Orange Blossom Cupcakes with Matcha Icing

These cupcakes have been months in the making, I was dorking out in a big way when I finally got to make them. When we were in Paris in early June I stumbled upon orange blossom water and got excited at the prospect of bringing back an ingredient that wasn't readily available in the States. My fondest memory from that trip was strolling through the Tuileries with James inhaling the the scent of orange blossoms. Sadly I was mistaken regarding its availability because every WholeFoods or Mediterranean Market carries it. On the bright side I'll be able to make these cupcakes whenever I want.

I started with a simple vanilla cupcake and instead of vanilla extract I used about 2 tablespoons of orange blossom water. This gives the cupcake a subtle flavor of orange blossom. The hardest part was coming up with the right frosting/icing to compliment the cake. I made two different frostings before I decided upon using a matcha icing. The flavors work really well together and as almost always the cupcakes disappeared within minutes.

Pistachio Cupcakes

These cupcakes were inspired by and made for James' 36th birthday. James has been in a pistachio fever since we got back from Paris, where pistachio pastries are everywhere. So it was no surprise that he wanted pistachio cupcakes for his birthday party. The only problem was how to incorporate pistachios into a cupcake. I was a bit late to the planning, but had I been more on top of things I could have purchased pistachio oil online and that would have done the trick more or less. I visited the one Mediterranean store I could find in Seattle with no luck, and I didn't have time to search Pike Place Market so I improvised. I took pistachios and processed into a meal and substituted part of the flour in the recipe with the pistachio meal. This sort of did the trick, however the flavor was still a little lacking. By adding rose water I was able to achieve the desired flavor and off to the oven the cakes went.

Thankfully I wasn't anticipating any issues with the frosting since I had mapped that out already. I was going to use the pistachio paste James and I picked up at Le Bon Marché (La Grande Epicerie).
Thanks to the miracle that is the world wide inter webs you too can own pistachio paste by simply going to Google and searching for it.

The pistachio frosting took a lot longer than I thought due to the fact that the pistachio paste is pretty hard and takes a while to mash down and incorporated into the butter cream frosting. After incorporating the paste I added rose water at James' behest so that the flavor would be more pronounced.

The cupcakes came out perfectly and went over very well at the party. Success!



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Vanilla Cupcakes with Strawberry Cream Cheese

I don't know why its taken me so long to put strawberries and cupcakes together, the two go together like rainbows and unicorns. I was in the mood to bake last week and this was the result, a easy vanilla cupcake with tofu cream cheese and a strawberry puree. I used a blender to blend down the strawberries added a hint of balsamic vinegar to bring out the strawberry flavor and yahtzee! instant cupcake delight.

Bagels

This is one of the few recipes that I've tried that was a great learning experience. This was my third of fourth time trying the bagel recipe from Vegan Brunch and I finally got it, to a degree. Practice makes perfect, these bagels are far from perfect but they were truly a good and I'm sure the next time will be even better. Thank you Isa!

Sadly I have no pictures because of on-going iPhone issues.

Vanilla Hazelnut Cupcakes

I've been wanting to make a decent quick hazelnut cupcake for a while now I just haven't been in the cupcaking mood the last few months. I made these for a small family Fourth of July celebration and they tasted fantastic. I used a simple vanilla cupcake recipe and added 1/3 cup of hazelnut meal to the batter to get a nice, but not overpowering hazelnut taste. I think you can buy hazelnut meal at a local Co-op or specialty store for an arm and a leg, using a food processor does the same thing for a fraction of the price. I can't believe I actually used to live without one of those.

For the icing I used a quick chocolate ganache from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. And dusted with crumbled hazelnuts.

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.

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.