Chocolate Raspberry Champagne Cupcakes

Happy New Year!

What a busy 2013 it has been! Besides blogging - My biggest accomplishments this year has been my promotion at work, building up and coaching a first year girls lacrosse program, traveled to California (twice!) for the first time, tasted beer I actually really liked! (Thirsty Bear - Panda Bear brew), made my first wedding cake, and met new people that have enriched and brought very special meaning in my life.

There were lots of challenges and growth involved this year - but overall - I feel so blessed. I hope in the New Year, I can continue to improve myself, and provide a positive impact to my life, those close around me, and to the community.

For today's festive occasion, I made dark chocolate cupcakes filled with raspberry preserves, and frosted with a whipped white chocolate champagne ganache - can't forget the bubbly!

Click here for the chocolate cupcake recipe; then fill with homemade or ready made raspberry preserves.

To make the Whipped White Chocolate Champagne ganache:

10 oz.  High quality white chocolate (Not candy melts)
90 g Heavy whipping cream
1/4 cup champagne

1. Place white chocolate in a bowl
2. Heat up whipping cream and champagne in a saucepan on medium heat until it begins to simmer
3. Pour hot cream over chocolate and stir until smooth
4. Allow to cool in the fridge for 3 hours - the consistency should be a little thick and run off the spoon.
5. Whip on high until ganache is pale in color and fluffy
6. Pipe onto cupcakes!

To add some shimmer and glam to the cupcakes - I used gold food coloring spray and gold sprinkles, and also garnished with some fresh and chocolate dipped raspberries.

Have a wonderful, blessed new year!

Holiday Macarons

This holiday, instead of cupcakes - I tried tackling my nemesis - Macarons.

My first batch I used the French method, which you make the meringue and fold in the almond/powdered sugar mixture. Some had feet, most didn't, and lots of cracked macarons - was a sad day of many macaron casualties.

My second batch, I use the Italian method, which I read provided more consistent results. With the Italian method, you make a sugar syrup and pour it into a soft peak meringue. For some reason, this creates a much more stable meringue - but I am no expert at this and of course everyone has their own preference on which method works best, but with this second batch, while I am sure not *perfect*, they all had feet and no cracks!

This doesn't mean I have given up on the French method - I will definitely try it again. What I have found, is that there are many different versions of macaron recipes because different methods, techniques, environmental factors, and experience all factor into the end results. Macarons may seem very intimidating at first, or even discouraging the first couple of failures, (the last time I tried making macarons was a year ago!) but if you keep practicing and trying new recipes, it helps narrow down the method that works best for you.

The fillings I used:

Gingerbread Buttercream

(Brown sugar buttercream** with 1 tbsp vanilla, 2 tbsp molasses, 1 tsp each of ground ginger, nutmeg, allspice, and cinnamon)

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Buttercream

(Brown sugar buttercream** with 1 tbsp vanilla and 1 cup mini chocolate chips)

Egg Nog Buttercream, fresh grated nutmeg

(Vanilla buttercream with 4 tbsp eggnog, 1 tsp nutmeg)

Chocolate Ganache and marshmallow cream

(8 oz semisweet chocolate, 1 cup heavy cream, 1 tbsp butter)

Chocolate Ganache and crushed peppermint candy

(8 oz semisweet chocolate, 1 cup heavy cream, 1 tbsp butter, 1/4 cup crushed peppermint candy)

Matcha Buttercream 

I made this flavor with leftover macaron cookies and vanilla buttercream

(Vanilla buttercream with 4 tsp matcha powder or more to taste)

**To make brown sugar buttercream, simply substitute brown sugar for the white sugar in the Swiss meringue buttercream recipe.**

The recipe I used to make macarons is from The Baker Chick -  she also has great photos and detailed instructions and troubleshooting tips, so I didn't reinvent the wheel on this post :) I did make one modification to adjust to humid Florida weather - yes, even in December, its averaging about 75-80 degrees here. Ew.

To get the recipe, click on this link. If you are attempting to make macarons in humid weather, add 4 tsp of cornstarch to your almond flour/sugar mixture to help the macarons dry and develop a nice shell.

Resting Macs - rested them for an hour, meanwhile, I got my buttercreams/fillings ready and cleaned my kitchen.

I cooked in the oven propped open with a wooden spoon to avoid the temperature getting too hot.

We got smooth shells and nice little feet!

Gingerbread, Hot Cocoa, Green Tea, and Chocolate Peppermint (not pictured, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, Egg Nog)

This was full of 65 macarons - within the hour this is what was left. By the end of the day it was completely empty.
Win!