures.

A friend invited James and I over for dinner and on the day of asked if I could bring a dessert. She said all she had were figs and that she'd like to have me bake something. I had about an hour and a half post-work. I asked James what would go well with figs, he said fennel. Fennel? I've put stranger things in a cupcake, so I decided to make a simple chocolate cupcake and add some crushed fennel (about a teaspoon). I topped with a fantastic chocolate cream cheese frosting.

The Chocolate Fennel went really well with the figs after dinner, I have to give James all the credit on this one.