Chocolate & Vanilla: Cream Cheese-Stuffed Chocolate Cupcakes

Sorry about the lack of posts recently. School has started and we have been apartment hunting all week. We've finally narrowed it down to 2-3 places which have all the amenities that I need (that most importantly a dishwasher). Unfortunately, we probably won't be getting a place with a gas stove like I had wanted but we'll be having a dishwasher and a washer and dryer which are pretty important as well.

I haven't been cooking as much either but I did bake these chocolate cupcakes which turned out to be only slightly disappointing. They are, of course, from Gale Gand's Chocolate & Vanilla book, and although everyone liked them here I was pretty disappointed with the "cream cheese-stuffed" part. With 4 ounces of cream cheese only, it could hardly "stuff" 24 cupcakes. If I ever made this recipe again, I would definitely double the filling.

Another thing is that the frosting really wasn't frosting; it was definitely more of a ganache and the recipe made way too much for 24 cupcakes. Plus it asks for 1 1/2 cups of cocoa which I think is a little excessive (I hardly see recipes calling for more than 3/4 cup of cocoa). 1/4 cup or 1/2 cup probably would have been sufficient and reducing the sugar as well. In fact, I don't think I could tell the difference between this ganache and just a regular cream and chocolate made ganache so I highly recommending just making the frosting with 1/2 cup of cream with 1/2 cup of chopped chocolate (or more if it doesn't frost enough cupcakes).

Cream Cheese-Stuffed Chocolate Cupcakes
(from Chocolate & Vanilla)

Filling:
4 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 large egg yolk
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/3 cup sugar
2/3 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Cupcakes:
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup cocoa powder, preferably Dutch-processed
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 cups hot water
3/4 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp white vinegar
1 tbsp instant coffee crystals (optional)
1 tbsp pure vanilla extract

Chocolate Frosting:
8 tbsp unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups superfine sugar
1 1/2 cups cocoa powder, preferably Dutch-processed
Pinch of salt
1 cup heavy cream
1 tsp instant coffee crystals (optional)
1/2 cup sour cream
1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

Make the filling: In an electric mixer, beat the softened cream cheese until fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add in the egg yolk and vanilla and beat on medium until well blended (scrape sides of bowl if necessary). Put mixer on low and mix in the sugar and chips. Set aside.

Make the cupcakes: Preheat oven to 350F and line 2 muffin pans with cupcake paper liners. In a large bowl, combine all the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt) and then in a large measuring cup, combine together the hot water, oil, vinegar, coffee, and vanilla extract. Combine the wet ingredients into the large bowl of dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Lumps are okay. Fill each cupcake liner to about 2/3 full. Add a dollop of the cream cheese mixture into the center (be careful about portioning out the cream cheese mixture if you hadn't doubled the recipe). Bake for about 30 to 35 minutes or until the cupcakes have puffed up and are firm to the touch. Remove from oven and cool (I removed them from the tin and cooled them on a wire rack).

Make the frosting: Melt the butter in a saucepan . Stir in the sugar, cocoa, and salt. Then whisk in the heavy cream and instant coffee crystals and cook over low heat until the sugar has dissolved. The mixture should never simmer or boil. Take off the heat and stir in the sour cream and vanilla. Let the mixture cool until the frosting thickens and becomes spreadable (about 1 hour). If too thin stir in some powdered sugar. When cupcakes are cool, spread the tops with frosting.

Note: When I made the frosting, it came out to be too thin and I ended up adding a lot of powdered sugar to the mixture. This frosting does not taste too different from normal ganache made with equal parts heavy cream and chocolate so next time I would make that instead since this recipe is a little on the "expensive" side using so much cocoa powder.

Chocolate Babka (burnt)

I have to say that I am once again disappointed by one of Gale's recipes. Normally Chocolate Babka is served during Easter (or at least that's what I've read) but since I'm not Eastern European I figured tradition wouldn't hold a grudge against me for baking it around Christmas. Well... I burned it. It is still edible but I think I might have to trim the crust which is a shame because some of the filling is closer to the crust.

• The recipe calls for 5 egg yolks and 1 whole egg. And this is supposed to make a cake or dough with only 2 cups of flour!? I ended up adding 2 more cups just to make it kneadable.
• The filling composed of 4 oz of bittersweet chocolate, 1 egg white, 1 tbsp of butter, and 7 oz of almond paste. My super-duper-never-has-a-problem-with-anything food processor couldn't get this filling together. It was so sticky and unspreadable that I basically just dotted clumps of it onto the dough which is why most of it ended up concentrated in certain parts.
  
• The dough would not cook all the way! This batter was just way too much for a single snail roll in a 9-inch cake pan. It rose like Mt. Everest and even after 45 minutes, the insides were far from done. And I was right too because when I opened it up the insides were just right. But pretty much the crust got ruined.

Martha has a recipe for this in her Baking Handbook (and it even had a strudel topping!) and now I wished I had baked that one. Poop.

Recipe #4: Buttermilk Panna Cotta with Strawberry Mash

I am starting to lose faith in Gale. This is the third failure out of the four recipes I've tried in the book. I'm not sure what I did wrong but when I made this custard dessert, the gelatin totally separated from the custard leaving a clear liquidy mess speckled with my precious vanilla beans. I am a bit disappointed since the custard part still tasted good... but just a bit powdery (not sure why). Maybe the gelatin didn't soften enough before I added it to the buttermilk mixture (it was a least 3 or 4 minutes though) but why would it separate? Most of the recipes I see online are pretty similar to Gale's... I wonder why it messed up. Blah.

On a more positive note, I jumped on the bandwagon and baked a Minimalist Loaf. Its actually my second once since my first one didn't get such a good rise. I'll post some pictures as soon as I've cut it open.

Ladyfingers with strawberries and cream

I'm finally back to Gale's book. These turned out to be quite divine... they were like little cakes with a sweet, slightly crunchy exterior but a warm, soft, velvety delicate "cakeness" inside. They are definitely pretty different from the crunchy ones you can buy at like Trader Joes... I hope they will hold up in a tiramisu because I'm set on making one. :)

Since the only leavening in these cookies is the egg whites, I was pretty careful about not overbeating the whites. I did this by using an egg method I had read about in one of Chris Kimball's books. For soft peaks, a raw egg placed in the beaten egg whites will fall to the bottom; for medium peaks, the raw egg falls into the egg whites but not all the way to the bottom; and for hard peaks, the egg sits right on top of the beaten egg whites. I wouldn't recommend using this test each time you need to beat egg whites but if you're not familiar with the egg whites being at one of these stages you can try it. By the way, when I stuck my hand in the egg white foam it felt like I was touching cotton... or a cloud. It was actually something I wasn't expecting but nice. :)

Ladyfingers

(from Chocolate & Vanilla by Gale Gand)

5 large eggs, separated (Note: I think you will need to let these go to room temperature before beating them)

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 cup powdered sugar, plus extra for dusting the ladyfingers

1 scant cup cake flour

On a piece of parchment paper, draw 2 parallel lines 4 inches apart to use as a guide for piping the ladyfingers. Draw a second set of lines 1 1/2 inches from the first set. Turn the paper over and place pencil-side down on a cookie sheet.

Preheat the oven to 375F. Have a large pastry bag fitted with a large (1/2-inch) plain tip ready.

To make the ladyfingers, in a mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whip the egg yolks and granulated sugar on medium speed until the mixture is light and thickened and falls back in a ribbon when the whisk is lifted from the batter, about 5 minutes. Stir in the vanilla.

In another clean, dry bowl, whip the egg whites on low speed until they're foamy, then increase the speed to medium and whip while adding the powdered sugar gradually, increase the speed to high and whip until the whites hold a stiff peak.

Sift half of the cake flour over the yolks and fold in the flour using a rubber spatula. Fold the whipped whites into the yolks and then sift and fold in the remaining flour.

Fill the pastry bag with the batter and pipe finger-thick stripes 1 1/2 inches apart between the sets of parallel lines.

Sift powdered sugar heavily over the tops of the lady fingers.

Bake until golden brown, 8 to 10 minutes. Let the ladyfingers cool on the cookie sheet before lifting them off the parchment paper.

Serve with sweetened whipped cream and strawberries. :)

Chocolate and Vanilla by Gale Gand

Chocolate and Vanilla

by Gale Gand and Lisa Weiss

This is a book review in a sense.. in the sense that I'll actually be trying each and every one of the recipes in this book and posting my experience and opinions about it. I've had some success with several of Gale Gand's recipes in the past and since I share her love for intensely sweet desserts I've picked her latest book as a beginning training ground. The recipes in this book are not particularly advanced except for a few of them... chocolate macaroons, ladyfingers... I'd say that most of them are pretty easy and straight-forward... vanilla malteds, fudgy brownies, etc. But its the holidays and good time for me to spread the "sweet" and since a lot of the recipes are pretty traditional, I figured it would be good. (I'm still making my gingerbread cookies though and snowman cake though!)

I've actually already tried a few recipes but I have to sadly report that they did not turn out well. The first one that I tried "Hot Chocolate Pudding" was just way too sweet that my boyfriend actually said it had a "burning sensation". It could have been because I used Ghiradelli 60% chocolate and the excess sugar in their chocolate might have been too much already.

The second recipe I tried was Chocolate "burgers" with white chocolate filling. To begin with, calling delicate french macaroon cookies "burgers" is a little bit of trashy usage for this type of cookie. When I think of burgers, I think easy and casual... not difficult and fancy which is what french macaroons really are. Anyhow, the recipe called for 1 egg white... 1 egg white with 3 cups of confectioners' sugar! The recipe then goes on to say that the resulting batter should be "soupy". Well mine was anything far from "soupy" or wet for that matter. It seemed kind of odd that 1 egg white (a mere 2 1/4 tablespoons of liquid) could make 3 cups of sugar "soupy" so I looked into more french macaroon recipes and found that a lot of them used at least 3 to 4 egg whites with a lot less confectioners sugar. I'm not sure if its a typo in the book or I am doing it completely wrong.

I tried out some other macaroon recipes and they turned out okay. I'll post more about this later.