"Just Keep Beating Them!"

Before I start anything, I want to call attention the left side of the page. Do you see it? That little survey chilling out in the corner? Well, if you do, good for you! If not, shame on you :P. Well, now that you know about it, why not do me a favor and fill it out for me? It will only take a second, that is, unless you cannot read. If that's the case, well....this awkward. But here, let me help direct your attention.
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Now no one can complain that they couldn't find it. 

The theme of yesterday's baking was s'mores and I must say, that this was the most challenging recipe to date. This one recipe, one 
recipe that produced 24 cupcakes, took me three plus hours to make. Yes you read that right; three plus hours. I burned through three different CDs on my laptop trying to bake these delectable morsels. In addition to that bombshell, check out how many ingredients were needed to pull of this recipe.

Yea, that's a lot of stuff (and there was more stuff on the table). Not only did I have to make the batter, but this recipe called for a graham cracker bottom and a homemade marshmallow frosting (oh I have a such a rant prepared for this). The graham cracker bottom was the easy part, just toss some graham crackers into a Ziploc bag and crush them into crumbs. While most people would have just used the blunt end of an object or just used their hands, I decided that it would be more efficient (and fun) to smash them with my shoes. So, I performed a bit of River Dance on top of the cookie filled Ziploc bag until it was crushed to perfection. Then I just tossed in some butter and mixed it together and ta-da! Graham cracker bottom!  Once I had lined the bottom of the cupcake pans, I added some semi-sweet dark chocolate chips and popped the pans into the oven for five minutes and let them melt. This actually made everything really convenient for me. Usually I wait to turn the oven on when I am almost ready to throw the pans into bake. However, the oven's at school take forever to heat up, probably because they are electric.

Unfortunately, the graham cracker bit was easy pickings compared to what came next. Oh dear, I wonder where I should start? I think I will start with the batter. In case you haven't read any of my previous posts, I have had issues with the moistness of my cupcake batter. So of course when I saw that I was going to add a cup of boiling water I was certain that this would be the answer to my dry batter problems. Naturally, this observation turned into a nightmare when, after adding the water, the batter turned into a giant chocolate puddle; no joke. Just the idea of pouring the batter into the cupcake pan filled me with dread.

Sadly I stopped taking pictures believing that this was going to turn out to be my first ever baking disaster. Ok. Second. 

Of course, pouring the better did indeed produce a mess, covering the pans with chocolate goop. Looking back on it now, I can say that this is when I made my first mistake. I should have headed the advice of the blogger who posted this recipe and listened when she said fill them up 3/4s full. You can guess that I didn't. Irony came and bit me in the butt with full force when I eagerly peered into the oven to see how the cupcakes were coming along. The things had expanded so much, that I could hardly see any of the metal on the pans; everything was coated in chocolate cupcake batter. To make matters worse, they looked far from done. The required time passed and I did the toothpick test and obviously they came out covered in chocolate batter. Add another three minutes. Still not done. Two more additional minutes and I was getting nervous. They looked unfinished, but I could tell they were beginning to burn. With no choice left, I took them out and let them cool. At the time I thought that that was going to be the worse part. Boy was I wrong.


Have you ever tried to make your own marshmallow frosting? Well, here's a fun fact that I didn't know until after the fact: Egg whites will stiffen eventually if you just keep beating them. However, and this is a big however, if you get so much as a little bit of yolk in the egg whites, noting is going to happen. Nada, zip. Nothing. As I have previously stated, I didn't know this while I was actually trying to make it. Reflecting on it now, I think that perhaps that the egg white/yolk thing wasn't the only thing that led to my oncoming down fall. I needed to heat the egg whites with sugar and cream of tartar in a double boiler until it reached 160 degrees F. Sadly, I don't have a thermometer to check that. Now can you see where things might have started to go wrong?


Well, after mixing it for a good forty-five minutes, I called a co-worker who is almost like a baking confidant of mine, and asked her for her opinion. Insert lesson about egg whites here.

Thinking that I was on the verge of utter defeat, I put a bit of the marshmallow glaze on a few cupcakes and called down Therese to give them a try. She said they were good; though the glazed ones were a bit sweet for her. So here, for your viewing pleasure, my little cupcakes. Yea, that homemade look that they're rocking is optional. If you prefer conventional looking cupcakes, try not to make the same mistakes that I did.


Considering the length of this post, I will post the recipe late today. However, I just want to announce that I am taking a break next week. I will blog about something so don't forget to check in. And here, in case you weren't counting: 14 done, 486 to go.


Until next time,
Jill

Good News!

As of Wednesday, I passed the 10 recipe checkpoint! Not only is this a reason to celebrate, but it is a solid sign of my determination to complete this challenge! I'll admit, I really never thought I'd get this far; I expected the daunting task of buying ingredients nearly every week would scare me off. But I'm still here so lets all cross our fingers and hope that I don't come to my senses any time soon. I can already say that there will be a bunch of disappointed people here at school if I were to abandon my cupcake endeavor. Never mind that my roommates won't have any free sweets to snack on anymore, but all of my co-workers would be extremely upset if didn't continue with my Wednesday cupcake drop-off. And besides,I really enjoy all this baking stuff ;)

I'll admit now that I haven't always been a big fan of caramel. Probably influenced by my 7 years of wearing braces, but caramel has always been that one candy that I could do without. I never found it all that tasty, and usually had to spend half an hour trying to pick the stuff out between my braces. Melted caramel, all warm and gooey, is something that I have only recently discovered to be one of those hidden little delicacies out there. While the recipe called for 'soft' caramel, I could not find any at the local grocery store that fit the bill. So, I decided that the ones pictured above would become soft once I added some heat to the these little beauties. 

And while I'm going on about things that I have never had a fondness for, lets take a moment to talk about coffee. Believe it or not, I am one of the few college students out there who dislikes coffee. Coffee ice cream, no problem, but serious hard-core coffee, I think I'll pass. Perhaps one of the reasons why I have thoroughly enjoyed all the baking I have done is because I get to try new ingredients that I would not normally think of using. Coffee granules, more specifically, espresso granules are seriously underrated. And what a flavor they added! While the cupcakes themselves only have brown sugar in them to act as a sweetener, the coffee granules really provided a nice earthy-undertone. However, coffee granules were not the only interesting ingredient that I used. This time around, I experiments with candied ginger! Though I have never tried ginger before, it combined well with the caramel. I slightly wish now that I had taken a photo of it, but oh well :P

I did on the other hand take a photo of the cupcake liners that I used. I thought the dark brownish red color would go well with the lighter brown color of the cupcakes. Naturally my decision proved to be a good one and the overall presentation of the cupcakes looked awesome!

On  a totally different note, I am aware that this post is coming you, my dear readers, a little later then usual. But fear not, for I have a good reason. This past week I have been putting together a trip to a place called Purgatory Chasm in Sutton MA. With my mind focused on making sure that everyone who asked got a place on the bus, I really didn't have the time to sit down and finish this post. So, to make up for my tardiness, I have decided to post some of the pictures that I took yesterday.

 The classic king-of-the-rock photo. The year before the group I was with all took photos standing right on this crack formation. Actually, a lot of the people in the group that I was in this year followed that tradition and copied me. It was really cool. Overall, Purgatory Chasm is one my favorite Outing Club trips, so it was really cool that I got to be one to plan it this semester!

And the here's the group shot! Isn't this cool! I unfortunately am the one taking the photo but who cares, it still looks awesome!

As always, below is the recipe that I used for the cupcakes. So what does that leave me with? Hmmm. 13 recipes down, 487 left to go. Sweet! And technically I baled cupcakes using brownie mix, but I am not really gonna count that; it seems too much like cheating. Anyway, next week is all about chocolate and I really can't wait!

Until next time,

Jill

Little Caramel Cupcakes adapted from 500 Cupcakes by Fergal Connolly.

1/2 cup (1 stick) sweet butter, softened

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

2 lightly beaten eggs

2 tbsp. instant coffee granules (I used instant espresso)

1 tbsp. boiling water

2 2/3 cups self-rising flour

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup soft caramels

Preheat the oven to 350. Place 12 paper baking cups in muffin pan.

In a medium bowl, beat the butter and sugar until pale and creamy. Add the eggs slowly. In a small bow, dissolve the coffee in the water. Beat the coffee into the butter mixture. Add the flour and milk, and beat until well combined.

Spoon the mixture into the cups. Push a couple of the caramels into the center of each cupcakes and place them in the oven.

Bake for 20 minutes or whenever they pass the toothpick test. Cool for 5 and then, enjoy!

*Prepare basic recipe, mixing in 4 tablespoons semisweet chocolate chips into the batter after the milk has been added

*Prepare the basic recipe, mixing 3 tablespoons chopped candied ginger into the batter after the milk has been added

*Prepare the basic recipe, substituting 6 1/2 mini Baby Ruth bars for the caramel.

Its coming

Just wait a few a more hours and I promise, my newest post will be up. I have had a very long weekend and have not really had any time to sit down and focus on finishing it up. But I promise, today it will be completed!