Butter Pecan Cupcakes with Maple Swiss Meringue Buttercream

I made cupcakes for Thanksgiving for the first time this year - not that we really needed it, since there was going to be plenty of dessert!

But nevertheless, I hauled my mini cupcake pan and my Cuisinart Mixer up to Maryland - I bet TSA did a double take when scanning my luggage. 

Anywho - I love pecan pie, and I love butter pecan so I took those flavors as inspiration for this cupcake. A vanilla butter cake base with maple Swiss meringue buttercream, candied pecans, and maple butterscotch sauce. 

Buttery, caramel, pecan maple goodness going on here!

Vanilla Butter Cake - this recipe is *gasp* a doctored up cake mix recipe modified for my taste - you can find the original recipe by clicking here. This recipe is great when you are in a pinch, and it never fails.

This recipe can yield:

72-75 mini cupcakes

48-50 standard cupcakes

3 eight inch cake layers

1 box white cake mix (I used Betty Crocker brand)

1 cup all purpose unbleached flour - sifted (I use King Arthur brand)

3/4 cup sugar

3/4 tsp salt

1 1/3 cup water

4 egg whites ( or 3/4 cup pasteurized egg whites - much easier!)

1/2 stick melted butter

1/2 tsp LorAnn vanilla butter bakery emulsion (optional)

1 cup sour cream

1 Tbsp vanilla

Let's Bake!

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees, prep your cake pans or cupcake pans
2. Place all dry ingredients in a large bowl
3. Add water and egg whites and mix on medium speed until well combined. 
4. Add melted butter, vanilla and mix well. 
5. Mix in sour cream on low speed. 
6. Fill your mini cupcake pan 2/3 full
7. Bake cupcakes for 10-12 minutes or until comes out clean with toothpick check. 
8. Remove from oven, and remove cupcakes from tin and and let cool to room temp. 

Maple Brown Sugar Candied Pecans

1 cup chopped pecans

1/2 stick butter

2 tbsp brown sugar

2 tbsp pure maple syrup

1/2 tsp vanilla

Let's Cook!

1. In a sauce pan, melt butter on medium heat.
2. Add brown sugar and whisk until sugar is no longer grainy. 
3. Add in pecans and continue to stir frequently until the sugar mixture is bubbly and the pecans smell toasted. 
4. Remove from heat, stir in maple syrup and vanilla.
5. Allow to cool to room temp. This sugar will crystallize and make a delicious crunchy shell on the pecans. 

The maple Swiss meringue buttercream is vanilla buttercream with about 4 tbsp pure maple syrup added in - the buttercream recipe can be found by clicking here.

The maple butterscotch/buttery caramel sauce recipe can be found by clicking here, and then add in 2 tbsp pure maple syrup in the end after taken off the heat.

To assemble the cupcakes, pipe the buttercream, top with pecans, and drizzle with the butterscotch sauce. Enjoy!

Fall Frosting Flavors and the Easiest Caramel Sauce You Will Ever Make

Today's post is just about perfectly warm and fuzzy flavors for the Fall season: 

Chocolate, Pumpkin, and Caramel. 

Chocolate cupcakes (click here for recipe) with 

Pumpkin spice and Buttery Salted Caramel Swiss meringue buttercream.

Pumpkin Spice SMBC

2 cups vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream
2 Tsp pumpkin spice extract ( I use Lorann bakery emulsions)
1/4 cup pumpkin puree
1 Tsp pumpkin pie spices
Orange gel color (optional)

Blend together, pipe onto cupcakes or frost cake. Garnish with ginger snap cookies (or crumbs!)

Buttery Salted Caramel SMBC 

This caramel sauce incorporates brown sugar, it comes out smooth and with a butterscotch flavor but not overpowering. Mix everything into a saucepan. No thermometers, no worrying about sugars crystallizing or burning. Easy Peesy.

2 cups vanilla swiss meringue buttercream
1 cup caramel sauce:

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1/3 whipping cream
• 1/2 tsp vanilla 
• Fleur de sel to garnish (or coarse sea salt)

1. Melt butter in saucepan over medium heat. 
2. Add in sugar, brown sugar until well combined, use a whisk.
3. Continue to whisk slowly on medium low hear until sugars are dissolved and consistency can coat a spoon. Add in whipping cream.
4. Remove from heat, add in vanilla, and mix well, and allow to cool at room temperature.
5. When cooled, slowly incorporate into buttercream.
6. Pipe onto cupcakes or frost cake.
7. Drizzle with extra caramel sauce, and sprinkle Fleur de sel right before serving (or else it will dissolve).

Japanese Soufflé Cake with Pumpkin Spice Whipped Cream

I told almost everyone that after the wedding cake I didn't want to see cake or cupcakes for a while....

Clearly, this was the sleep deprivation speaking and I was seriously lying to myself. 

Here I was the very next day, plotting (after catching up on sleep) the next recipe I was going to pounce on. 

This has been on my to do list for a while. Pictures on Pinterest of this airy dessert caught my curiosity - some of the pictures titled this confection "Japanese Cheesecake", but I think soufflé cake is more appropriate after making and tasting eating devouring it.

This gets it's cheesecake name because cream cheese is an ingredient, but it is far from the likeness of the traditional cheesecake in my opinion.

Because whipped meringue is incorporated into the batter, the cake comes out light and fluffy, while the butter and cream cheese add some richness and a melt in your mouth experience. Just like a soufflé.

Warning: This cake is deceiving to your conscience because it feels like you are eating air. Sweet, delicious air that has sugar (well, not that much) and calories. Don't say I didn't warn you.

I adapted the recipe I found on the Sprinkle Bakes blog very slightly. I Just added 1 teaspoon of vanilla - because it just felt weird not to add vanilla in a cake recipe. Feel free to omit. I, however, was not able to stray from my vanilla comfort zone. I also topped it with some pumpkin spice whipped cream - Yum! See the recipe below or click on the Sprinkle Bakes link above to get the printable version:

Cake Ingredients:

9 oz. cream cheese (one 8 oz. brick plus 1 oz. of another brick)

4 tablespoons unsalted butter

1/3 cup fresh, whole milk

6 eggs, room temperature - whites and yolks separated

1/4 tsp. cream of tartar

1/2 cup plus 1/8 cup extra fine granulated sugar

1/3 cup plus 1 tsp. cake flour

3 tbsp. corn starch

1 tsp vanilla or flavored extract                             

Let's Bake!

1. Melt cream cheese, butter and milk in a heat-proof bowl over a pot of simmering water.  Stir occasionally to break up cream cheese and combine the ingredients.  Remove bowl from heat and allow to cool. Mixture will be thick.  If lumpy, use a whisk to vigorously beat the mixture until smooth. Set aside.
2. When mixture has cooled, fold in the egg yolks, flour and corn starch.  Fold until thoroughly incorporated.
3. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
4. In a large bowl, whisk egg whites with an electric mixer until foamy.  Add the cream of tartar and mix again, gradually adding the extra-fine sugar a little at a time until soft peaks form.  Note: Soft peaks:  mixture should be white and opaque, and meringue will fall onto itself when the beaters are lifted from the bowl.
5. Add the cheese mixture to the egg white mixture and fold together until well incorporated.  
6. Pour into an 8-inch round spring-form pan that has been lightly greased and lined (sides and bottom) with parchment paper.  Place a piece of aluminum foil over the top of the cake so it does not brown.
7. Bake in a water bath for 1 hour 10 minutes.  When timer sounds, bake for an additional 10-15 minutes with the oven door cracked.
8. Carefully remove pan from water bath and let stand until cake pulls away from the sides of the pan.  Remove spring-form ring and serve.

6 Eggs at room temperature, separated.

Double boiler on medium heat; melting cream cheese, milk and butter.

When cream cheese mixture cools, slowly mix in egg yolks and cake flour mixture.

Whip meringue with cream of tartar and superfine sugar into stiff peaks.

Gently fold in cream cheese mixture into meringue.

Set up a water bath in a pan with a rack (this prevents condensation on the bottom). Pour batter into a lined pan and bake. 

Pumpkin Spice Whipped Cream

3 cups heavy whipping cream

1 Tbsp vanilla

1 Tsp pumpkin spice extract (or 1 tbsp pumpkin spice syrup)

1 Tsp

1/4 cup powdered sugar

1 Tbsp Powdered Gelatin

1 Tsp pumpkin pie spice

1. Make sure your bowl and cream are very cold. I like to pop my bowl in the freezer for a few minutes. 

2. Whip up the heavy cream until it gets to a thick viscosity.

3. Add in powdered sugar and gelatin and whip until medium peaks form

4. Add in vanilla and pumpkin spice extract and pumpkin pie spice

5. Whip until there are stiff peaks. 

6. Dollop or pipe onto frost and pipe onto cake and enjoy!

Wedding Cake Project - Recap

Yesterday was the wedding day ! All the months of planning finally coming together. I learned a lot of lessons for this project. Overall, the cake came out beautifully and got good reviews!

Lessons learned:

1. Planning ahead and setting timelines for each activity was a complete life saver. Making all of that buttercream, gumpaste and candy seashells, cake stands - doing all of that up front made the final hours less stressful. I had a binder with all my recipes, a timeline for each activity, and inventory of all tools, ingredients, and equipment I needed.

2. Don't leave your cake planning binder at Publix. Yep, that happened - thankfully I was able to retrieve it.

3.  Practice, practice, practice. I practiced so many recipes, troubleshooting, tweaking - all of that helped me find the right balance of flavors, texture, and quality of cake and frosting.

4. Some cake recipes do not do well with freezing. I tried baking all my layers and freezing 3 days ahead - the chocolate cake and gluten free cake came out fine - but the regular (middle and bottom) tiers ended up having a different texture and flavor. I decided to dump it all and bake fresh layers with a back up recipe and the cake came out tender, fluffy, and delicious. I recommend testing the freezing method with recipes first before your final batch. Sometimes the flavor or texture can be changed - and I found this out the day before the wedding. Yikes! For this particular recipe baking fresh layers the night before worked out best. I was up very late because of the emergency baking - but it was well worth knowing that I was going to provide cake that was up to my standards.

5. Take the time to set  up your cake boxes with no slip pads to ensure your cakes to not slide around when driving. All my cakes were delivered in good shape.

6. Do NOT look at cake disaster pictures. Just, No.

7. Make your own cupcake wrappers - it is so much cheaper and extremely easy. I saved about $60 making my own.

8. Little imperfections are OK - I didn't get the buttercream as smooth as I wanted it to be, or piped the perfect waves, but don't stress - those imperfections are minimal and are only really noticed by you, the cake maker. Everyone else is looking at the whole picture and plus, the cake will be eaten anyway!

Now, some snap shots of the process:

Filling, layering, and crumb coating

Bavarian cream and chocolate ganache

Vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream

Smoothing top and bottom tiers 

Piping blue ombre buttercream waves

Applying gumpaste seashells

Inserted dowels for stacking tiers

Gumpaste seashells hand molded, painted, and dusted.

Filling and frosting cupcakes

Topped with white chocolate molded seashells

Edible pearls

Frosting grooms cake 

Topped with chocolate covered strawberries

Boxed the cakes, placed in my trunk

 and drove to the venue (1 hour drive)

Fitted snugly in the car and placed towels around to ensure nothing moves
and also to keep the cold temperature insulated.

Finally, I delivered the cakes, set up everything and was able to breathe! My hands were shaking while I was stacking the tiers, I was so nervous. I had some smudges here an there, but I brought a back up kit of extra frosting, smoothing tools and spatulas, etc. 

After I stacked the tiers I touched up the cake, piped the borders, and applied the finishing touches with the cake topper and the coral pieces on the sides. Last, I sprinkled raw sugar on the top and the sides for a sandy effect. 

I set up the Grooms cake, the strawberries were juicing a bit since the chocolate was pulling the sugars out but I just dabbed with a paper towel and touched up the frosting. Luckily, I was going for a rustic look for the grooms cake so I could get away with irregular texture. 

The cupcakes were set up and they looked so adorable! 

Finally I cleaned up the table and was able to stand back and admire all the work put into these desserts. All of these ideas swirling in my head finally came into fruition. The cake looks very close to my sketch, no?

I was so nervous until the cake cutting - I knew everything looked pretty, but I had to wait and see if everyone thought the cake tasted as good as it looked! Since I have been taste testing for the past month my tongue has become weirdly numb to sweets so I can't always tell if everything tasted well balanced - which, thank goodness for Meghan, she helped me out on that one and let me know if something was too sweet or needed more vanilla, etc. 

To my relief, after the bride took a bite, she looked over at me and gave me a thumbs up... haha! That had to be my favorite moment. Then sadly, I watched my cake get whisked away and chopped up by the servers. I watched a graveyard of cake appear in front of my eyes:

It was all worth the effort as I saw lots of empty plates and cupcake wrappers. The little ones all wanted the cupcakes, which was my goal - kids love cupcakes! It was so cute. Everyone seemed to enjoy it, I was really happy.

**UPDATE** 

Pictures of the cake and cupcakes from the photographer

Mark Dickinson Photography

Special Thanks

Danielle and Cody - Thank you for the opportunity and experience to be a part of your special day. Best wishes to both of you for a long and happy marriage!

Liz - Thank you for letting me use your kitchen these past few months! It was a huge life saver to be able to prep and store everything in one place that was close to the venue. Thanks for also letting me use your co-workers as taste testers. 

Meghan - Thank you for your support. Sorry for shoving buttercream and cupcakes in your mouth almost every day as a taste tester, and subjecting you to molding gumpaste, cutting cupcake wrappers, and even helping me cook! You are the best and I couldn't have gotten anything done on time without your help. 

Bert Fish Rehab Center - Thanks for being my cupcake guinea pigs! You all gave great feedback and motivation during this project. I truly appreciate it. 

My co-workers and friends - for your wonderful comments! 

Wedding Cake Project - Part 2

I've got cake on the brain. I am beginning to have anxiety - why do you ask?

Oh - well, I stumbled across a website with a gallery titled "Cake Disasters". Where a baker's worst nightmare happens. The dog licked the cake before it was delivered, the cake fell apart in the car, the bride hated it. You name it, it happened.


Ohmylanta. 

Train wrecks I keep looking at. Meghan keeps telling me to stop but I can't. I can't. I am self sabotaging - and I know it.

In class the other night I was seeing cakes everywhere. We were going over database diagrams and they looks liked tiered cakes. We were doing a case study on Cisco Systems and I kept thinking about Crisco.

The time is getting close. The wedding is next week - I have been test baking, gumpasting, buttercreaming, ganaching, candy molding, you name it.

This past few weeks I have accomplished:

1. Provided wedding cake and grooms cake samples - couple gave the thumbs up!

Gluten free marble cake filled with Bavarian cream, chocolate ganache and vanilla buttercream (Later decided to go with Swiss meringue), candy seashells and edible pearls. Please ignore the piping and air bubbles in the buttercream :) 

Chocolate cupcakes filled with chocolate ganache, chocolate Swiss meringue buttercream. 

2. Made cupcake wrappers:

3. Customized cake stands and cupcake stands:

Removed the black ribbons, and applied twine instead for a rustic, beachy look.

Before

After: Burlap and twin ribbon.

3. Made 33 cups of buttercream - 2 more batches to go:

4.  Molded, dried, and hand painted all gumpaste and candy seashells:

Gumpaste seashells painted with tan colored dust and then dry brushed with pearl shimmer dust.

Next week I have cake baking, frosting, and decorating going on! Stay tuned for those pics and the final results!

Wedding Cake Project - Part 1

This year is a milestone. 

I received my first wedding cake order, and I have mixed emotions. Excited, nervous, inspired, overwhelmed by ideas and resources. Yikes! I have done special occasion cakes here and there, but not for an order as large as this one - so this is a learning experience, and a test not only to my baking, but also to my time management skills- ahem.

I am either super obsessive or a professional procrastinator, it just depends on the project, but no worries - I also deliver during crunch time. Luckily - I am leaning towards OCD on this one and I have a very strategic approach... so I tell myself. I have been researching, I have PowerPoint slides,  I have spreadsheets. I am literally project managing myself.

The client is a co-worker of Meghan's who happened to ask if I made wedding cakes, so we exchanged emails and covered the basics - I was honest and let her know that I was a humble home cook and that she should look into professional bakeries if she was not confident in my abilities, but somehow she seemed to believe in me. I am very fortunate to have a client that not only is extremely sweet but very easy going. She shared her ideas and suggestions but basically said I could run with whatever I thought would be best. 

Best. First. Wedding. Client. Ever. 

I am very determined to make the cakes as beautiful and as special as their wedding day very much deserves. 

Here are the details so far:

1. When: November, this means the weather will be cooler, (at least for FL weather) thank goodness. 

2. Where: Reception is indoors. Can I get an Amen!

3. What:

A tiered cake

Grooms Cake

Cupcakes

4. Theme:  Beach

5. Flavors: 

Wedding Cake:

Vanilla Chocolate Marble Cake

Filled with Bavarian Cream and Chocolate Ganache

Vanilla Swiss Meringue Buttercream

**Later updated that top tier is to be Gluten-Free because of food allergy**

Cupcakes:

Same flavors as the wedding cake

Grooms Cake:

Chocolate Cake

Filled with Chocolate Ganache

Chocolate and Vanilla Swiss Meringue Buttercream

Chocolate covered strawberries

6. Design: 

At first they wanted a smooth fondant look with accents of shells and starfish, but later changed their mind to add texture with a blue ombre effect. Here was my initial sketch doodle of the concept - 

My plan is to to a 10"/8"/6" tiered cake, with the middle tier being tall. 

(I know, my drawing skills are earth shattering - Move over Picasso!)

Then I doodled this one:

That actually is part of the word "scraps" - haha.

Then this one, which is the design I am going with:

I have been practicing piping techniques, testing recipes, sending samples (click here to see test run), and using the poor unsuspecting employees of Bert Fish Rehab Center as guinea pigs. So far I have gotten very positive and encouraging reviews!

I am about to hit the 1 month timeline before the wedding date. So stay tuned -I will be ramping up enormous amounts of buttercreams, syrups, and gum paste and chocolate seashells, and of course blogging through my successes and not so glorious moments. 

Jump to Wedding Cake Project - Part 2