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It has been quite some time since I last baked (and blogged about) cupcakes. October of last year, to be exact. That’s entirely too long for one to go without cupcakes!

To put an end to the cupcake dry spell, I wanted to bake something special. I had the idea for these cupcakes while shopping at Bath & Body Works. Weird, yes, but stay with me here. See, every year they have a few holiday scented body lotions and this past year, they had one called Yuletide Pear Vanilla. After smelling it, I declared, “Hey, this smells good enough to eat!”.

The result? Pear Vanilla Bean cupcakes with vanilla bean buttercream frosting.

The cupcakes are very moist and flavorful thanks to the fresh pears. Add in a bit of vanilla bean and it gets even better!

For more of a vanilla flavor kick, I used pure vanilla bean paste. This is the first recipe I’ve used it in and I have to say, I’m a fan! I love this stuff! It has a thicker consistency and is flecked with vanilla bean seeds. You can use it 1:1 in place of vanilla extract or vanilla beans.

I had originally planned to use vanilla beans for these cupcakes, but I just couldn’t justify spending around $7 for two beans. Thankfully, I stumbled upon vanilla bean paste. It is much more economical and much easier to use!

To shred the pears, I first peeled them using a veggie peeler. Then, after slicing the pears in half lengthwise, I used a melon baller to scoop out the seeds. And finally, I coarsely shredded them using a box grater.

The Bosc pears I used were very juicy, so to avoid a gushy mess of what was supposed to be cupcake batter, I added a touch more flour to even out the moisture.

To top off these babies, I frosted them with Cupcake Project’s Vanilla Bean Buttercream. Just a note, the recipe only made enough frosting to frost about 6 cupcakes, so you’ll have to up the amounts to frost all of the cupcakes.

Had a slight wrapper malfunction. I was trying these new (to me, anyway) greaseproof cupcake liners but when they came out of the oven they had completely separated from the cupcakes. They looked odd, so just took them out. Less work to do before they get eaten!

Pear Vanilla Bean Cupcakes
adapted from Martha Stewart

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla bean paste
4 cups coarsely shredded pears, such as Bosc (about 1 3/4 pounds)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 2 standard cupcake tins with paper liners.

In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt; set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mix butter and sugar on medium-high speed until pale and fluffy. Add in vanilla paste and eggs. Reduce speed to low; mix in shredded pears. Add flour mixture, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Mix until just combined.

Divide the batter among lined cups, filling halfway. Bake cupcakes at 350°F for 18-20 minutes or until the tops are springy to the touch. Remove cupcakes from the tins and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Frosting: Vanilla Bean Buttercream (from Cupcake Project)

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Voting for the IronCupcake:Earth October Challenge is now open.

This month’s theme was Music!

Be sure to head over and vote for your favorite 3 cupcake creations! Just a refresher (in case you missed ‘em), here are my two entries for this month.

There’s only a few more days to vote so hurry on over! Click on the banner below.

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My second cupcake for this month’s IronCupcake challenge is based on the song “Heart of Glass” by Blondie. It’s one of those songs that always manages to make its way in to my brain and get stuck there for hours.

The cupcake is a blondie cupcake with mascarpone frosting, topped with a sugar “Heart of Glass”.

I’ve mentioned before that I am addicted to music. Well, I think I might have understated it just a bit. I have over 1200 songs in my library at the moment. That number is constantly growing as I discover new artists or songs. The genres range all the way from rock to classical and everything in between.

Some people have gone as far as to call me obsessed. That’s such a harsh word; I prefer the term extremely fascinated. Plus, there are people that have way more songs than I do. So, in other words, I’m not alone. Check out just a few of my current favorite songs.

Anyway, while I’m not a massive fan of Blondie (the group), I am however a massive fan of blondies (the dessert). Put them in cupcake form and I’m not sure life could get any better. The combo of butterscotch and toffee bits make these cupcakes amazing. I was imagining them to come out a with the texture of a cupcake but no, these are like actual blondie bars. Perfection!

Okay, back to the point of this whole post… the cupcakes!!

Blondie Cupcakes – Makes about 12 cupcakes
adapted from Martha Stewart’s Cupcakes

1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup (1 stick) plus 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, room temp
1 cup packed light-brown sugar
2 large eggs, room temp
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/3 cup toffee bits (or chopped Heath or Skor chocolate covered toffee bars)
1/3 cup butterscotch chips

Preheat your oven to 350°F and line a muffin tin with paper liners. Whisk the flour, salt and baking powder together.

Cream butter and brown sugar on medium-high speed until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat until combined. Reduce the speed to low and add flour mixture; beat until just incorporated. Fold in the toffee bits and butterscotch chips by hand.

Divide the batter into the lined cup, filling each three-quarters full. Bake at 350°F for 23-25 minutes until golden brown. Allow the cupcakes to cool completely before removing them from the pan.

To make the sugar hard candy, I combined 1 1/2 cups sugar, 1/2 cup water and 3/8 teaspoon cream of tartar in a saucepan over medium heat.

Stir until sugar is dissolved, about 4 minutes. Without stirring, let the mixture come to a boil (about 5 minutes). Raise the heat to high and let it continue to boil until the temperature on your candy thermometer reaches 300°F. Remove from the heat and let the mixture cool just until it stops boiling (it will still be very hot). Add 4-5 drops of red food coloring and mix quickly. Pour the mixture onto a greased cookie sheet.

Allow it to cool a minute and press the greased cookie cutter into the mixture (it should be set enough to hold the shape). Once it’s almost cool, break apart the hearts. Don’t worry if you break a few. I started with 16 and ended with 12.

I used a Wilton cookie cutter for the shape.

Mascarpone Frosting – Makes about 2 cups
adapted from Martha Stewart’s Cupcakes

1 cup heavy cream
8 ounces mascarpone cheese, room temp
1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar, sifted

With an electric mixer, whisk heavy cream on medium speed until stiff peaks form. In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together mascarpone and confectioners’ sugar until smooth. Gently fold the whipped cream into the mascarpone mixture until completely incorporated. Use immediately.

Voting for IronCupcake begins Friday, October 30th at 8 p.m. (cst) and will be open through Thursday, November 5th. You can use the icon below or go here to VOTE.

The awesome IronCupcake:Earth Prize Providers are:

• The Demy™ by Key Ingredient
• Hello, Cupcake by Karen Tack & Alan Richardson
• Bella Cupcake Couture
• Cupcake Stackers by Gourmac
• The Cake Mix Doctor Returns! by Anne Byrne
• Beautiful Baking Liners by Vestli House
• Sweet Cuppin’ Cakes Bakery & Cupcakey Supply

Check out all things IronCupcake:Earth!

I’m curious, what are some of your favorite songs/artists/genres?

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Bonfires always mean one thing to me… S’mores. Yeah, spending quality time with great friends is nice and all… but we’re talking about s’mores here people. Chocolate, graham crackers and toasty marshmallows.

I’m not sure what I enjoy most, toasting the marshmallows (and almost burning them), squishing them between the chocolate and graham cracker or enjoying the ooey-gooey goodness of the whole experience.

Thing is, bonfires don’t work so well indoors. So this is the next best option – S’mores Cupcakes. Toasted marshmallow and a Hershey’s bar section sandwiched between two layers of a graham cracker cupcake.

To make S’mores Cupcakes you’ll need:

Graham Cracker Cupcakes (see recipe link below)
2 huge Hershey’s Milk Chocolate bars
16 oz bag of Marshmallows

The graham cracker cupcake recipe is really quite simple to make and the end result tastes so delicious. The recipe comes from Garrett at VanillaGarlic.

Instead of using cupcake liners, I buttered and lightly floured the cupcake pan to get nice even sides.

To assemble the s’mores, first slice the cupcake in half.

Wow, that was hard. Next….

Get your chocolate pieces ready to go by breaking the big Hershey’s Milk Chocolate bars in to 8, 2-piece sections per bar. For some reason, I didn’t look at the wrapper to see how many ounces these bars were, but I found them in the candy aisle at the grocery store. They are a lot bigger and thicker than the normal ones that are 1.55 oz. The king size bars are the same thickness as the ones I used, so if you can’t find the big bars, those should work. Also, the cupcake recipe makes 12-14 cupcakes, so you might have a few chocolate squares left over.

To toast the marshmallow, I tried two different ways. For the first try, I cut a few marshmallows in half horizontally and placed them cut side down on a sheet of parchment and set the oven to broil. They took literately seconds to brown on top. A few problems with this method; They browned on the top only and there wasn’t enough marshmallow-to-chocolate ratio on the cupcake. The second try I placed a whole marshmallow on its side. This worked much better as it browned more evenly. You could also use a kitchen torch if you have one. If you toast them in the oven on broil, please be extremely careful. It doesn’t take long (30 seconds, max) for them to go from slightly brown to “OMG! The oven is on fire!!”. Trust me on this one.

Place the chocolate squares on the bottom half of the cupcakes before toasting the marshmallows. That way, the marshmallows are still warm and slightly melt the top of the chocolate. Squish the top half of the cupcake down on the marshmallow just until it starts oozing past the edge of the chocolate square.

Voilà!

Here’s the link to the cupcake recipe in case you missed it: Graham Cracker Cupcakes

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IronCupcake:Earth is back! After taking a brief hiatus, this year’s first monthly challenge is Music! I’m excited to participate, considering I’m completely addicted to music.

The inspiration for this cupcake comes from one of the most famous songs in history, Over the Rainbow by Judy Garland.

I, like many other kids, grew up watching The Wizard of Oz. It is such a whimsical movie and I always had a soft spot for Toto. I really wanted a pair of ruby slippers, too. One of my favorite quotes comes from The Wizard of Oz; “A heart is not judged by how much you love; but by how much you are loved by others.”

2009 marks the 70th anniversary of this classic movie. To celebrate, Warner Bros. has released a digitally remastered, high definition version.

Now on to the cupcakes!

The cupcake itself is a rainbow lemon cupcake with bits of lemon drops (hard candies) mixed in the batter. Why lemon drops you ask?

“Someday I’ll wish upon a star
And wake up where the clouds are far behind me
Where troubles melt like lemon drops…”

They are topped off with a “cloud” of marshmallow frosting. I’m pretty sure if you could taste a cloud it would be made of marshmallows. It just has to be.

I searched for real lemon drops in my local grocery store but the only ones they carried had never seen actual lemons. So I ordered some old-fashioned, 100% naturally flavored lemon drops made by Claeys Candies (since 1919).

To crush the lemon drops, I double bagged them in zip top bags and took a hammer to them, on a cutting board of course. It was very therapeutic. Once they were a manageable size, I put them in my 4-cup chopper and chopped/ground them until they were 1/8″ or smaller. When the lemon drops bake in the cupcakes, they melt and leave behind little bursts of lemony goodness.

Lemon Drop Rainbow Cupcakes – Makes about 2 dozen
adapted from Martha Stewart’s Cupcakes (originally Lemon Meringue recipe)

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups sugar
4 large eggs, room temperature
3 tablespoons finely grated lemon zest (about 3 medium lemons)
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup crushed lemon drops

Preheat oven to 325°F. Line standard cupcake tins with liners.

Whisk flour, baking powder and salt together; set aside.

With an electric mixer on medium-high, cream the butter and sugar (using the paddle attachment) until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing after each one. Scrape down the sides of bowl if needed. Beat in the lemon zest and vanilla extract. Combine the buttermilk and lemon juice in small bowl or measuring cup. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture, alternating with two additions of the buttermilk/lemon juice mixture. Beat until just barely combined after each addition.

Gently fold in the crushed lemon drops. To avoid the batter getting too stiff, try not to overmix when adding the lemon drops. It will be mixed even more when you add the colors.

Divide the batter into 1 cup increments and put into 5 separate small bowls (if doing 5 colors). Gradually add food coloring to each bowl, until you get to your desired colors. Stir gently to make sure there aren’t any remaining streaks of color.

To measure the coloring I dipped a toothpick about 3/4″ into each jar of color (with the exception of the green, see below), swirled it through the batter and mixed throughly.

Here are the colors and amount of coloring I used from the bottom of the cupcake to the top:

• Orange – Wilton Creamy Peach – 1 toothpick plus a tiny bit more.
• Yellow – Wilton Buttercup Yellow – 1 toothpick
• Green – AmeriColor Avacado – 5 drops
• Blue – Wilton Cornflower Blue – 2-3 toothpicks
• Violet – Wilton Violet – 1 toothpick

Put 1 teaspoon (slightly heaped) batter of your first color in each of the cupcake cups. I gently smoothed out only the first color, just to get an even bottom. Repeat with the other colors.

Bake at 325°F for 22-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool completely on a wire rack. Decorate!

Marshmallow Frosting
adapted from MarthaStewart.com

8 large egg whites
2 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

In a heatproof bowl of an electric mixer, place egg whites, sugar and cream of tartar. Set over a saucepan of simmering water. Whisk the mixture constantly until the egg whites are warm to the touch and the sugar is dissolved, 3 to 4 minutes.

Transfer the bowl to electric mixer, fitted with the whisk attachment. Starting on low speed, gradually increasing to high, beat until the mixture is stiff and glossy peaks form (5 to 7 minutes). Add the vanilla extract and mix until combined.

Use immediately, as the marshmallow frosting will continue to stiffen.

Makes enough for 2 dozen cupcakes.

Voting for IronCupcake begins Friday, October 30th at 8 p.m. (cst) and will be open through Thursday, November 5th. You can use the icon below or go here to VOTE.

The awesome IronCupcake:Earth Prize Providers are:

• The Demy™ by Key Ingredient
• Hello, Cupcake by Karen Tack & Alan Richardson
• Bella Cupcake Couture
• Cupcake Stackers by Gourmac
• The Cake Mix Doctor Returns! by Anne Byrne
• Beautiful Baking Liners by Vestli House
• Sweet Cuppin’ Cakes Bakery & Cupcakey Supply

Check out all things IronCupcake:Earth!

Don’t miss a bite! Subscribe via RSS, e-mail or follow me on Twitter!

The fall season means a lot of things to me but one stands out as my favorite. Out with the summer afternoon thunderstorms and in with the cool breezes that blow through the huge oak trees and spanish moss. While fall has officially begun, here in Florida, I have yet to see any significant sign of said season.

83% humidity. Check. Heat index in the high 90’s. Check.

So I decided to take matters in my own hands and bake a fall-ish cake. The recipe comes from Paula Deen’s Best Desserts magazine I picked up a few months back and I couldn’t wait to bake it. It’s a perfect start to my autumn baking spree. Oh yes, I love, love, love fall!

The cake has the deliciousness of sweet potatoes, cinnamon and a hint of nutmeg, drizzled with a rum glaze and garnished with walnuts. Let me just say, this was a really, really superb cake!

Hidden inside, layered between batter, is a mixture of brown sugar, walnuts and cinnamon. Yum!

But wait… there’s more! I had the urge to make this cake into cupcakes. Jumbo cupcakes actually. I already had the jumbo liners so obviously I couldn’t just let them sit there and feel left out. That would be rude.

I prepared the batter the same as I did for the cake. I filled each one with just under 1/4 cup of batter, sprinkled with brown sugar/walnut mixture and topped with remaining batter.

I think I will make these for Thanksgiving. Everyone really liked them and plus I just need reason to bake them again. Thanksgiving isn’t that far away… I think I can make it. Maybe.

Cinnamon Ripple Sweet Potato Cake (and cupcakes!)
adapted from Paula Deen’s Best Desserts

1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
2 tsp ground cinnamon, divided
2 cups sugar
1 cup butter, softened
4 large eggs
1 1/2 cups sour cream
1 cup mashed cooked sweet potato (about 1 medium)
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Cook and mash the sweet potato, set aside. I did all my measuring of ingredients while it was cooking.

Spray a fluted (bundt) pan with nonstick baking spray. Combine the brown sugar, walnuts and 1 teaspoon cinnamon in a small bowl; set aside.

Combine the sugar and butter in a large bowl. With an electric mixer, beat at medium speed until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each one. Stir in sour cream, sweet potato and vanilla.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, remaining 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, salt and nutmeg. Gradually add flour mixture to butter mixture.

Pour half of batter into pan. Sprinkle with brown sugar/walnut mixture. Spoon remaining batter evenly over brown sugar. Bake for 1 hour or until a wooden pick inserted comes out clean.

Cool in pan for 10 minutes then remove and cool completely on a wire rack. Spoon rum glaze (below) over the cooled cake. I wanted the glaze to run a bit on mine, so I drizzled it on while it was still slightly warm. Garnish with chopped walnuts, if desired.

Cupcakes

Prepare batter same as above.

Arrange jumbo cupcake liners on cookie sheet. Fill each one with just under 1/4 cup batter. Sprinkle brown sugar mixture evenly. Top each cupcake evenly with remaining batter.

Bake at 350°F for 23-25 minutes or until a pick inserted comes out clean. Makes about 15 jumbo cupcakes. When they are completely cool drizzle rum glaze on top, garnish with walnuts (if desired) and enjoy!

Rum Glaze

Whisk together 2 cups confectioners’ sugar, 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream and 3/4 teaspoon rum extract until smooth.

Check out all the great recipes from Paula Deen!

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