Chocolate Cups with Bailey's Mousse

A few weeks ago, my mom sent me this link for Easter Egg Balloon Cups.  I thought they were pretty cool looking and wanted to try them out.  But there was so much more potential here than to just fill them with little chocolate eggs.  What to use...

Bailey's Mousse.  It's perfect.  Light and fluffy, combined with the crunch of the chocolate, and Irish creme goes so well with chocolate in any setting.

I did have some trouble with my balloons being too large.  I just pulled them out of the junk drawer, but you'll be better off going to get the little water balloons, I think.

For the bowls...

Ingredients

1 lb semi-sweet and milk chocolate
small water balloons

Temper your chocolate. Pay close attention to the temperature of the chocolate, this is important!

Cool chocolate slightly, then dip in balloons.  Two dips should be plenty.  Put balloons on parchment lined tray until set, then refrigerate.

For the mousse...

Ingredients

1 c whipping cream, divided
1/4 c chocolate shavings
1/4 c Bailey's

In a double boiler, stir 2 T whipping cream with the chocolate shavings until melted and smooth.  Cool to room temperature and whisk in the Baileys.  Whip the remaining cream until soft peaks form.  Gently fold the whipped cream into the Bailey's mix, then refrigerate to set, about an hour.  Spoon into chocolate cups and enjoy!

Marsala Risotto, Crispy Roasted Veggies, and the Holy Grail of Chocolate Cake

February's HH6 (as a side note, I really need to update my HH6 blogs tab) (side note two, I'm also a few days early with this) cooking challenge:

In celebration of Valentine's Day, create a dish that represents your relationship with your significant other. (example: the meal you had on your first date, on a vacation together, what you ate before you got engaged, the meal you had at your wedding etc.)

I have changed a lot over the course of my relationship with my husband.  I count myself as very fortunate that he has changed along with me.  Those who knew me in high school are continually amazed at the person I've become and I owe much of that to my husband who has always encouraged me to be a stronger, better person (even if he doesn't realize he's doing it!).

When we got married, I couldn't really cook.  I was student teaching right before we tied the knot and I'm pretty sure I lived on Kraft mac and cheese, Hamburger Helper, and frozen bagged stew mix.  The problem with this?  My husband hates cheese.  Insanity!  So there went the mac and cheese and most of the Hamburger Helpers!  What's a girl to do?  Why, learn to cook real food, of course.

One of the first real dishes I learned to cook was Chicken Marsala.  I've blogged this recipe before, so just follow the link to see.  I chose to use it for this challenge because it is pretty much the only thing that I cooked during our first year of marriage that survived my transition into a crazed foodie - and The Husband absolutely adores it.  The fact that he's been begging for it lately also might have played a part in my decision.

Back when we first got married, I'd serve the chicken with bagged instant rice and frozen veggies.  No more!  Now my chicken is accompanied with a creamy risotto flavored with marsala wine (no cheese, dear), and crispy roasted broccoli and brussel sprouts, both of which we would be content to eat like popcorn.  You never knew brussel sprouts could taste this good!

Marsala Risotto

Ingredients

1 c white rice
2 T butter
1 c marsala wine, divided in half
1 quart chicken stock (preferably home made!)

Always stir risotto CONSTANTLY!  This means if you need to cook something else at the same time, make sure that everything is mis en placed and within arms reach.

Heat the chicken stock until simmering.  Reduce heat and continue to simmer.  In a separate pot or saucepan, melt the butter until bubbly.  Add the rice and stir constantly until just toasted, not browned.  Reduce heat to medium.  Add in 1/2 c marsala wine.  Stir constantly.  Once the liquid is mostly gone, add a ladle of chicken stock.  Again, stir constantly.  Once the liquid is mostly gone, add another ladle of chicken stock.  Getting the picture?  Keep going until the stock is gone and/or the rice is creamy and fully cooked (if you run out of stock and it's not cooked, use hot water).  When the rice is cooked, add in the last 1/2 c marsala and keep on stirring.  Serve immediately.

Crispy Roasted Veggies

Ingredients

1 broccoli head, sliced into bite-sized pieces
4 brussel sprouts, quartered
EVOO
Pepper
Garlic salt

Preheat oven to 500.  Toss veggies onto a tray, drizzle with EVOO and sprinkle with pepper and garlic salt.  Bake for 10 minutes.

Now, about the cake.  Valentines Day also happens to be The Husband's birthday, so I like to go all-out.  Last year was strawberry tartlets.  The two years before, though, he was deployed and got cake-in-a-jar (I should blog that sometime).  This year is all about the chocolate.

When I was in college, I went around making giant chocolate layer cakes for Christmas.  Of course, I used box mixes and what have you, but I think this tendency is part of the reason The Husband fell in love with me.  He comes from a family of chocoholics, and has been occasionally dropping hints that I have failed in providing him with Epic Layer Cake Goodness.  I needed to fix that.  So here we go, the Holy Grail of Chocolate Cake: chocolate fudge cake layered with cream cheese filling, chocolate-caramel butter cream and caramel cream drizzle.  You will never need another cake again.

*with the exception of the cake, which makes a full 13x9 sheet cake, the other recipes have been reduced because I only wanted to layer and frost a mini-cake, there being only two of us here.  If you are making a full-sized layer cake I recommend doubling the filling and the frosting.

Holy Grail of Chocolate Cake

Cake (Adapted from Alton Brown's Devil's Food Cake)

Ingredients

1 c boiling water
4 oz cocoa powder
1 1/2 c brown sugar, packed
1/4 c sugar
4 c flour
1 t baking soda
pinch salt
1 c vegetable oil
4 oz sour cream
2 eggs
2 egg yolks
1 t vanilla

Preheat oven to 325.  Line a 13x9 pan with parchment paper and grease the paper.

Combine water and cocoa powder until smooth.

Mix sugars, flour, baking soda and salt in your stand mixer.  In a separate bowl, whisk oil, sour cream, eggs, yolks, and vanilla.  Carefully add the chocolate mix to the wet ingredients, stirring well.  Slowly add the wet mixture to the dry, blending until smooth.  Pour into pan and bake 50 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.  Cool completely before removing cake from pan.

Cream Cheese Filling

Ingredients

6 oz reduced fat cream cheese
2 T butter, room temperature
1/2 T vanilla
2-3 c powdered sugar

Beat the cream cheese and butter together until well mixed.  Add vanilla, then carefully add powdered sugar. Taste and add the final cup of sugar if you feel it necessary (I like my filling a bit tart).

Chocolate-Caramel Buttercream

Ingredients

1/2 c butter, room temperature
2 oz cocoa powder
3-4 c powdered sugar
1/3 c milk
2 t vanilla
2 t caramel coffee syrup

Combine powdered sugar and cocoa.  In a different bowl, beat butter for a minute.  Carefully add the sugar and cocoa, then the milk, vanilla and syrup.  Beat until fluffy.

Caramel Cream Drizzle

Ingredients

1/2 c brown sugar
2 T butter
2 T milk
powdered sugar to taste (2 T-1/3 c)

Melt the butter and sugar together in a saucepan, stirring constantly.  Cook until the mixture is quite bubbly, then whisk in milk.  Keep stirring and cook two more minutes, then set aside to cool.  Whisk in powdered sugar to taste (more if you want to use as frosting, less if you want to drizzle).

Building the Cake

Chill your cake layers (covered in plastic wrap) for at least an hour before building the cake.  Use a knife to level each layer if necessary.  Place first layer on a sheet of parchment paper.  Spread thickly with cream cheese filling, but leave a margin of 1/4 to 1/2 inch around the edge.  Place second layer on top and press down gently.  Spread the second layer with filling, again leaving a margin.  Top with third layer.  Spread cake thinly with buttercream - this is a crumb coating, don't make it perfect or thick.  Refrigerate at least 30 minutes before continuing.

Remove cake from fridge.  Spread with final layer of buttercream, then carefully transfer to the serving plate. Drizzle with caramel cream and enjoy!

Thanksgiving Roundup 2011

So... Thanksgiving.  Yeah.  I started out awesome and took pictures of my cute appetizers (I particularly like the turkey-shaped veggie platter!), but after that my poor camera sat neglected on a side-table while I got distracted with cooking, serving and eating!  On one hand I'm sad because the food was beautiful and delicious.  On the other hand though, we're TDY en-route here which is secret code for "All of my nice stuff is in South Carolina and we're eating off of paper plates," so the plating wouldn't have looked so good.  I mean, I roasted the turkey in one of those tin-foil pans from the commissary which also doubled as our cutting board (bad idea, by the way, never ever do that).

Anyway, here's the breakdown of our Thanksgiving dinner:

Like last year, I used Alton Brown's brine for my turkey.  I don't have my smoker here though, so oven roasted it was!  I rubbed it with Memphis BBQ's Magic Dust and it was the juiciest bird ever!  Next year it will be a hard choice between smoking and oven roasting - we might need two birds!

Making repeat appearances at our table this year were the Olive Bread, Rosemary Epi, Mashed Potatoes, and Magic Pumpkin Pie.

New guests to the menu were Apple-Sausage Stuffing, Corn Casserole, and Bobby Flay's Pumpkin Bread Pudding (add some dried cranberries to the pumpkin bread).  I also made my own pie crust thanks to Cooks Illustrated and my good friend Stacey!  Smitten Kitchen has already blogged about it, so I will leave you in their capable hands.

Onto the stuffing!

I have a confession to make.  I kinda like stovetop stuffing.  There, I said it.  But Thanksgiving is Thanksgiving and one simply cannot have stovetop stuffing, even if it is really really good.  So I ended up heavily modifying Double Musky's Sausage-Apple Dressing.  As always, the key to a good stuffing is a really good stock.  It MUST be homemade!  If you want to know why, Stacey has the answer.  It's worth it to buy some turkey necks and make up a large batch of stock prior to Thanksgiving - you need it for gravy too!  Also, for bread crumbs, just get (or make) some good bread and leave it out for a day before shredding it.  I used 1/2 sourdough bread and 1/2 wheat.

Ingredients

1 T oil

1 head garlic, minced

1/2 onion, diced

1/2 tube ground sausage

Poultry seasoning

3-4 stalks celery, diced

1/4 c mixed bell peppers, diced

1 ancho chili, diced (optional)

1 granny smith apple, diced

dash nutmeg

1/2-1 c turkey stock

3-4 c bread crumbs

In a skillet, saute the garlic and onion in the oil until onion is translucent.  Add the sausage and brown, using poultry seasoning to taste.  Transfer to a pot and stir in the celery, peppers, apple and nutmeg.  Cook for two minutes, then add the stock (start with 1/2 cup, use more if needed).  Simmer for another 2-3 minutes and stir in the bread crumbs.  Adjust bread and stock until you reach the desired consistency.  Remove from heat.  Transfer to oven-safe pan and cook until the top is toasted.

PS.  We're starting the second half of our PCS shortly, so updates will be unreliable until we've moved into our new place sometime after Christmas.  Have a happy and safe holiday!!

Strawberry Tartlets

Yesterday was, of course, Valentine's Day.  It was also the Husband's birthday, so I went all-out cooking.  Last fall, Husband had requested that I learn how to make pie crusts.  With that request in mind, I decided that these strawberry tartlets (based off of this recipe at Epicurious) would be the perfect dessert.

This was my first venture into crust-making, and it was a good thing I started the crusts a day early because my first attempt was a complete and utter failure!  I made some adjustments, and the second time worked like a charm.

We paired the tart with a vintage character port - fantabulous!

Recipe makes four tartlets or one full-size tart.

Ingredients

4 mini tart pans or one large tart pan with removeable bottom

Crust

1 1/4 c flour
3 T sugar
1/4 t salt
7 T butter
1 egg yolk
1/2 t vanilla
1/2 t lemon juice
3 T ice-cold water

Slice the butter into small pieces.  Put flour, sugar, salt and butter into the bowl of a food processor.  Process until well blended, with butter being no larger than pea sized.  Mix together the yolk, vanilla, lemon and water, then slowly add to the flour mixture, processing just enough to form a dough.

Gently knead for a minute or two.  Press to fill greased tart pans, then place in the freezer for an hour or until completely frozen.

Preheat to 375.  Bake for 10 minutes.  Add greased pie weights and bake for another 20-30 minutes, or until nicely browned.  Cool for at least 20 minutes.


Filling

8 oz mascarpone cheese
1/4 c powdered sugar (or a little less)
1 t vanilla
3 T ruby port
1 T milk (or more)

Using a hand-held mixer, whip the first three ingredients until smooth.  Add the port until a light purple color is achieved.  Add milk as needed to smooth and thin out the filling.


Strawberries and glaze

1 pint strawberries
2 T sugar
3/4 c ruby port

Thinly slice the strawberries and toss with the sugar.  Let sit for 30 minutes.  Drain, reserving the liquid.  Mix the strawberry juice with the port in a small saucepan and simmer until reduced by half.'

Spread the mascarpone filling in the tart shells.  Layer the sliced strawberries on top, pressing gently.  Spoon glaze over top and refrigerate 20 minutes before serving.

Apple-Peach Cream Cheese Bites

This is one of the gems in the Double Musky cookbook.  Prefacing the recipe, they mention that few guests at the Double Musky have actually tasted this - whenever they make it, the staff eats it before it can be served!  I can certainly see why!  This is, without a doubt, the most delicious AND the easiest cheesecake I have ever made.  It takes all the best parts of a fruit pie and a cheesecake, melding them into one sinfully delicious bite.

The mini-cheesecake is an optional format.  This works equally well in a traditional springform or a pie tin.

Ingredients

Crust

1 package grahm crackers
1/2 c sugar
3 T butter, room temperature

Fruit layer

3 c fruit of your choice, diced and sliced
1/2 c sugar
2 T flour
cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger to taste

Cream Cheese layer

1 8oz tub of cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 c sugar
2 eggs
1/4 c cream
1 T vanilla

Preheat oven to 400.

Crush the grahm crackers with your hand, then place in food processor with the sugar and butter.  Process until completely blended.  Press into pan.  If using a pie tin, do not extend the crust all the way out.  If using springform, make sure to press the crust up the side of the pan.

In a bowl, mix together sugar, flour and spices.  Gently stir in the fruit until well coated.  Spread evenly in the pan.

Bake the fruit and crust for 10-15 minutes.  Reduce oven to 350.

Meanwhile, blend the sugar and cream cheese well.  Beat in the eggs, then add the cream and vanilla, just until completely mixed.  Pour on top of fruit and bake 20-40 minutes, or until center is firm and the outsides are just starting to brown.  Refrigerate for several hours before serving.

Chicken Etouffe and Mulled Cider

Merry Christmas!  This was our Christmas Eve dinner, thanks to The Husband for finding the cookbook.  Usually you expect Shrimp Etouffe, but I am not a shrimp fan, so chicken it is.

Ingredients

Brown Sauce

2 c beef stock
Burgundy wine to taste
Beef base
brown roux (flour, butter/margarine blend)

Combine first three ingredients in a medium pot.  Bring to a boil, then simmer over low heat for 30-60 minutes.  While this is simmering, make the roux by melting 1 c of the butter blend and adding 1 c of flour to the melted butter.  Whisk constantly to ensure that the roux doesn't burn.  If the roux burns, throw it out and start over.  Continue whisking and cooking the butter and flour (adding more flour as needed) until the roux darkens to a reddish milk-chocolate color.  At this point, remove roux from heat and continue to stir.  Add a little bit of stock to the roux to help cool it down (be careful!).  Remove stock from burner and begin whisking in the roux until the sauce thickens, a little at a time.  Adjust consistency with more roux or more wine.  Simmer for another hour to blend flavors.


Etouffe

1/4 c butter
1 T garlic
1/2 T parsley
1 c diced celery
1 c green onions
1 c chicken stock
1 c diced tomatoes
2 bay leaves
1 t hot pepper sauce
2 t thyme
2 T garlic
black pepper
1 c brown sauce
1 chicken breast, cut into slices

Melt butter with garlic and parsley.  Add in celery and onions and simmer until celery is half cooked.  Add stock, tomatoes, bay leaves, hot pepper sauce, thyme, garlic, and pepper and reduce heat to simmer until sauce thickens.  Remove bay leaves and add brown sauce.

Meanwhile, brown the chicken in a skillet with salt and pepper.  Add to the sauce and cook until chicken is done.

Serve over rice.

Mulled Cider

In a crockpot, combine cider with 2 sticks cinnamon, 1/4 c cranberries, 1 orange (sliced and studded with cloves), and a dash of ginger and cayenne.  Cook on low for several hours.

Smoked Chex Mix

"What did you do to it?  Did you like... cook it in bacon fat?!  It's SO GOOD!"

- My boss

Chex mix was a constant during my childhood.  We'd make a giant batch for the holidays, or before any long road trips.  Well, my friends, with the traeger and a bit of cayenne, I have brought chex mix to a whole new level of deliciousness.  And it doesn't even involve bacon (though I'm sure that would be tasty).

Some of you are probably saying "But Heather, that picture isn't chex mix!  It's just chex!"

You are correct.  But guess what?  I'm a grown up and I can make my chex mix however I want!  And I don't actually like all the nuts and pretzels, so unless I'm making it for other people, it's just chex.  Your mileage may vary.

Ingredients

9 c chex (corn, rice, wheat, whatever)

1 c mixed nuts

1 c pretzel bites

6 T butter

3 T Worcestershire sauce

1 1/2 t seasoned salt

3/4 t garlic and wine seasoning

1/2 t onion powder

1/4 t cayenne

Melt the butter and stir in the Worcestershire and seasonings.  Place the chex, nuts, and pretzels in a large pan.  Pour the sauce over and stir until evenly coated.  Cook on smoke for 1 hour and medium for 1 hour, stirring every 30 minutes during smoke and 15 during medium.  I used a mix of alder and apple pellets.

Spread out on towels to dry.  Enjoy!

Caramel Apple-Cranberry Gingerbread

Excuse the horrible picture.  I'm using the little point and shoot and it came out bad so I had to fudge it a bit, but it was too tasty not to post!  Thanks to Bay Area Bites for the idea!

Tip: if your apple slices are too big, a round cookie cutter will fix them!

Ingredients

Gingerbread - use a mix or mix your own!

1 apple, minced
a dozen cranberries, minced

1 dozen apple slices

2 T butter
1/4 c brown sugar
1/2 dozen cranberries

Mix up your gingerbread.  Stir in the minced apples and cranberries.  Grease or line your muffin tins and preheat the oven.  Fill the muffin tins.  DO NOT OVERFILL!

In a skillet, melt the butter.  Add in the brown sugar and cranberries, stirring until a caramel is formed.  Dip each apple slice in the caramel, then lay on top of each muffin.  Bake until a toothpick comes out clean!

Pear Compote

It's Christmastime again! The Husband and I were alone for Christmas this year. We're still in the process of modifying and creating our own traditions for Christmas, especially when it comes to food. So we had a bunch of experiments and this was dessert.

Now, The Husband is a very dedicated chocolate fan. His desserts are chocolate desserts. As you can see, this clearly does not have any chocolate in it. Well - he scarfed this stuff down so fast, I thought the world must be coming to an end!

Really, this is a fantastic dessert. The flavors are perfect, the colors are pretty and best of all, there is leftover syrup to drizzle on ice cream the next day!

Ingredients

1/4 c red wine (I used a pinot noir)
1/3 c water
1/2 c sugar
1 cinnamon stick
2 slices lemon
2 pears, peeled, cored and quartered

Combine the wine, water and sugar in a saucepan until well blended. Add the cinnamon, lemon, and pears. Bring to a boil. Cover and simmer until pears are tender. Remove pears and chill. Strain and reserve the sauce, also refrigerate. Serve chilled, with vanilla ice cream.

Pumpkin Cookies

It's the holidays, and cookie time is here! I'm sure that some of you heard about my Great Cookie Catastrophe, wherein I spent one evening baking four types of cookies with expired baking soda. This, of course, resulted in Epic Cookie Failure. With one exception.

The pumpkin cookie.

By fortunate coincidence, I happened to misread the recipe and used only baking powder instead of both powder and soda - resulting in my one success of the night (although the Husband's coworkers did enjoy eating the cookie crumbles). I found the basic recipe from Libby's.

Ingredients

2 1/2 c flour
1 t baking soda
1 t baking powder
1 t cinnamon
1/2 t ground nutmeg
1/4 t cloves
1/2 t ginger
dash salt
1 1/2 c sugar
1/2 c butter, softened
1 c pumpkin
1 egg
1 1/2 t vanilla

Mix flour, baking soda, baking powder, spices and salt in medium bowl. Cream sugar and butter in another bowl until well blended. Beat in pumpkin, egg and vanilla, then slowly beat in dry ingredients. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto greased baking sheets.

Bake at 350 for 15 minutes or until edges are firm. Cool complete before serving.

Magic Pumpkin Pie

We are not allowed to celebrate Thanksgiving or Christmas in this house without making this pie. This recipe comes from my husband's side of the family and this year he even made it himself!

I have to admit, the first time I saw this recipe I was pretty skeptical. What kind of pumpkin pie isn't loaded with spices? Dubious, I followed the instructions, but to my surprise I ended up with a pie full of sweet, clean flavors. The cinnamon sprinkle on top is all the spice this pie needs!

Ingredients

1 c pumpkin
1 heaping tsp flour
2 T brown sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 pinch salt
1 pint evaporated milk
1/2 c sugar
dash cinnamon

Mix pumpkin, sugar, brown sugar, egg, and salt. Beat well, add milk. Beat again. Pour into unbaked pie shell and sprinkle cinnamon on top. Cook at 450 for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 and bake for an additional 30-40 minutes.

If you're feeling naughty, you can use a full cup of sugar and sweet milk instead of evaporated milk.

Edit 11/25: So today I was making the famous family Pumpkin Pie recipe and realized we were about a quart short of evaporated milk. Luckily, it turns out that you can substitute dried milk that has been inadequately hydrated for evaporated milk, as all the latter is is milk that has a lower water content than usual.

We'll see how it turns out...

This recipe even made it into the paper! That's my husband there, wasn't he an adorable toddler?

Pumpkin Cheesecake

I have never before in my life made cheesecake. Of course, this is probably because I despised cheesecake up until about a month ago. Now I am of mixed feelings, but willing to experiment with it. I found this recipe at Pinch My Salt and decided that it would be a great way to use up some of my vast amounts of pumpkin and to welcome The Husband home next week. However, I had heard from friends that cheesecake can be tricksy, so I decided to do a test run yesterday. I don't have a mini cheesecake pan, but I did recently acquire a small springform pan, so off I went on the cheesecake attempt!

Ingredients

1 c graham cracker crumbs
2 T brown sugar
1/2 t cinnamon
1/8 t nutmeg
2 T melted butter
1 T maple syrup

4 oz cream cheese
4 oz mascarpone
1/2 c canned pumpkin
1 egg plus 1 egg white, slightly beaten
1/4 c packed brown sugar
2 T maple syrup
1/2 t cinnamon
1/4 t ground ginger
1/8 t ground nutmeg
1/8 t of ground cloves

1 c heavy cream
3 T powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 t cloves

Preheat the oven to 375. In a shallow bowl, blend the graham cracker, brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg together. Using your fingers (I know, messy!) stir in the butter and syrup. Press this mixture firmly into the bottom of your pan.

In a larger bowl, mix the next 10 ingredients. Do not over mix - stop once everything is blended together. Pour this into the pan and bake for 30-45 minutes. Cheesecake is done when the center still jiggles.

Cool 20 minutes, then chill overnight.

Before serving, whip the remaining ingredients together for a delicious topping.

Pumpkin Bread with Chocolate Chips and Lingonberries

It's fall, which means pumpkin time! We stocked up yesterday at the grocery store and of course I had to use some right away. This recipe is easy and tasty - I especially like the addition of the lingonberries. Of course, they're from my own back yard, so I'm emotionally attached to them as well. The only downside is that I don't have any left anymore! Next fall I need to gather lots more. Thanks to Mom2Mom for the basic recipe.

After some questions, I realized I forgot to mention that you can easily substitute cranberries for the lingonberries.

Ingredients

3 1/2 c flour
2 t baking soda
1 1/2 t salt
2 t cinnamon
1 t nutmeg
1 t ground cloves
1/2 t chai spice blend
3 c sugar
1 c oil
2/3 c water
4 eggs
2 c pumpkin
1 c lingonberries
1 c chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350. Mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. In a smaller bowl, blend the wet ingredients together. Slowly add the wet to the dry, blending well. Stir in the berries and chocolate chips.

Baking times:
muffins: 30 minutes
loaf pan: 1hr10
8x8 pan: 1hr

Awesome Autumn Cupcakes

Pumpkin. Chocolate chips. Heavy cream. Mascarpone, mascarpone, and more mascarpone!

This decadent dessert looks intimidating at first, but it's really not that hard and the results are totally worth it.

Cupcakes

2 1/4 c flour
1/4 c wheat germ (optional)
1 T baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
3/4 t cinnamon
1/2 t ginger
1/2 t nutmeg
1/2 c butter
1 1/3 c sugar
2 eggs
1 c pumpkin
3/4 c milk
chocolate chips or dried fruit of choice

Mix the first 8 ingredients together in a small bowl. In a larger bowl, cream together butter and sugar, then mix in the eggs and pumpkin. Add the dry ingredients and the milk, alternating, until the batter forms. Stir in chocolate chips or dried fruit. Pour into cupcake pan and bake at 375 for 25 minutes. Makes 24 cupcakes.

Filling

3 egg yolks
heaping 1/4 c sugar
pinch salt
1/2 c heavy cream
1 8 oz container mascarpone
2 T brandy
1/2 t ginger
1/4 t ground cloves

In a metal bowl, beat the yolks, sugar, and salt together about 4 minutes or until light yellow. Stir in the 1/2 cup cream. Hold the bowl over a pot of simmering water, stirring constantly until it reaches 160 degrees (about 5 minutes). Cool to room temperature. Add the mascarpone cheese, brandy, and spices, beating at medium high speed for about 3 minutes.

Now go back to the cupcakes. Carefully cut a cone out of the middle, creating a hole in the cupcake.

Then cut off the pointy end of the cone, turning the remainder into a "lid" for the hole.

Fill with the cream mixture, then put the lids back on.

Frosting

1 8 oz container mascarpone, room temperature
1/2-1 t cinnamon
1/4 t nutmeg
2-4 T powdered sugar
1 c heavy cream

Beat the mascarpone, spices, and sugar together. Add the cream. Continue to beat at high speed until the mixture thickens enough to hold its shape. Adjust spices to taste. Pipe onto the cupcakes. For a nice Halloween twist, use food coloring to dye the icing orange.

Alterations

Peppermint
Instead of pumpkin cupcakes, use your favorite white cake recipe, adding a few tablespoons of peppermint schnapps and some ground up candy canes. For the filling and frosting, replace the spices with a bit of peppermint flavor. Color the frosting a pale green and sprinkle with more ground candy cane.