Posts filed under 'Whimsical'
Have you ever eaten one of those gourmet chocolates which have some sort of printed designs on their tops? I found out that they are done using magnetic chocolate molds and chocolate transfer sheets. Magnetic molds have two pieces, bottom and sides, that are held together by magnets. The transfer sheet is an acetate sheet that has a design on one side This is placed in between the molds which are then locked and when the chocolate has set, you pull apart the mold, peel the sheet and voila, the design (made of cocoa butter) is transferred to the chocolate and you have sophisticated chocolate bonbons ready to be savored. Here is an easy tutorial on how they are done.
I don’t have any magnetic molds on hand and I don’t want to splurge on them yet (price starts at $45), so I just used a 1″x 1″x 1/2″ petit four chocolate candy mold that has been gathering dust somewhere in our kitchen shelf. I cut the transfer sheet to fit each cavity and proceeded to make truffle-filled chocolate confections.
Don’t you agree that the chocolates look awesome? The green and black chocolates didn’t require any transfer sheet but they are spectacular as well. Now if I can only get my hands on that chocolate tempering machine that I so covet …
February 22nd, 2010
Hazelnut Freckle Cupcake - tender cupcake speckled with bittersweet chocolate; with chopped hazelnuts and sugar at the bottom, ganache on top and decorated with a glistening caramel-dipped hazelnut spikes. Price available upon request.
freckles and candy
The idea for this cupcake started with a chocolate-speckled cake. I wanted to make something quirky but flavorful. Again, I used my go-to basic cupcake recipe and adjusted it to make a hazelnut-flavored one. Frangelico is so expensive so I used a hazelnut syrup. I also added a combo of chopped hazelnuts and sugar and dumped a heaping teaspoon of this mixture on the bottom of each cupcake liner to create a crunchy base. For the frosting, chocolate goes well with hazelnuts so ganache is the only way (my way, actually!) to go.
I’ve long wanted to make the caramel-dipped hazelnuts since I saw them in Alice Medrich’s book Bittersweet. But for some reason, I could not cook a perfect caramel; if it’s not undercooked, the syrup gets burnt. I think I’m the only one who has trouble with cooking caramel—sigh. The project I was working on before this was actually a caramel cupcake but since I always had disastrous results with the syrup, I ditched cooking the caramel from scratch. I was still able to create a luscious caramel cupcake but that’s another story.
Coming to this project, I still had no confidence making caramel so I made another topper, sort of a chocolate bark with hazelnuts. It looked good and tasted good but I was still dreaming of those shiny, nutty and spiky gems so I decided to give caramel another go. I followed Ms. Medrich’s recipe but halved it as I anticipated another failure and I do not want to waste valuable sugar especially at this time when sugar prices are skyrocketing. The syrup cooked to a beautiful amber color and following instructions, I put the pan on an ice water bath to stop the cooking. Stop the cooking indeed as I heard the caramel cracking and hardening. I think I left the pan in the ice bath for too long. What to do, what to do? I rewarmed the solid caramel on low heat and it turned syrupy again. Whew, lucky me. This time, no more ice bath. I just worked quickly.
Now how did I get those spiky tips? As per Ms. Medrich’s instructions with some of my modifications, I pierced the side of the hazelnuts with a pointy toothpick, dipped them in the caramel and stuck them on a piece of styrofoam. At that point, the caramel will begin to drip and create a long string. I did this on the kitchen sink with a newspaper directly below the skewered nuts to catch the caramel drippings. The pan with the cooked caramel can also catch the drippings so there will be no wastage.
It looks daunting to make but it is really quite easy. Just make sure to use these candied nuts at once preferably on the same day they are prepared.
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skinning hazelnuts the foolproof way
Home bakers are used to skinning hazelnuts by roasting them first in an oven and then rubbing off the skins with a dish towel. But there is another way that will ensure that the entire skin on each hazelnut will be removed. This foolproof method comes from Rose Levy Beranbaum who learned this from Carl Sontheimer (the man who brought the food processor to America from France and called it Cuisinart). Boil 1 1/2 cups water in a large saucepan and add 2 tablespoons baking soda. Add 1/2 cups nuts and boil for 3 minutes. Test a nut by running it under cold water. The skin should slip off easily. If not, boil a few minutes longer. Rinse the nuts under cold water and toast them in a 350 degrees F oven for 20 minutes or so. Watch carefully so they don’t burn.
December 17th, 2009
Vanilla Bean Heaven Cupcake - soft vanilla bean cupcake frosted with whipped white chocolate ganache and topped with a chocolate crescent moon. Price available upon request.
real vanilla
I am not really a fan of vanilla but when vanilla beans became readily available here, I thought it’s time I add vanilla cupcakes to my repertoire. I developed my own version—soft and light, just the way I like it. In addition to the vanilla bean, I also used vanilla sugar to further boost the vanilla flavor.
I chose to frost this with white chocolate ganache that is not cloyingly sweet (only 3 ounces of chocolate per 1 cup of cream) because white chocolate also has shades of vanilla. I whipped the ganache to match the cupcake’s delicate flavor and light texture. And I think a chocolate crescent moon is the perfect topper for this ethereal dessert.
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the real thing
Vanilla may seem like a common flavoring but do you know that it is the second most expensive spice after saffron? Real vanilla, that is. But why is it so expensive?
Growing vanilla is so labor-intensive. A member of the orchid family, it was originally cultivated in Mexico and can only be pollinated by the Melipone bee which is endemic to that country. When vanilla was brought outside Mexico, the vines grew but did not bear any fruit because no other insect would pollinate the flowers. Several attempts to transport the Melipone bees proved futile. It took a 12-year-old slave named Edmond Albius to develop a simple method of hand pollination and that led to the successful cultivation of the plant outside Mexico. That method is still being used today and it is the only way to produce fruits without the bees.
The vanilla flower also just blooms for a day so growers are always rounding out the farm for open flowers. And each flower must be hand-pollinated within 12 hours of opening. Harvesting the bean is also as labor-intensive as pollinating the flowers. Each pod must be picked by hand just as its end begins to split to ensure the finest flavor.
Vanillin, one of several hundred aromatic components of vanilla, can be produced synthetically making it a cheaper alternative to the real extract. Cooks Illustrated conducted an experiment comparing natural and artificial vanilla extracts in prepared food. The experiment concluded that if you use vanilla mainly for baking, imitation vanilla is at par with the real thing, but natural vanilla is best for custards, ice creams and savory dishes. I think in the end, it depends on one’s preference: if you want vanilla to be the standout flavor and you have the budget, then go for the real thing.
October 2nd, 2009
Atis Delight Cupcake -soft cupcake with the distinctive sweet taste of ripe atis (sugar apple) and bits of fresh atis pulp. Frosted with plump dots of slightly sweetened whipped cream. Price available upon request.
the (sweet) fruit of my labor
I finally did it! An atis cupcake that has real atis flavor. I am very proud of this creation because a lot of my friends were intrigued when I told them about this project. Atis in a cupcake? Bacon in a cupcake sounds stranger to me! This cupcake perfectly captures the distinctive sweet taste of atis and it smells like one, too. My good friend D._ said biting into a chunk of atis pulp (deseeded, of course) was a delicious surprise. The cupcake also has a nice pinkish tinge.
I was inspired to create this cupcake after reading about a popular avocado cake being sold somewhere in Manila that has garnered rave reviews. I thought it was a great idea but one made with atis might be even better. Besides, I have easy access to the fruit as we have a prolific atis tree in our backyard. And they are nothing like the puny, blackened, sorry little things available in the market or grocery stores.
Although we eat atis fresh from our tree, we cannot have the fruits on demand. There is the usual waiting game and sometimes we play this game with the birds and bats that also feast on the fruits even if they aren’t ripe yet. I thought of freezing the pulp so whenever I need some (for the cupcakes) I can just reach for my stash in the freezer. So I put some deseeded, pre-measured pulp in a ziplock bag, pressed the air out and stored it in the freezer. After a week, I used the thawed pulp in the cupcakes. It worked wonderfully well and was as good as fresh.
I would rank this as one of my favorite cupcakes because of its unique, incomparable flavor and light texture. And hey, atis is one of my favorite fruits as well!
September 30th, 2009
Citrusy Sunflower Cupcakes - soft cupcakes flavored with freshly squeezed orange and lemon juices and crunchy poppy seeds. Iced with semisweet chocolate glaze and decorated with marshmallow petals dipped in yellow sugar. With a sprinkling of mini chocolate chips in the center. Price available upon request.
more flavors to come!
It slipped my mind that this blog just turned a year old this August. Wow. And I thought I would have ran out of cupcake ideas within a year’s time. The truth is, I have a growing list of cupcake flavors that I want to try. One of my recent successful experiments was the atis (sugar apple) cupcake. I am still improving on it though and I still haven’t thought of an appropriate frosting so stay tuned. My niece M._, the middle of our family’s tres Marias, also requested a ginger cupcake so this flavor is in the queue as well.
I have been working on citrus flavors lately. I was happy with my orange cupcake and calamansi cupcake. Next up, the tried and tested orange and lemon combo.
Most of the recipes for citrus cakes call for poppy seeds so I decided I want those in these cupcakes as well. I just didn’t know where to get them. The bakery supply store I go to has stopped stocking it. What to do, what to do? Since my search was becoming futile by the day, I put this project in the back burner and started on other flavors in my list. After several months or so, I chanced upon a blog that mentioned that poppy seeds are available at Santis Deli—wonderful!
I used my orange cupcake recipe (an iteration of a sour cream cupcake that I have been using to create other flavors as well), replacing half of the orange juice and zest with lemon juice and zest. While the baked cupcakes were flavorful and moist, they didn’t rise as much. I never had this problem with the orange cupcake so I was bewildered. What worked after several tests was an adjustment in the amount of baking soda—I doubled it. For the chocolate glaze on top, I used semisweet chocolate which perfectly complemented the citrus flavor of the cupcake.
I could not find any yellow marshmallows to make the sunflower petals so I just dipped the white ones in yellow sugar crystals. A better alternative I should say as the sugar added a nice sparkle and shine to the “flower.” If you don’t have any colored sugar on hand but have food coloring, you can make your own. Put enough sugar in a small, clear plastic bag such as a ziplock bag and add small drops of food color (liquid or gel are fine). Seal the bag and massage the sugar until the color evens out. I thought of using chocolate sprinkles in the center to resemble the sunflower seeds but the mini chocolate chips look better and taste better.
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the poppy seed drug test
Hold that poppy seed bagel if you are applying for a job or a driver’s license and have a scheduled drug test coming up. That inocuous treat can show up in the test as—gasp!—morphine.
Poppy seeds used in culinary dishes come from Papaver somniferum, aka the opium poppy. Yes, it is the same plant from which opium is extracted. Although opium is produced by “milking” the seed pods rather than the seeds, all parts of the plant can still contain opium alkaloids such as morphine and codeine. Therefore, if you still insist on eating that poppy seed bagel prior to your urinalysis, it can result to a false positive. In the US people have been fired, job applicants rejected and lawsuits filed because of poppy seed influenced-drug test results. To weed out the false positives, the test threshold for morphine and codeine have been raised from 300 nanograms (ng)/milliliter (mL) to 2,000 ng/mL. I just don’t know if these problems have been encountered here in the Philippines. Probably not as poppy seeds-studded food are not exactly staples here.
Wait, since the seeds have traces of opium alkaloids, can that poppy seed-covered bagel make you high? No. The seeds have very low level of opiates and because they are contained in food, there is no danger of you suddenly bursting into a giggling frenzy even if you eat a whole poppy seed cake.
Sources: The Straight Dope, Wikipedia, Snopes.com
September 6th, 2009
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