Fish Sauce Caramels with Kaffir Lime and Lemongrass

 

Portland, Oregon is known for its foodie culture.  When Jonathan and I were there this summer for the International Food Blogger Conference, we had our pick of fabulous restaurants to choose from.  So, guess what we had for lunch?  Ice cream!  The tasting menu at Salt & Straw was irresistible!  Just look at their menu and you'll see what I mean.  My favorite of all of the flavors that I tried was a collaboration between Salt & Straw and Boke Bowl - a fish sauce caramel ice cream with lemongrass and kaffir lime.

Amazing 30 Second Chocolate Leaves

One of the best tricks that I learned during my day as a chocolatier at Kakao Chocolate was how to make these chocolate leaves in just thirty seconds.

Start by pouring a long blob of tempered chocolate onto parchment paper.

How to Temper Chocolate Like a Pro (You'll Be Surprised By How Easy It Is)

It doesn't matter if chocolate is tempered when using it in cake batter.  But, for chocolate decorations (like my 30 second chocolate leaves), ganache that shines, properly textured truffles, and gorgeous chocolate-dipped fruits and caramels, it's essential to know how to temper chocolate.  If you just melt chocolate any which way, it doesn't harden with the proper almost-reflective surface and the smooth crisp break of a chocolate that's been tempered correctly. The chocolate could end up rubbery and fugdey or simply lack luster.

I recently had an opportunity to learn how to temper chocolate from the pros at Kakao Chocolate.  I got to be a chocolatier for a day - this meant that, in addition to being trained by a professional chocolatier, I got to eat all of the chocolate that I wanted all day long - hello, sugar high!

An Extreme Super Bowl Cupcake Makeover for Easter Eggs

A couple of years ago, I introduced you to cupcakes baked in real egg shells. Cracking open an egg shell to reveal a cupcake inside is one of those rare food surprises that leaves even the most jaded of adults with a sense of childhood wonder and awe.  This year, I am turning the Easter cupcake phenomenon into a Super Bowl sensation.

Skip the pastels and dye your egg to look like a football, hide a chocolate cupcake inside, and get ready for kickoff! 

How to Make Super Bowl Football Cupcakes Baked in Real Egg Shells

Quest for the Ultimate Chocolate Cupcake - Call for Explorers

With the hundreds of recipes I have developed for this blog, the one that I am most proud of is the Ultimate Vanilla Cupcake.  I worked on the recipe for months, both on my own and with the help of an incredible team of Cupcake Project Explorers.  I still get comments on the Ultimate Vanilla Cupcake recipe almost daily from folks letting me know that it's their new favorite vanilla cupcake recipe.  I also know of several bakeries that are using it as their signature vanilla cupcake.

Many of you have asked when I would share a recipe for the Ultimate Chocolate Cupcake.  Those of you who follow Cupcake Project on Facebook already know that I've been testing chocolate cupcake recipes for months.  After baking 28 different chocolate cupcake recipes, I finally have one that I think is the Ultimate. 

So, Where's the Recipe?

Cookies Made with Hard-Boiled Egg Whites - It Works and It's Fantastic!

I love a chocolate chip cookie that lives in the sweet spot between hard and crispy and soft and chewy - a cookie that is good with a glass of milk (but doesn't require one) and that gently crumbles in my mouth, but doesn't fall apart in my hand if I hug it too hard.  These chocolate chip cookies fit the bill.  Their flavor - sweet and salty with just the right amount of chips - hits the mark as well.

The taste and texture aren't the only things that set these chocolate chip cookies apart from the crowd; it's their surprising ingredient - hard-boiled egg whites - that makes them so unique!  The egg whites dissolve during baking so your unsuspecting eaters will never know they were there.  I can't profess to understand all of the science behind why the hard-boiled egg whites give these cookies such a stellar texture, but I can say that surprisingly, using them works. 

Chocolate Tamale Cupcakes for Cinco de Mayo

When I was a shy girl in pigtails, I collected stickers in my gold vinyl sticker book. I would regularly flip through the book admiring my latest puffy unicorn or scratch 'n' sniff Strawberry Shortcake, deciding which stickers to keep and which ones to trade with a friend.  I still love stickers; there is something so tactile about them in today's world of screens.  My son and I add one each night to the wall calendar by his bed to reveal the next day's plans.

Hot Cross Buns Stuffed with Chocolate and Strawberries

The chocolate cross on these hot cross buns provides just a small hint of what's inside.  Take a bite into the hot cross buns and you'll be surprised by the melted chocolate and chopped fresh strawberries you'll find in the center.  These hot cross buns are far from traditional, but they could easily become a new tradition.  

Chocolate Gingerbread Fudge

Gingerbread men (make that boys) with their red candy buttons and innocent smiles are cute treats for kids.  When they grow up, gingerbread boys become smooth, dark chocolate gingerbread fudge. They are a bit less sugary sweet, but they still win you over with the allure of their ginger, cinnamon and clove cologne. They're not softies on the outside, but when you go in for the kiss, they melt in your mouth. 

This weekend I'll be attending a girls-only solstice-themed birthday party with a fudge contest.  Not that it matters who wins (umm, whatever), but I hope the ladies agree that chocolate gingerbread fudge is where it's at.

Chocolate Gingerbread Cupcakes

I've made gingerbread cupcakes before, but this month for my guest contributor post on Paula Deen, I wanted to take gingerbread cupcakes to the next level.  I added chocolate, a splash of coffee, and a bold, ginger orange glaze - and ended up with an unforgettable, sophisticated holiday cupcake.

I totally fell in love with the handmade paper gingerbread toppers from Etsy seller LOVE2STAMP4U.  If you'd rather use edible toppers, these chocolate gingerbread cupcakes would be adorable topped with real gingerbread men or homemade gingersnap cookies.

Ready to bake? Head over to Paula Deen's website for the chocolate gingerbread cupcake recipe!

Chocolate Banana Baklava Cupcakes

Take baklava (the middle Eastern dessert featuring buttery phyllo dough, nuts, and sticky sweet honey), add a layer of brownie, mix in some banana chunks, bake in jumbo silicone cupcake liners, and you get chocolate banana baklava cupcakes.  As a baklava fan through and through, I never thought baklava could get any better than the traditional Greek baklava that I order every chance I get.  I was wrong.  Silly me, everything is better with chocolate!  Plus, the banana adds one more surprising and delightful flavor to the mix.

Chocolate banana baklava cupcakes are more labor-intensive than most cupcake recipes that I make.  However, none of the steps are difficult.  If you've got time, you CAN make these and they will be worth every second!

Take a look at a couple more photos and then I'll tell you how to make them. 

Chocolate Peanut Butter Hi-Hat Cupcake Recipe

These chocolate peanut butter cupcakes loaded with dark chocolate chips, topped with peanut butter frosting, then dipped in more chocolate are a sight to behold.  This is the ultimate chocolate peanut butter cupcake!  Take a look inside:

I developed this recipe last November, but only shared the recipe with those who made a donation to FilterPure (a non-profit committed to providing safe drinking water to the at risk populations of the developing world). Through this effort, Cupcake Project readers raised over $3000 for FilterPure.  At the time, I promised that in six months I would make the recipe public.  This week, three different readers pointed out to me that I'm late.  So, with no further stalling, here it is.

Cocoa Butter Cupcakes with Chocolate Whipped Cream and Homemade White Chocolate Toppers

These yellow cupcakes look like vanilla cupcakes, and with all the vanilla cupcakes that I've been making lately, it's surprising that they aren't. Because they are made with cocoa butter instead of regular butter, they have a light, chocolaty flavor.  If you weren't told about their secret (as many of my tasters weren't), you'd suspect there was more to these seemingly simply cupcakes than plain vanilla - but you might not be able to guess the familiar flavor that made you go back for seconds.  Once I told you, you'd nod and taste the chocolate immediately!

Because the chocolate flavor is so understated, these cocoa butter cupcakes would be an ideal compromise cupcake to make for a family with some vanilla and some chocolate lovers.  You could top some of the cocoa butter cupcakes with chocolate whipped cream (as shown above) and some with vanilla whipped cream. 

Gluten-Free Chocolate Cupcakes Made With Garbanzo Bean Flour - My Best Gluten-Free Cupcakes To Date

Ignoring the sweet and salty roasted chickpeas on top, these gluten-free chocolate cupcakes made with garbanzo bean flour and frosted with chocolate hummus are indistinguishable from the chocolate birthday cupcakes that you've had a thousand times - with the smell of smoke still lingering in the air from recently made wishes for ponies and Disney vacations.  The rich chocolate frosting (a step up from the typical turn-your-mouth-blue-"butter"cream) might give partygoers a small hint that something was different, but it's unlikely that they would think about it any longer than the birthday girl did to rip open the princess outfit she'd been waiting for.  These gluten-free cupcakes aren't special or spicy, and they don't have a unique earthy finish; they taste like classic all-American chocolate birthday cake. Sometimes, gluten-free or not, that's just what you want.

Chocolate Cherry Cupcakes, Two Ways

Let me begin with a warning:  These cherry chocolate cupcakes are cupcakes to eat not after a meal but as a meal.  Many of my cupcakes are dense, but these cherry chocolate cupcakes are chocolate boulders.  The batter is so chocolate-laden that eating one of these cupcakes equates to consuming a solid chocolate bar and a cupcake simultaneously.  Stop reading now if you want a dainty, frilly cupcake for a bridal or baby shower.

I made two different kinds of frosting for these chocolate cherry cupcakes: maraschino cherry buttercream and chocolate black cherry cream cheese.  Both were huge hits with my tasters (they said the frostings were their favorite part of the cupcakes).  My personal preference, however, was to eat the cupcakes sans frosting with a tall glass of milk. 

Irish Coffee Brownie Cupcakes for St. Patrick's Day

Irish coffee cupcakes are coffee-flavored cupcakes spiked with whiskey and topped with chocolate whiskey cream cheese frosting.  Irish coffee brownie cupcakes are the same thing, but with a surprise inside...

...a hidden brownie center!

I probably don't need to tell you how sensational these Irish coffee brownie cupcakes are, or how you need to make these cupcakes for St. Patrick's Day, or how these are a coffee-lover's dream.  Just go get the recipe on PaulaDeen.com* and get baking!

*For those of you who don't know, I regularly develop cupcake recipes for Paula Deen's website.  These St. Patrick's Day cupcakes are my March recipe.

Chocolate Coconut Rum Cupcakes and an Announcement

After Wedding 3.0, I did not plan to do another wedding.  In fact, Jonathan STRONGLY encouraged me not to.  Baking 300 cupcakes in a home kitchen is extreme - and even more of a task with a young child underfoot.  One person who definitely understands the challenges involved is this woman...

Valentine's Day Cupcakes for Two in Under Ten Minutes

Sometimes you don't want a dozen cupcakes.  This chocolate spice cupcake recipe that I created for Paula Deen makes just two cupcakes.  However, the best part is that the cupcakes can be made in the microwave and the whole thing takes under ten minutes.  Enjoy them warm with fresh whipped cream and sprinkles.

Chocolate Spice Cupcakes For Two Recipe

Milky Way Cupcakes

Milky Way cupcakes are the first cupcakes that I have made which feature two layers of frosting.  Like Milky Way bars, Milky Way cupcakes are topped with a layer of luscious, chewy caramel and a layer of creamy milk chocolate.  Does double frosting equal double pleasure?  You bet!

The cake part of the Milky Way cupcakes is a chocolate malt cupcake with homemade chocolate malt nougat mixed into the batter.  If you don't have the time to make homemade chocolate malt nougat, you can leave it out and the Milky Way cupcakes will still be superstars (stars in the Milky Way galaxy, of course).  I opted to make the Milky Way cupcakes as minis so that the cake to topping ratio would be closer to the nougat to topping ratio in an actual Milky Way bar.  This worked really well, but if you prefer, you could certainly make them as full-sized cupcakes.

Nougat With Chocolate Malt - Like in Milky Way Bars

Until making homemade nougat, nougat was a mystery to me.  Nougat was the alien chewy substance found in my least favorite candy bars.  A request to make Milky Way cupcakes (more on that in a future post) prompted me to research nougat and ultimately to make some myself.