Assignment #2

Chocolate Cupcakes with Coffee Buttercream Frosting and Marshmallow Fondant Espresso Beans


Marshmallow Fondant Recipe


Ingredients:

• 10.5 oz marshmallows
• 8 cups powdered sugar

1. Stick 1/2 cup water in a microwave safe bowl with all of the marshmallows.  Put the bowl in the microwave for a few minutes until the marshmallows are melted.  Give them a good stirring and make sure there are no lumps.
2. Put half the sugar in a bowl; pour the melted marshmallows over the sugar.
3. Add 1/2 cup sugar at a time and knead it all together.  Knead for a while.
4. Give the ball of fondant a good coating of vegetable shortening and then wrap it in saran wrap.
5. Refrigerate at least 8 hours before using.

Results: SOOOOOOO STICKY!  Kneading would probably work better than mixing with a spatula which is what i did at first.. It took much more powdered sugar than the recipe called for before it started to get a doughy feel to it that I wanted. It also took longer than I thought to get unsticky.  I guess I should have realized!  I left it in the fridge all night in a ziploc bag, so when I took a bit off and mixed in the brown gel coloring, it was the texture and consistency I wanted.  It did tend to get sticky when I was trying to mix in the coloring, so I had to coat my hands in vegetable shortening (hence when I was done, the espresso beans turned out shiny).  They looked good and they didn't taste half bad!  It didn't harden like I thought though, they became really soft when exposed to room temperature air for hours.

Chocolate Surprise Cupcakes

Ingredients

• Butter mixture
• 5 1/3 oz room temperature butter
• 2 cups sugar
• 1/3 cup oil
• Coffee (that's the surprise!)
• 1 cup water
• 1 Tbsp instant coffee
• Flour mixture
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup cocoa  Note: The recipe calls for "Dutch processed cocoa" which I could not find in the store.  It just means that it already has baking soda incorporated in it so I added baking soda and used less baking powder.  (I listed how much I used)
• 1 tsp salt
• 2/3 Tbsp baking powder
• 1/3 Tbsp baking soda
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 2 tsp vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 325*F
2. Mix butter with electric mixer until it is light and fluffy (so there's alot of air in it)
3. Add the sugar and oil and mix until it is blended well and fluffy (she used the term "fluffy" many times in the recipe so this must be important).
4. Add vanilla extract. Mix again.
5. Add each egg individually, making sure to scrape the sides of the bowl with the spatula to keep everything down in the bowl and mixing.
   

   

   butter mixture

    
6. Put the flour mixture ingredients in a bowl and whisk them together so they're all incorporated.
   

   

   flour mixture

   
   
7. Alternate adding the flour mixture and the milk into the mixer until everything is mixed.
8. Boil 1 cup of water, add instant coffee and remove from heat.  Whisk together.
9. With the mixer on low, add a steady stream of the coffee to the mixture.  Mix until coffee is incorporated.  Be careful not to overmix!
10. Fill cups of the tin pretty full (heaping scoop).
     
    

    

    full cups, empty bowl!

11. Bake 12-15 minutes, using the toothpick test of done-ness.  

Oh no! Crumbly cupcakes!

 Results: These turned out great!!  They tasted really good and were moist.  I didn't get the full 24 cupcakes produced because I am impatient and didn't wait to take the cupcakes out of the muffin tin to cool.  Amanda Oakleaf (of Oakleaf Cakes) said to always allow the cupcakes to cool before you attempt to take them out of the tin, or they could come apart in your hands.  Why must I always learn the hard way??  Other than that, they turned out A-OK.


 Coffee Italian Meringue Buttercream Frosting

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup water
• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 8 large egg-whites (about 1 cup)
• 1 tsp cream of tartar
• Another 1/3 cup sugar
• 3 cups room temperature butter
• 1 Tbsp vanilla extract
• Coffee
• 5 Tbsp water
• 1/4 cup instant coffee

1. Pour 1/4 cup water and 1 1/4 cups sugar into a boiler.  Use a candy thermometer to check the temp every few minutes.  We would like it to be 250*F.  It's usually done around the time the sugar syrup starts to bubble and get thick.
2. While you're waiting for the sugar to get to temperature, pour egg whites and cream of tartar into the mixing bowl.  Whip until soft peaks form (5 minutes or so).  Note: Meringue is the whipped egg whites.  Cream of tartar is used to stabilize the egg whites to make it whip up better.
3. Add 1/3 cup sugar to the mixture and  beat until mixed. Note: This sweetens the meringue.
4. Once the sugar syrup reaches temperature, turn the mixer to low.  Pour, carefully, into the mixing bowl.  **Don't let the syrup touch the mixing bowl or beaters.  It will turn into hardened sugar and your frosting will turn out lumpy.  Phew! Good thing that didn't happen.
5. Mix on high for around 7 minutes, until the bowl is back to room temperature.  
6. Add the room temperature butter 2 Tbsp at a time on low speed.  Turn the mixer back on high until all ingredients are incorporated.  
7. Add the vanilla and mix until nice and fluffy.
8. Boil 5 Tbsp of water and add instant coffee.  Remove from heat and whisk mixture.  
9. With mixer on low, add the coffee; mix until incorporated.  Note: Once the frosting holds up on the spatula without moving, you know it's done!

Results: A strange liquid started forming around the frosting after I added the butter.  I didn't have the full 3 cups (I know, I know, so unprepared!) of butter; I had about 2.  So I added a cup of vegetable shortening (didn't I learn my lesson the first time?).  I think this is the culprit of the liquidy frosting.

Shortening seems to be the greasy common denominator here.

I would not let this shortening culprit ruin my frosting for a second time!  I used paper towel to soak up the weird frosting liquid.  For the most part, it worked so I could whip it into a nice consistency.  Still a little slippery on the cupcakes that I used more frosting on.  The taste was good though!  A little strong, but if you like coffee you will not be dissatisfied.  

Frosting the cupcakes!

The last and most fun part of the cupcaking.

I used the crumbled cake (about 2 cupcakes worth) and mixed it in half of the frosting.  I then filled my frosting bag by using my spatula to put a little of the normal frosting and then a little of the cake frosting, a little normal frosting then a little cake frosting, so on and so forth until it was half full.  This gives it a marbelized look.  I used a large starburst tip and did the traditional spiral on top of the cupcake.  

I then melted chocolate and put it in a ziploc bag with a hole in the corner to drizzle on top of the frosting. 

To finish it, I garnished each cupcake with a fondant espresso bean and VIOLA!