Cupcakin' It Old School - Jell-O Poke Cupcakes!

Back in the day there was not a dessert I loved more than Jell-O Poke Cake!  Seriously, this combo of jello and cake could not be beat.  :)  In an effort to make them more portable and eater friendly I wanted to make a cupcake version.  This recipe has been around, as far as I can tell, since the dawn of time.  Is there anyone who hasn't had this cake?!  If you haven't I urge you to make this summertime staple.  It couldn't be easier and it's just delicious!!

Begin by baking up some cupcakes.  There are so many combinations you make.  The standard while growing up in my family was white cake with fruit jello, usually strawberry.  I made a vanilla cake with Blackberry Jell-O.  Yum.  Prepare the cake batter as directed (you can use a box mix or your favorite recipe). After baking, remove from oven and let cool for around 15 minutes, give or take.  In the meantime, dissolve one package of Jell-O in one cup of boiling water.  Using a fork, poke holes in the top of each cupcake.

Once the Jell-O is dissolved completely, spoon or brush it over the tops of the cupcakes.  I poured one spoonful at a time on each of 24 cupcakes until the Jell-O mixture was gone.

Place cupcakes in your refrigerator for at least 30 minutes to chill.  Next, prepare the topping.  I've had this two ways: either Whipped Topping or Pudding Topping.  I do have a preference for the whipped version.  You can either use Cool Whip or make your own.

Homemade Whipped Cream

1 cup heavy whipping cream

1/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl (large to prevent spray of cream flying everywhere!).  Using an electric mixer, beat on medium until mixture thickens, at which time increase speed up to high.  Beat about 4-5 minutes until peaks form.  To see photos of this process in one minute intervals, click here.

If the Pudding Topping sounds more appetizing to you, try this recipe:

Dream Whip Frosting

1 1/2 cups cold milk

1 envelope vanilla instant pudding

1 envelope Dream Whip

Beat milk and Dream Whip on medium speed until mixture thickens enough to beat on high speed.  Beat until peaks form.  Add pudding and beat until well combined.

Pipe or spread your desired topping onto the cupcakes and refrigerate immediately.  Store any remaining cupcakes in the fridge.  These cupcakes are best eaten chilled.  Look at the pop of color when you take a big bite:  

I hope you have a chance to make these before summer's end.

A Treat "Fore" The Golf Lovers In Your Life!

The one year anniversary of my blog is coming up next month and one of my first projects was a golf course made out of cupcakes.  At the time I thought it was a bit sad looking and had wanted to give it another go with the proper tools, namely a grass piping tip.  Finally, I had a reason to do it when I was asked to create a cupcake golf course for a birthday party.

As with any cupcake project, I baked up the cakes!  Once they cooled, I arranged them on a cake board.  Without giving it much thought I designed the shape the same way I've noticed the courses on google - random and askew:

The order was for 20 chocolate and 20 vanilla cupcakes.  I purposely placed the chocolate on the outside so it would resemble earth beneath the grass.  I'm not sure it made a real difference.  Vanilla would have been just fine.  Next, I mixed up three batches of buttercream icing.

Vanilla Buttercream Icing

2 sticks of butter

4 cups of confectioner's sugar, sifted

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

3-5 tablespoons half and half

Using a mixer, beat butter until it is fluffy.  Add 3 cups of sugar - one cup at a time - mixing until it's completely incorporated.  Add vanilla and half and half along with last cup of sugar and mix, adding more half and half until the icing is the desired consistency.


I wanted to make enough to cover the entire golf course.  Since I was dying the "grass" green, I needed enough to be sure I wouldn't need to mix more icing.  If I needed to make more I couldn't guarantee the greens would match and that there wouldn't be a darker or lighter patch on the course.  For 40 cupcakes three batches of icing was perfect.  I didn't have much left over at all by the end!

So, I combined the three batches (I mixed them up separately to ensure it turned out okay.  Recipes are funny like that; some you can double or triple with no consequences, some you have to make adjustments in the measurements.  I was under a time crunch, so I played it safe mixing the buttercream in three separate batches.  I spooned out a nice sized scoop for the water and another spoonful of white for the sand trap.  I spread the blue and white over the areas I designated for the water and sand.  On top of the white I sprinkled brown sugar.  I thought it had a nice, sand-like texture.  I've seen other courses where crushed Nilla Wafers or Graham Crackers were used for the sand and I think next time I will do that just to cut down on the sweetness factor.

Once the "water" and "sand" were applied, I filled a piping bag with some of the green icing fitted with a Wilton #233 grass tip.  Using the green, I filled in the remaining surfaces of the cupcakes.  My client asked me to make it look like a smooth course, not like separate cupcakes arranged as a course.  To that end, I filled in the spaces between cupcakes with some icing for a surface to pipe the "grass" on top.  Once I made some decent progress with the rough, I designated an area for the green.  Using the same frosting/smoothing technique as for the "water" and "sand", I added green icing and topped it with some light green sanding sugar to mimic the short grass of the green.  Then I continued piping the rough.

To finish the "water" I added some small chocolate rocks:

Lastly, for the golf course, was the flag and hole in the green.  I used a wooden skewer (next time will use a lollipop stick) for the post and white fondant for the flag.  The hole was an upside down chocolate chip and the golf ball a white dragee:

That's it!  A bit time consuming to pipe all of the "grass", but EASY.  As always, however, I have a few ideas to improve the design.

So, the order was for 40 cupcakes, but I was only able to fit 30 onto the cake board.  For the remaining 10 cupcakes I made cupcakes designed to be a golf course "green".

Picture quality is not so great, but you get idea.  I have a new macro lens and camera I'm still trying to figure out, which means some photos will be better than others until I work it all out.  :)

In elementary school one of my teachers had each of us students write a paragraph on the first day of school.  On the last day of the year she handed them back to us so we could see how our writing improved and how much we'd progressed during the course of the year.  This golf course is kind of like that for me.  When I see where I was a year ago and what I can do now, all just because I keep trying, it feels pretty good!

Moooooo-ve Over Other Sweet Treats, The Cows Are Coming Home!

I have been having a crazy-busy spring/summer season!  Lots of travelling and hosting guests who've come to tour NYC.  I've also been filling baking orders, but have been on such a time crunch I was never able to photograph and blog about them.  This time, however, I tried something new and decided to share my experience:  Fondant.

I have been afraid of fondant and dreading the day I had to use it.  Finally, that day came and I reluctantly purchased the necessary tools to make these cow cupcakes.  I have no idea when or how I developed the idea that fondant was a messy, sticky, difficult substance to work with, but I could not have been more wrong!  It's pliable, not terribly sticky, and FUN!!

These cutie cows were favors for a birthday party.  I was shown a picture to work from, and it was clear that the only way to accomplish this design was to use (in my opinion) the F-word.  Fondant.

Unfortunately, since I have family visiting from Buffalo, I was not able to photograph each step involved in putting these together.  I wanted to be efficient and still spend time with my guests.

To that end, I bought pre-made white, black and pink fondant from Michaels.  I also used candy eyes and black decorating gel for the snouts.

To begin, I rolled out the white fondant.  I made pretty thick discs and next time will make them thinner, since there's really no reason to use so much when topping a cupcake.

These are the tools I used to cut the shapes:

I used my graduated circle cookie cutters and matched the size of the head to the size of a cupcake.  Next, I used a smaller circle for the pink "snout" area.  After cutting the snout I used my fingers to press it onto the white head, forming it into an oval shape.  I used the smallest cutter from a "Fondant Flower" set from Michaels Craft Store to make the spots on the cow.  Certainly, you can make all kinds of different spot shapes, but I decided to be a little more uniform in the design, though I randomly placed them on the head so no two cows would be the same.  :)  The smallest circle cutter was for the ears.  I cut circles and then pinched the bottom of the circle together for a 3D ear effect.

I assembled them in this order:

• Large circle head
• Pink circle snout pressed onto the head
• Black spots randomly placed on the head
• Pressed in the eyes (which didn't stick very well, so I dabbed some black gel underneath them to act as a "glue".
• I rolled bits of white fondant to make a "snake" sort of shape for the horns.  I placed them underneath the head and pressed the "forehead" area down into the horns to make them stick.
• I rolled pink fondant on top of black fondant and then cut circle shapes with a cutter.  I pinched them into an ear shape and used the same "sticking" method as the horns to make them stick to the head.
• Random smiles, smirks, and nose dots on the snout using the black gel.
• I left them on a cookie sheet overnight to dry.

The next day I made vanilla cupcakes and vanilla buttercream icing.

I placed a dollop of buttercream on top of the cupcake and then pressed a cow on top:

And that's it!  The process took about 2 hours of rolling, cutting, shaping and placement.  I had fun doing it and can't wait to try some more new designs with my new friend, fondant!!  :)

No-Bake Vanilla Ice Cream Raspberry Sherbet Pie

Forgive me Blog Readers...it's been too long since my last post!  I was busy with my Father visiting from Buffalo and then I drove him back home for a visit with the rest of my family.  OF COURSE, I came down with some kind of awful flu while traveling, which I've been fighting for these last weeks.  Next thing I know, May has nearly passed me by.  Which brings me to now...ready to back into the swing of things with baking and blogging!

With summer nearly here, I'd wanted to try my hand at a Vanilla Ice Cream Raspberry Sherbet Pie that caught my eye.  I'm going to share the recipe with you, but I'm going to cut to the chase and share my opinion that this dessert is a lot of effort to put together and wasn't as delicious as I expected.  The flavor combination seemed like a winning one, but, for me, not so much.  It looks pretty, though ,doesn't it?!

Some of my issues may have stemmed from my lack of experience working with ice cream (that whole slightly melted vs. too melted thing).  I always seem to miss the mark of this exact science, leaving me with such a mess to clean up:

No-Bake Vanilla Ice Cream Raspberry Sherbet Pie
Recipe from "Spring Get Togethers" by Pillsbury

Crust

2 cups crushed chocolate cookies (wafer)

1/3 cup melted butter

1/4 cup sugar

Filling

1 cup chocolate fudge sauce, slightly softened

1 quart vanilla ice cream, slightly softened

1 pint raspberry sherbet, slightly softened

12 oz. frozen raspberries

Topping

1 cup heavy cream/whipping cream

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Begin by crushing the wafer cookies.  I placed mine in a large plastic ziploc bag and used a rolling pin to crush them.  Mix in the sugar.  Put 1/4 cup of sugar/crumb mixture aside for garnish.  Add melted butter to remaining crumbs and stir until combined.  Press the crust mixture into the bottom of a 9x13 baking pan.  Place in refrigerator to set for 15 minutes.

Remove crust from refrigerator and spread fudge sauce over the top.

Place spoonfuls of vanilla ice cream on the fudge and spread evenly.

Next, place spoonfuls of raspberry sherbet on top of the ice cream.  Using as spoon, gently spread the sherbet into the ice cream, combining to create swirls. 

Randomly place frozen raspberries on top, pressing them into the sherbet.

To make the whipped cream topping, pour heavy cream, sugar and vanilla into a chilled bowl.  Using chilled beaters, beat until stiff peaks form (about 3 minutes).  Spread whipped topping over the pie.  Garnish with reserved chocolate crumb mixture.  

Cover and freeze for at least six hours.  Before serving, let stand at room temperature for 10-15 minutes.

And here are my notes:

1.  I must have made the crust too thick since I used a pie dish instead of rectangular pan.  It was nearly impossible to cut through and did NOT produce nice, neat squares.

2.  I did not care for the sherbet taste.  If I make this again I will try raspberry ice cream for a deeper, raspberry taste that goes so nicely with chocolate.

3.  I didn't think the frozen raspberries added anything.  I would try using fresh raspberries that freeze with the ice cream in another attempt.

4.  The recipe actually used whipped topping instead of homemade whipped cream.  I made the substitution.  I didn't like the whipped cream on top -  can someone tell me if frozen whipped topping would actually be preferable to homemade when freezing??

I don't mean to be a downer about this dessert, you may love it!  If you give it a try, let me know how it worked out for you!!

How Do I Love Tartufo? Let Me Count The Ways!

It's no big secret that my kryptonite is ice cream and gelato.  No matter how much I've eaten and how stuffed  I am, there is always room for ice cream.  A few years ago I discovered Tartufo, an amazing Italian dessert, and a few days ago I thought I'd give it a try myself.

In Italy tartufo has a double meaning.  It translates as "truffle"; both the "fruiting body of an underground mushroom" and a gelato dessert.  I'm obsessed with both.  Although the mushroom version may not sound appetizing by it's description (or their looks, for that matter),they have such a flavorful, distinctive taste that I can't get enough of!  A few years ago, while traveling around Italy with some friends we were lucky enough to visit Alba during it's Truffle Festival.

I almost passed out from happiness of being in truffle heaven!  We could not afford to buy any, but I did pick up some truffled honey and truffle salt.  To find out more about truffles and their interesting history, click here.  After all, they are not type of tartufo this post is about!!

So, let's get back on track with the ice cream.  Well, to be as authentic as possible, it should actually be gelato, if you can find it.  I was only able to locate vanilla gelato.  Ice cream is fine to use, as well.  You can use many different flavor combinations, but tartufo traditionally have a fruit/nut center or fruit juice in the center.  I was not about to try working with juice, the ice cream was more than enough to handle...finding the melted-yet-not-quite-melted temperature was a challenge.  So, I chose simple vanilla and chocolate gelato/ice cream with a maraschino cherry center.  It can have a chocolate coating, a crushed chocolate cookie/chopped chocolate coating, or even cinnamon or powdered cocoa.  My favorite is chocolate coating with a cherry center.  So that's where I started!

To start, here's a  Don't Do list:

1.  Don't let the ice cream become TOO soft.  I found it best to work while the ice cream was hard enough it was difficult to scoop and it made my wrist hurt a teeny tiny bit.

2.  Don't use a scooper that doesn't have a spring release.  I didn't the first two times and it was a mess trying to get the ice cream out of the scoop.

3.  Absolutely do not remove the filled-and-scooped ice cream from the freezer until it's completely hardened.  I found it was best to let it sit overnight.  If it's doesn't become firm enough you will get...you guessed it, a mess!

Let's begin:

Scoop your ice cream/gelato so you half of a ball.  Use a wooden spoon or some other object to poke a hole in the middle.  Don't go all the way down!  Fill it with whatever you have chosen.  I chopped up some cherries and mixed them with chopped chocolate bits and almonds.

Once you have added filling to the half scoop, round it out and "spackle" the hole with ice cream.  You can top off the scoop with the same flavor ice cream or you can add an additional one, as demonstrated in the photo below.  One scoop is all vanilla, one is chocolate AND vanilla, and the third is all chocolate (I'll get to the coating of the chocolate scoop in a moment).  Place them on a cookie sheet lined with parchment or waxed paper and place in the freezer until they are completely hardened.

The first of the two ways I chose to coat my tartufo is a hard chocolate shell.  Melt 4 squares of semi-sweet chocolate with 1 tablespoon of canola or vegetable oil.

For my first attempt I chilled the scoops for 4 hours.  I removed them from the freezer and placed them on a wire rack with waxed paper underneath.

Then I spooned the chocolate over the ice cream balls, trying to cover them completely.  This proved difficult, as it became apparent I hadn't had them in the freezer long enough.  They melted super quickly.  After the first coating, I placed them back in the freezer for about 20 minutes, removed them and coated again.  Back into the freezer they went for 15 minutes and then I picked them up and dipped the bottom of the scoops in the runoff melted chocolate on the waxed paper so they would be completely coated. 

Well, they turned out rather...uhm...ugly.

The insides looked like carnage!  Yuck.  

I decided to try them again...this time freezing the scoops overnight and using whole maraschino cherries.  So they wouldn't end up looking like this:

Well, this turned out MUCH better!  Exactly what I envisioned my tartufo to look like.  :)

Not only did I freeze them overnight before coating them, I added the chocolate shell in the morning and let them freeze until dinner time.  They were perfectly set to cut in half nicely:

And it tasted SO GOOD!!

The second type of coating I wanted to try was crushed chocolate wafer cookies with chopped milk chocolate bits.  I crushed the cookies in a plastic baggie using a rolling pin and added the chopped chocolate.

After freezing the maraschino cherry filled ice cream scoops, I placed them into the cookie/chocolate filled bag, one at a time, and rolled them around in the crumbs until they were fully coated:

After freezing them again for approximately 8 hours, I placed one on a bed of caramel:

Once again, absolute deliciousness!!!  I've read tartufo can be hard to find in restaurants in the United States.  I rarely see it on menus when eating out, but I'm not going to let that stop me from indulging in a good thing...I'll make them myself, and you should, too!!  :)