Inspirational Angel Food!

As promised, here is this week's Romance subgenre cupcake recipe. First up was Inspirational Romance!

I went with angel food cake for these because most Inspirational Romance in the U.S. has its base in Christianity rather than Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc. Having never made angel food cake from scratch before, I was happy to find this recipe, which has a 5-star review from over 400 people. Since I was making mini cupcakes, I halved the recipe so I wouldn't end up with a kitchen full of cupcakes. This turned out to be wise, because I ended up with 48 minis as it was. This recipe is pretty simple and straightforward. The hardest part for me was folding in the powdered sugar/flour mixture, but that's because I've yet to become adept at folding things into recipes at all. Still, despite my occasional stirring-like folding, my batter remained light and fluffy, so I couldn't have been doing too bad a job, right?

Something happened with the first batch of cupcakes that I totally didn't understand. Namely, they didn't rise in any way and ended up oddly lumpy on top, although still light and fluffy overall like angel food is supposed to be. (They're the ones on the right, in case you couldn't tell.) The second batch, though, came out the way cake should, thankfully.

Then I was left with the question of how to top them. Every time I've had angel food cake in the past, it's been a slice from a Bundt, and the only toppings I've ever had on it are fruit and whipped cream. But a cupcake can't be frosting-less! Enter Strawberry Whipped Cream Frosting, thanks to www.joyofbaking.com! As long as you have a food processor/blender and a mixer of some kind, it's easy.

Step #1: Make strawberry puree.

Place 20 oz. of unsweetened frozen strawberries in a large bowl and thaw. (This may take a few hours.) Once thawed, put the strawberries and their juice in the bowl of a food processor or blender and process the berries until they are pureed. Pour the puree into a 2-cup measuring cup; you should have about 1 1/4 cups of puree (I had 2 cups). Add 1/4 cup of sugar to start and stir until the sugar dissolves. Taste and add more sugar if needed. You can also add a little lemon juice to taste. (It may sound odd, but it really brings out the strawberry flavor!)

Step #2: Prep whipped cream.
Ingredients:
1 cup heavy whipping cream (35-45% butterfat content)
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1-2 tablespoons granulated white sugar (I used 2)

In a large mixing bowl, place all the ingredients and stir to combine. Cover with plastic wrap and place the bowl and a wire whisk in the refrigerator for 30-60 minutes.

Step #3:
Make strawberry whipped cream!
Once combined ingredients and whisk have been refrigerated for 30-60 minutes, beat the mixture until soft peaks form. Add sweetened strawberry puree (or strawberry jam if you don't feel like making the puree) a little at a time and beat just until stiff peaks form. Taste and fold in more sugar or puree, if required. (One recipe I found said to use 3 tablespoons of puree, another said to use 1/2 cup. I used 5 tablespoons and it was plenty, but you could always add more if you want a stronger flavor.)

All packed up and ready to go!

The final product was pretty good. More than good, actually. My husband - who has never liked angel food cake before - couldn't stop eating them once they were frosted.

I even found this amazing baking supply/cake decorating store earlier in the week that sells, among other things, cake boxes with cupcake-holding inserts. It made it much easier to pack things up for my husband to take to his co-workers.

So, all in all, a good start to my latest baking endeavor. Catch you next week!

Aw, man!

Hello, all!

Well, I got some sad news today. In checking on the cupcakes I said I'd bring for the Hospitality Suite at the Desert Dreams Writers' Conference this April (again, click here for more information about what's sure to be an awesome conference - okay, plug done), I learned that everything brought must be store-bought. I had feared this may be the case, which is why I checked now rather than going through weeks of taste-testing only to be disappointed later and/or to bring a bunch of homemade cupcakes to the conference only to learn that they couldn't be used and would likely have to be thrown in the trash. (Seriously, that would've broken my heart.)

However! I decided I'm still going to go through what I've dubbed the "prep work" (a.k.a. the weeks of taste-testing) because, well, I'm excited by the prospect. And because my husband's co-workers have been asking if I'm going to be sending them more treats soon and becoming dejected when they hear "she's taking a break." Plus, I'd finally figured out all eight flavors for the different subgenres. Don't want to waste all that valuable thinkin' time!

Here's where I stand: I will make one subgenre cupcake per week for the next eight weeks. (The weeks leading up to the conference, which is April 27th-29th for those of you who didn't click on the link either time.) Now, I have a few different recipes to try for some cupcake ideas - basically just variations on the same thing - so the plan is to do them all within the week dedicated to that subgenre. Most likely all at once, and I'll just halve or quarter each recipe.

So, yeah, that's the plan. Recipes for Week One (i.e., this week, even though I've already lost a couple days) will be posted by Saturday night. Be on the lookout!

MIA...

Okay, I’ve been MIA for a while. But I haven’t been a total slacker. Nope, I made heart-shaped sugar cookies for Valentine’s Day and oatmeal chocolate chip ones just this past week!

For the sugar cookies, I used Alton Brown's recipe. It's more shortbread-like than traditional sugar cookies, but the extra butter means they're extra good and they're also ideal for using cookie cutters.

For the oatmeal cookies, I used an allrecipes.com recipe, which can be found here. I omitted the walnuts and used Hershey's Special Dark chocolate chips rather than regular semi-sweet ones. I was going to try some with milk chocolate chips and peanut butter chips, but . . . I got distracted by the fact that my cookies were not coming off the pan cleanly. I use a Silpat (which is a silicone baking mat - looks like this - that's reusable so that I don't need parchment paper), so I've never had this problem before. Specifically, the bottoms were getting caught on my spatula, which was causing dragging and kind of tearing apart the bottoms of my cookies. Now, they weren't destroyed, you couldn't even tell most of them were messed up in any way, but I knew. And that bothered me. (You might've picked up by now that I'm a bit of a perfectionist.)

Now, onto my new and exciting adventure!

I will be attending the Desert Dreams Writers' Conference this April. (For anyone interested in learning more about this conference, click here.) This will be the first writers' conference I've ever attended, so to say I'm excited (while also being freaked out of my mind) would be an understatement. I've also volunteered to bring cupcakes for the Hospitality Room because I was looking for a chance to get involved, and this let me do that while indulging my love of baking. However, I realized today that there will be about 250 people just attending the conference, not including the program presenters, editors, and agents. So, in other words, I need to make about 300-400 cupcakes.

I was already planning on making mini cupcakes, so that's helpful since it means my batter will go further. But then I thought, "What kind of cupcakes? Just one? More than one? How many flavors are too many? (Is that even possible?) What limits are mini cupcakes going to put on me (with fillings and whatnot)?" So I have about two months to figure this all out, to try recipes and figure out what works and what doesn't. You know what that means, right? Right! I'll be taking all of you along on my Taste Test Train!

There are some decisions I've already made, so I'll let you in on those now. First, there will be more than one flavor! (Honestly, could you see me doing only one?) Second, since this is a conference put on by a chapter of the Romance Writers of America, the flavors will correspond with subgenres of the romance genre as a whole. What this means is that I'll already have a starting point for the types of recipes I'll be making. For example, paranormal romance gets dark chocolate because (a lot of) it deals with things that go bump in the night, like vampires; sweet traditionals will get vanilla because, well, the name says it all on that one.

So that's where I am. I welcome any and all suggestions for categories. The categories, just FYI, are as follows: paranormal, sweet traditionals/historical, inspirational (I'm thinking something involving angel food cake?), romantic suspense, Regency (Regency deals with a specific time period - early 1800s Britain - so lemon is my current plan), contemporary, and young adult. Are you excited? I hope so, because I am!

Addendum: I forgot to include erotic romance on the list! They'll be red velvet.  :)

Blame It On the Muses

Hello, my faithful followers! I apologize for my extended absence, but, as mentioned in the little 'About Me' blurb on the right-hand side, I'm a writer. This means that sometimes, when I'm very, very lucky, the Muses descend and bless me with ideas. (The rest of the time I have to beg and plead for them to throw some scraps my way as I watch my cursor blink and mock me.) So that's where I've been, finishing one manuscript and jumping right into another.

But, never fear! I did manage to break away from my keyboard long enough to bake something new. It's actually three recipes all combined into one delicious pastry. Are you ready for this? White Chocolate Cake with Raspberry Filling, topped with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting.

These were so good that one of my husband's co-workers said she'd ask me to make them for her wedding if her wedding was going to be here in town. I'm not ashamed to admit I did a little preening when my husband told me that. I mean, I know I'm no slouch in the kitchen, but that was pretty high praise.

Now, if you're saying "But I don't like white chocolate," no worries, neither do I. (If you do like white chocolate, feel free to read this or skip ahead since you probably won't need convincing to try it.) The beautiful thing about white chocolate cake is that doesn't taste like white chocolate, it's just richer than normal cake because of the fat content in the white chocolate. Since you melt it to add it to the batter, you get this smooth, soft cake that has a texture reminiscent of pound cake, but still retains the light and airiness of traditional cake. Seriously, try it. If you do and you still don't like it . . . well, then I apologize and I'll never bother you about trying white chocolate cake again.

I was worried about my confection because my first attempt at filling the first cupcake didn't go so well. Specifically, the piping tip retreated up into the pastry bag and hardly deposited any filling. After that, I went with the cone method, which worked much better. (In case you have no idea what I'm talking about, Annie's Eats has a great entry here.) What this meant for me is that I ended up sampling a cupcake with the barest amount of raspberry filling, and the chocolate buttercream kind of overwhelmed the white chocolate cake. Unfortunately, the recipe I used didn't make as many cupcakes as I'm used to (it says it makes 18, I got 16), so there weren't a lot of extras for me to try one with more filling. But, based on the above mentioned comment, I'm guessing that the proper amount of raspberry filling made all the difference.

The next time I try these, I think I'll use a different white chocolate cake recipe. Not that there was anything wrong with this one, but the last time I made this type of cupcakes it was with a different recipe, which I couldn't find for this baking adventure. I liked the other recipe a bit better - the cake was lighter - so I want to go back and try to find it again. Of course, since I don't remember where I found it, that may be a challenge. I'll keep you posted.

I'd also like to try a different frosting next time. Something lighter than chocolate buttercream. Right now I'm thinking of something like a light and airy raspberry frosting. Or maybe lemon, since lemon and raspberry go very well together. Perhaps I'll even try lemon cupcakes with raspberry filling and white chocolate buttercream frosting. I see great possibilities in the future!

Enjoy! And, as always, let me know what you think of the recipes if/when you try them, or shout out some suggestions of your own for future modifications!

Merry Christmas!

December 25th: The day has finally arrived. The day where I get to use the recipe I've been waiting to use since I started my Advent calendar of goodies at the beginning of the month. It's an Apple Pie recipe, but not one I can share.

You see, it's a recipe that's been in my husband's family for decades. His grandmother used to make it from memory and my mother-in-law finally got her to write it down one year. It's a recipe my husband's grandmother used every Christmas and, after she passed away, there was no one to make it anymore. So this year I made the pie and hoped she'd approve. If the sounds and smiles of my husband and in-laws are any indication, I think she would.

I hope you've all enjoyed this journey as much as I have, and I hope you've found some favorite recipes of your own. I'll pick up my baking after ringing in the New Year, but, for now, I'm going to sit back, relax, and enjoy the rest of the holiday. I hope you all do the same. Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and my warmest thanks for all your support so far.

Christmas Day Prep

December 24th: I already know what I'm baking for Christmas Day. It's been sitting there at the bottom of my To-Bake list like a little shining beacon guiding me home. It's going to be a pie. But, as with yesterday's pie, I need a crust. And I'm not about to send my husband out for another one. Plus, I already have a recipe, the one I was going to use last night until I realized it would take too long.

This crust recipe is really easy in some respects because you just combine all the ingredients in a food processor. The tricky part is making sure the butter and water are cold enough. The recipe says to leave the butter in the freeze for at least 15 minutes, but I left it in there closer to an hour. And, to make sure my water is cold enough, I actually put ice in it rather than just running the tap until it feels ice cold.

So now the discs wait in the refrigerator for they're application tomorrow . . .

An All-Time Favorite

December 23rd: Today I realized that my baking adventure has been sorely lacking in one particular area. That area, as I'm sure you've guessed, is pies. I have yet to make a single pie. Well, that changes today, my friends! And what better pie to start with than one of my (if not my #1) all-time favorites . . . drum roll, please . . . Pumpkin Pie! Seriously, I wait all year for Fall just for the pumpkin pie. Okay, and the pumpkin bread and the pumpkin muffins and the pumpkin cookies . . . And I found an amazing one on allrecipes.com, which was not only delicious, but really easy. Actually, the trouble came with the crust.

I'd decided I wanted to make my own crust, but then, upon looking at the recipe I was going to use, I realized it would need to be refrigerated for a while before I could roll it out and use it. If I'd started this at a reasonable hour, it wouldn't have been such a big deal. But, of course, I hadn't. I'd started it at close to 9pm. Oops.

My husband, wonderful man that he is, ventured out into the night to buy me a pre-made one. As you can imagine, given that it's Christmas Eve Eve, he ended up on his own little hero journey in search of a crust for my pie. He started at one grocery store, but they were already closed by the time he got there. So he went to another store that he knew would be open, but they only had Oreo crusts (which maybe could've worked, but wasn't what I was going for). So off he went across the street to another store, but they'd already closed too. So then he trekked 20 minutes out of his way to go to yet another store. Thankfully this one had what I needed, but they were closing as he arrived so he had to run in, grab it, and run out. (After paying, of course.) He was gone so long I actually called him to make sure he was okay.

I was all worth it in the end, though, (I know I feel that way, and I'm pretty sure he does) because this pie is so delicious. It's the first homemade pumpkin pie I've actually actually liked. It was smooth and creamy, without the pumpkin-puree-edge that some homemade pies can have. I wholeheartedly recommend this recipe. I know I'll be using it again.