Mango Rum Cupcakes - Four Baking Lessons and One Life Lesson

I didn't like these mango rum cupcakes. But, don't stop reading here. This is a post of many lessons.

Baking Lesson 1: Even if you don't love a cupcake, others may love it!

Like I said, I didn't like these mango rum cupcakes at all - even the look of them bothered me (they look a bit like pee in the snow, don't they?). But, when I gave them to a visiting taster, I was told that they were fantastic! "They get better with every bite. Love the chunks of mango! Wow!"

One thing that bothered me about the cupcakes was that even with mango in the frosting and chunks of mango in the cake batter, the cupcakes did not taste mango-y. Which brings me to lesson two...

Baking Lesson 2: Mango flavor disappears when you bake with it.

I should have learned this lesson the last time I made mango cupcakes and they ended up tasting like corn muffins. But, I thought I would try again. The chunks of mango in the batter definitely helped, but I still was not satisfied. If anyone has a really mango-y cake recipe, please share. Groom 3.0 would love a mango cupcake for the wedding.

Baking Lesson 3: Pieces of wet fruit cause the wrapper to separate from the cake.

While the chunks of fruit helped with the mango flavor, the wet fruit caused the wrapper to separate from the cake - not attractive.

Baking Lesson 4: Things may appear different in the morning. (This could also be a life lesson.)

I don't have a before picture, so you are going to have to imagine a thick white meringue frosting on top of these cupcakes. When I returned to my cupcakes the next morning, all but a tiny layer of meringue had been absorbed into the cake. I think the culprit was the wet mangoes that I mixed into the meringue; they caused the meringue to deflate and dissolve.

Cupcakes changing overnight is nothing new in my house - see my Christmas cupcakes where my candy canes melted.

Life Lesson 1

Again and again, baking teaches me to roll with the punches (or the dough). Things don't always work as planned; but I will experiment, experiment, experiment because when we stop trying new things, we stop really living.

Think you'd like these cupcakes? Here's the recipe:

Yield: 24 cupcakes

• 1 1/2 C unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 1/2 C sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 1 egg yolk
• 2 t vanilla extract
• 1/4 C dark rum
• 1/2 C pureed mango
  
• 3 C all-purpose flour
• 2 t baking powder
• 1/2 t baking soda
• 1/8 t salt
• 1 C sour cream
• 2 mangoes, chopped into chunks
  

1. Beat butter and sugar at medium speed with an electric mixer until fluffy.
   
2. Add eggs, egg yolk, and vanilla and beat until well-blended.
   
3. Gradually add rum and mango puree. Beat well.
4. In a separate bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
5. Add to batter alternately with sour cream, beating well after each addition.
6. Mix in mango chunks.
7. Fill cupcake liners 3/4 full.
8. Bake at 350 F for 25 minutes.

Mango Meringue Frosting

• 2 egg whites
• ½ C sugar
• 2 T pureed mango + extra mango as desired
  

1. Combine the egg whites and sugar in the mixing bowl of a stand mixer.
2. Set mixing bowl on top of a pot of boiling water.
3. Whisk until sugar has reached 110 F on a candy thermometer.
4. Remove mixing bowl from the pot and place on mixer.
5. Whisk for 10 minutes on medium speed using the whisk attachment.
6. Whisk on high speed for another five minutes (you should see stiff glossy peaks).
7. Whisk in mango until just integrated.
8. Spoon onto cupcakes.
   
9. If desired, add more mango on top of the meringue. (As noted above, all of this wet mango will make the meringue deflate and get absorbed into the cupcake.)
   

Microwave Cupcakes: About What You Would Expect

Microwave cupcakes were the obvious choice when browsing the site of my June Taste & Create partner, Tangerine's Kitchen. Why not try microwave cupcakes? I have already made crockpot cupcakes and steamed cupcakes.

Why Not Try Microwave Cupcakes?

After making microwave cupcakes, I now have a good answer to the question, "Why not try microwave cupcakes?"

1. Did you ever microwave a bagel? Did you notice how it got all oddly rubbery? The same thing happened to my microwave cupcakes. The texture was not right!
2. Strange things can happen in the microwave. I put my test cupcake in the microwave for two minutes and it came out as you see on the right. That's not chocolate - it's burnt. It was also hard as a rock! I couldn't cut it with a sharp knife. Obviously, I adjusted the microwaving times for the other cupcakes and that didn't happen again.

Big Disclaimer: My issues with microwave cupcakes could be due to the specific recipe I was using. The recipe didn't have any butter or vegetable oil (which I thought was a bit unusual) and that could have contributed to its dryness. Maybe some of you have had success with cupcakes in the microwave - do tell!

Bigger Disclaimer: In trash-talking these microwave cupcakes, I mean no harm to my wonderful Taste & Create partner. She's got a slew of recipes on her blog that look great and maybe even this one would have been great if I had made it as a cake as she did rather than as cupcakes. From her picture, her cake did have a very different consistency than mine. It actually looks fluffy and has brown on the edges.

Huge Disclaimer: As I was writing this post, I realized that I didn't completely follow the microwaving directions. I was supposed to use medium power for part of the time and full power for the rest of the time. Grrrrr. How did I miss this? I am now beginning to question whether these were awesome cupcakes that I just screwed up. I'm not questioning this enough, however, to make them again. Also, I stopped and started the microwave (to check on and rotate the cupcakes) every minute which some say is the same thing as half power.

I should also point out that not everyone disliked them. One of Jonathan's cohorts went out of his way to tell Jonathan that they were "quite yummy." To each his own.

The Microwave Cupcake Recipe

I present this recipe so that maybe you can learn from my mistakes or give me a hint about how you make microwave cupcakes work for you. See also my failed doughnut cupcakes.

As noted above, the recipe is from Tangerine's Kitchen. I have reprinted it below with my adaptations.

Makes about 12 cupcakes.

• 1/2 C sugar
• 1 t ground cinnamon
• 1 C whole wheat flour (I used graham flour)
• 3/4 C all-purpose flour
• 1 t baking soda
• 1/2 t salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 t vanilla extract (I used vanilla bean paste)
• 1 C ripe mashed banana
• 1/4 C milk

1. Line a silicone cupcake tray with paper liners. Obviously, you can't use your regular metal cupcake tins in the microwave.
2. Combine sugar and cinnamon in a bowl. Mix well and set aside.
3. Stir whole wheat flour, all-purpose flour, baking soda and salt and set this aside as well.
4. Beat eggs, vanilla and banana.
5. Gradually add the flour mixture alternately with milk, beating lightly.
6. Fill cupcake liners 3/4 full.
7. The amount you need to microwave will depend on the strength of your microwave. After my burnt tester (shown above), I was overly cautious. I microwaved at 1 minute intervals and rotated after each minute. It took a total of 7 minutes to cook completely.

The Honey Meringue Frosting

I topped these cupcakes with my honey meringue frosting. I then added a banana slice and torched both the frosting and banana. Not all was lost - the cupcakes looked really pretty!

My Favorite Banana Cupcakes

If you are looking for a yummy banana cupcake recipe (not in the microwave), check out:

• Banana chocolate cupcakes with macadamia nut frosting
• Banana cupcakes with vanilla cinnamon granola cream cheese frosting

Honey Meringue Frosting Recipe: You'd Better Eat It Quickly

I decided on a honey frosting for upcoming cupcakes when I received honey in my CSA package last week. I had made a honey frosting before. The problem, however, is that I don't like using both honey and powdered sugar in honey frosting recipes - way, way too sweet. Last time, I ended up using mead (honey wine) in the frosting recipe with very little sugar. This left me with more of a glaze than a frosting. I then drizzled honey on top of that to give the honey frosting more texture and a sticky sweetness.

For this cupcake, I searched the Web to find a honey frosting recipe that did not use powdered sugar at all. I found a fluffy honey frosting recipe on Big Oven which was originally from the American Bee Journal. It used a full cup of honey and no powdered sugar.

How I Ended Up Making Honey Meringue Frosting

What I failed to consider was that the honey frosting recipe I chose involves beating egg whites until they are stiff and then adding a sugary substance - just like when I make meringue. Regular readers may know that I don't like meringues because they remind me too much of marshmallows (something else I'm not a fan of).

The fluffy honey frosting did end up being a honey meringue. I have never heard of a honey meringue before. It worked, though! It tasted like a honey marshmallow - especially after I torched it on the cupcakes like you'll see soon.

You'd Better Eat The Honey Meringue Frosting Quickly

About an hour after I frosted the cupcakes, something started to happen. The honey meringue frosting started to drip. The frosting became messy and gooey - not at all appetizing. If you like honey and you like meringue, I do encourage you to try making this frosting, but only if you are going to serve it immediately after you frost. Do not wait or you will be sadly disappointed.

The Honey Meringue Frosting Recipe

As noted above, I found this recipe on Big Oven. I am reprinting it below with my slight modifications.

Makes enough frosting for 24 cupcakes

• 1 C honey
• 1/4 t salt
• 2 egg whites
• 1 t vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract

1. In a small saucepan or double boiler, heat honey to boiling.
2. In a bowl, combine egg whites, salt and vanilla.
3. Beat with an electric mixer at high speed until whites are stiff but not dry.
4. Slowly pour in hot honey.
5. Beat for 5-7 minutes until frosting holds shape.

Tres Leches Cupcakes: An Ode to Venezuela and Beautiful Bones

Tres Leches means three milks. I made my tres leches cupcakes for two reasons. I tried to come up with tres reasons, but decided that dos would be fine!

1. Tres leches is a speciality in Venezuela and other parts of South America. I just had some amazing Amano chocolate from Venezuelan beans so I thought a Venezuelan tres leches cupcake was in order. ama
2. Food Blogga (I just love that name) was diagnosed with osteoporosis in the past year. She is hosting an event where participants make calcium-rich food to raise awareness of the disease. Go to her blog and read more about it. This is important stuff - far more important than reason 1 for making this cupcake. I figured that since tres leches cupcakes have not one milk, but three, they would be absolutely perfect for the event!

Note On Milk and Osteoporosis

While I made my tres leches cupcakes for the osteoporosis event, I want to take a moment to point out that despite what Big Milk would have you believe, it is not a given that lots of milk makes strong, healthy bones. When I started looking into the connection between calcium and osteoporosis to write this post, I found that the connection isn't so clear. As you do your homework and read Food Blogga's info on osteoporosis as I suggested above, be sure to also read this compilation of reference articles on milkprocon.com. It highlights research that argues for and against milk's role in preventing osteoporosis.

You didn't know I would give you homework, did you?

The Tres Leches Cupcake Recipe

I got the recipe for the tres leches cupcakes by converting a cake recipe on Cooking Along to cupcake format. I am reprinting it with my modifications below.

Makes about 28 cupcakes

• 8 eggs, separated
• 1 1/3 C granulated sugar
• 1 t vanilla extract
• 1 1/4 C all purpose flour
• 3 T corn starch
• 1 t baking powder
• pinch of salt
• 6 oz evaporated milk (1/2 can)
• 11 oz condensed milk (3/4 can)
• 3/4 C heavy cream or 1 can of coconut milk, unsweetened (I used heavy cream)
  

1. In a big bowl, beat the egg yolks and 1 C of the sugar until pale and fluffy.
2. Add the vanilla.
3. In another bowl, sift the flour, baking powder, corn starch, and salt.
4. Mix until combined with the yolk mixture.
5. Beat the egg whites until soft peaks form.
6. Add 1/3 C sugar at the end. Do not over beat!
7. Fold the whites into the yolk and flour mixture, being very careful not to deflate the batter.
8. Fill cupcake liners about halfway.
9. Bake at 350 F for 20 minutes or until golden brown and when a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
10. With a serrated knife, remove the top golden layer on each cupcake to expose the sponge. You can toss the tops in the trash or proceed to eat them all! You can see the pile of cut off tops on the left edge of the photo above.
11. Mix the three milks and spoon them into the cupcakes.
12. Put about three T of the milks into each cupcake.
13. Wait for the milks to be absorbed and add more. You will see a pool of milks at first, like the photo above, but soon the milks will completely absorb into the sponge cake.
14. Refrigerate the cupcakes covered for 5 hours or overnight.

The Meringue Frosting Recipe

The frosting recipe is also from Cooking Along. I reprinted it with my notes and modifications.

• 2 egg whites
• pinch salt
• 1 C sugar
• 1/2 C water
• 1 t ground cinnamon

1. Mix the water and sugar in a small pan.
2. Bring it to a boil and cook until soft crack point, about 10 minutes. To know when the syrup has reached soft crack, take a little bit with a clean spoon and drop it in a bowl filled with water. It is ready when you can make a little soft ball with it inside the water (be very careful handling the syrup, it gets extremely HOT).
3. When the syrup is about to come to the soft crack point, beat the egg whites (with a pinch of salt added just a minute after starting the beating) until soft peaks form.
4. Still beating the whites, add the syrup in a steady way and beat until the mixture cools down. The final mixture will resemble soft marshmallows.
5. Frost the cupcakes! I am bringing these cupcakes over to Alanna's on Monday - some other St. Louis food bloggers will be there as well. Therefore, I won't be able to hide the fact that I just shmeared the frosting onto most of the cupcakes. I only made a few with the pretty swirls. The main reason for this is that this recipe did not make enough frosting for lots of big swirls. If you want big frosting, double this recipe.
6. Top with cinnamon. This will give a great flavor and a pretty presentation.

Halloween Cupcake Idea

Halloween Cupcakes

Read on to learn about how to make witch Halloween cupcakes or learn how to make Halloween cupcakes with edible googly eyes!

How to Make Witch Halloween Cupcakes

I got the general Halloween cupcake concept from the Food Network - but I didn't use any of these recipes and they didn't have a broom.

The beauty of these Halloween cupcakes is that the flavor really doesn't matter. You can make Halloween cupcakes with any of your favorite cake recipes and cookie recipes (for the brooms and hats). You could even (and I can't believe I'm saying this) use a mix. You would still get rave reviews.

However, for the curious, I am listing below the exact recipes that I used.

The Halloween Cake Recipe

For the cake, I made a chocolate cake that I found on Vanilla Garlic. I mixed in Rice Krispies to make it reminiscent of Nestle Crunch bars, my favorite Halloween candy when I was a kid. The chocolate cupcakes were moist and tasty. The Krispies didn't add much. Most tasters didn't even detect that they were there, except for the two mentioned above who thought they were dried fruit.

The Spooky Green Halloween Frosting

I wanted to make green witch faces for the icing and from past experience I knew that most of my tasters had a problem with green. I know that people tend to like green apple candy so I decided that if I made my frosting apple-flavored, people wouldn't mind if I colored it green. I used a recipe from C&H Sugar. It had a very mild apple flavor. It was super light and fluffy and most of my tasters really liked it.

Edible Halloween Witches Brooms

I got the broom idea from Diana's Desserts. However, instead of using her cookie recipe, I used some leftover maple cookie dough I had in the freezer. It worked perfectly, but probably wasn't as tasty as if I had made the dough fresh.

Edible Halloween Witches Hats

I made the hats from the same cookie dough. I baked up some small flat circle cookies. When they were out of the oven, I brushed melted chocolate mixed with butter on top of each cookie and used the hot chocolate to glue a Hershey's kiss to the center of each cookie.

The easier version of this, which I saw all over the web, was to make these with the back of a Fudge Stripe Cookie. I haven't had a Fudge Stripe cookie in years. We used to keep these around the house when I was growing up. My mom let me have two per day. I would allot them to myself when I finished my homework as a self-reward. I don't think I ever cheated and had more than two. I think I was an unusual child.

Anyway, Fudge Stripes would definitely not be a bad witch hat option in a pinch.

Why I Made These Halloween Cupcakes

Halloween is your opportunity to be someone or something different. Women, at least those I encounter in St. Louis, typically take the opportunity to be sluts. Do we all secretly want to be sluts? I didn't think I did. A few years back, I dressed as a bagel for Halloween. Yes, a bagel, complete with sesame seeds. My costume was so big that I could barely fit in the door at the party I was attending, let alone get close enough to talk to someone without yelling. It didn't even matter that I was there with my boyfriend (now husband). I felt like, well, some day-old bread. The next year I wore something slutty. Single women: Do not be bagels.

My cupcakes also wanted to dress up for Halloween. They are still young (it's only my 1st year of cupcake making) so they decided to go for cute, not slutty, and be witches. Unlike every other cupcake I have made, it didn't matter what was inside these cupcakes, they just needed to be costumed appropriately. When my friends asked what kind of cupcakes these were, I replied that they were made of 100% witch.

Footnotes

1. As my obsession with cupcakes has grown, so has my husband's interest in and skill at food photography. Most of the pictures on this site have been taken by him. For the shot at the top of this post, he created a special hood for the camera which made any bright light look like a cupcake. The cupcake stars in the picture were created due to the hood not to editing in Photoshop.

2. I'm again participating in the St. Louis Bloggers' Blog Carnival. This is my entry.

Coffee Cupcakes: The Magic of Meringue

As I progress in this cupcake project, I find myself becoming obsessed with cupcakes. I look at more pictures of cupcakes than I care to admit and I've actually begun to see cupcakes where they don't even exist.

A popular cupcake type these days is the ice cream cone cupcake. For those that don't look at cupcakes all day long, here's a nice sampling, compliments of Flickr.

I was out on a hot night at the Muny and a child next to me had an ice cream cone (you know, the normal kind with stuff on it that is cold and melts) and the first thought that came to my mind was, "What a pretty looking cupcake." I may need an intervention.

Anyway, the bride-to-be put in a request for coffee cupcakes. I don't typically take requests, but I happen to really like coffee-flavored foods. Coffee itself I tend to find a bit too bitter, but coffee candy, ice cream, shakes, etc. are great. I decided to give coffee cupcakes a go.

I wanted the cupcake to look frothy at the top, like an espresso. Scanning my mental album of cupcake photos, it seemed that meringue looked the most like froth. Regardless of that, meringue cupcakes always look beautiful. This was a great excuse to try my hand at it.

The Cake
For the cake I opted for Chockylit's Vietnamese Coffee Cupcakes.

She promised a strong coffee flavor and we already had Vietnamese coffee in the house. The cupcakes turned out to be really tasty. However, they tasted like great coffee cake (i.e. a cake that you eat with coffee, not one that has coffee in it). The coffee flavor in the cake was really mild. It was good enough though, that I will try it again and endeavor to enhance the coffee. My initial thought for next time would be to add a teaspoon or two of coffee extract to the batter. The second option requires outside help.

An engaged couple came over to taste the cupcakes. These are not the bride and groom I am making the cupcakes for. This bride-to-be is from Seattle and her man is from right here in the Midwest. While the Seattle gal is of course a coffee connoisseur, turns out the Midwestern man is just as much if not more into his coffee. He recommended grinding some coffee in his special grinder until it forms a powder. Note that our grinder did not cut it for this. His definition of powder was more like dust. He felt that his grinds would give a much stronger coffee flavor to the cupcake. I may let him produce this magical coffee dust for me for the next making.

The Meringue
For the meringue I also used a modified version Chockylit's recipe but from a different cupcake.

• 1 cup egg whites (from approximately 7-8 eggs)
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 t coffee extract
  

1. Combine the ingredients into the mixing bowl of your stand mixer and set over a bain marie (water bath).
2. Whisk by hand for a few minutes until the sugar is dissolved or preferably until the mixture reaches 110 degrees fahrenheit
3. Beat on medium speed for 10 minutes
4. Beat on high speed until stiff glossy peaks form, about 5 to 10 minutes more.
5. Dollup a heaping tablespoon of meringue on top of a cooled cupcake.
6. Using your finger, poke the frosting to make a nice shape and some interesting peaks.
7. Using a blow torch, brown the meringue.

Making meringue is a slow process, but it is so much fun. There is one point in the recipe where you beat the eggs and sugar for 10 minutes. I actually just left them alone in the Kitchen Aid and went upstairs (I most likely went to my computer and looked at cupcake pictures). When I returned downstairs, the eggs and sugar had turned into a big poofy white substance. To me, this is just like being able to create a cloud. It brings me back to when I was a kid and I used to watch shrinky dinks turn from big sheets of plastic like paper to tiny glass like figurines.

As if the wonder of eggs turning to a complete different substance isn't enough, you then get to put that substance onto each cupcake, design a Cinderella castle of peaks on every one, and paint them with fire. How cool is that!

I bought a culinary torch just for the occasion. I've never used one before and was a bit concerned about burning myself with it. Turns out it is really easy to use and relatively safe assuming you pay close attention to where you aim.

I caught a cupcake wrapper on fire, but that easily blew out. Other than that, the only thing I lit up was the meringue - just as planned. As for my husband, that's a different story. He lit leaves and paper towels and sticks. I think he'll like this new toy just as much as me.

Now that I've covered how fun it was to make the meringue I should point out that even though I'd seen countless photos of meringue, I couldn't quite picture how it would taste. Turns out it tastes just like marshmallow. I don't like marshmallow :(. I will only occasionally eat marshmallows if I'm camping and I roast them so much that all marshmallow flavor is gone and I'm left with simply burnt sugar.

Good news is that most people love marshmallow and most people LOVED this meringue. The bride (the one that counts) just took one look at these cupcakes and her eyes lit up. As she started eating she made "mmmmm" sound effects. I think this is the most enthusiasm for a cupcake I've seen from her yet.

So despite my rule of not baking things I don't like, I will make meringue frosting again so others can enjoy it and I can have the fun art project of making it.

One change I would make is to add a bit more coffee extract. The meringue did not have much of a coffee flavor. Another idea would be to dust the top with espresso powder. I just dusted the top with cinnamon.

Overall, these cupcakes were winners in both appearance and taste. Thanks, Chockylit, for the recipes!