Dunkin’ to pay donut tribute to royal wedding

Dunkin’ to pay donut tribute to royal wedding

Cupcake crazy

It’s that time of year again. Christmas is over but my love of baking is ever present – what better time to give my ovens a work-out than Valentine’s Day? Every year my company hosts a charity store – either Valentines or Easter, and we sell anything from homemade jewelry to sweets and goodies. It’s a chance to put my baking skills to the test.

To say I go overboard is an understatement. This year I’m trying to limit myself to keep my sanity. It’s down to 3 flavors – Chocolate cake with an Irish cream frosting, vanilla cake with raspberry frosting and vanilla cake with lemon curd topping and a toasted Italian meringue frosting.



The goal was 200 cupcakes and I made just nearly that. One of the hits every year was the chocolate cake filled with a Baily’s Irish cream frosting then dipped in chocolate ganache and topped again with more frosting.



I loved doing it, but back wasn’t so kind. Standing up so long and running around the kitchen just hurts when you’re use to a desk job all day. Luckily we made a bunch of money for charity, so it was all worth it.




Chocolate Cupcakes
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups white sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3/4 cup vegetable oil
2 tablespoons distilled white vinegar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups cold water

Directions
Sift flour, sugar, salt, soda, and cocoa together into a large bowl. Make three wells. Pour oil into one well, vinegar into second, and vanilla into third well. Pour cold water over all, and stir well with fork. Fill cupcake liners ¾ full and bake at 350 degrees for 12-15 minutes until top of cake is springy.

Let cool and make Buttercream (below) With a decorators tip and piping bag, pipe about a Tbls worth of frosting into the center of all the cupcakes. Combine the ingredients for the ganache and microwave until melted. Dip the top of each cake into the ganache and let cool. Pipe more frosting on top.

Vanilla/Baileys Buttercream
2 sticks butter (no substitutes), softened
4 cups confectioners' sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 cup milk (1 tbls at a time) OR you can substitute a couple TBls of Baileys with more milk

In a mixing bowl, cream butter. Beat in sugar and vanilla. Add milk/Baily's until frosting reaches desired consistency - whip it fast so it's nice and airy.

Chocolate ganache
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
3 tablespoons heavy cream

Here's some more from the same cupcake-palooza:




...and of course the baking frenzy wouldnt be complete without cookies:

Holy Cannoli

This past Thanksgiving, we went non-traditional with the food in my house and did lasagna with the works. In keeping with the Italian theme, I attempted my first ever cannoli from scratch using the recipe that was on the box of the cannoli shells. What a giant disappointment! My ricotta cream was a soupy mess. I couldn't understand what I did wrong given I followed the recipe to the letter. My dad then asked me if I drained the ricotta. I replied no, as the recipe didn't say to do that. He looked at me as if I'd attempted to bake a cake without turning on the oven. Naturally, one must drain the ricotta.

This next go round, I did drain the ricotta and it was far better than the previous version. Also, I like candied oranges in my cannoli and post fruitcake season, they can be hard to find. Plus, the ones in the grocery are loaded with additives and junk. I instead mixed in chocolate covered orange peel and it was just as good. I would have preferred the large cannoli shells but could only find these mini ones--and ironically these were found in the cookie section of my grocery alongside the lady fingers--not in the Italian section. Nevertheless, I was pleased with the results.



Holy Cannoli
Cannoli shells*
16 oz ricotta
3 T, rounded, of powdered sugar
1/2 t of orange extract
1/2 t of cinnamon
1/4 c, chocolate covered orange peel, finely chopped
1/2 c, mini semi sweet chocolate morsels, plus more for dipping ends

Yield: about 12 mini cannoli, two each is six servings

The night before assembly, put ricotta in a mesh strainer above a deep bowl and place in fridge overnight. (In the morning, I had almost a 1/2 cup of liquid drained off. WOW!) Then mix or beat in the sugar, extract and cinnamon. Again, put the ricotta mixture in a strainer above a bowl in the fridge and allow the flavors to blend another three hours or so. When ready to serve, add the orange peel and the mini chips. Pipe the ricotta mixture into the cannoli shells (or if you don't want to pipe you can use a small offset spatula and spread it inside generously). Dip ends in the chocolate chips. Serve. Ideally, store the ricotta mixture seperate from the shells and wait to fill until prior to serving. Otherwise, they can become soggy if refridgerated in tact. That doesn't bother me but a traditional cannoli has a nice crunchy shell.

* You might want to buy two boxes of shells. I did and by the time I discarded the broken ones, I netted 12 between the two boxes.