Chocolate Merlot Cupcakes

It was Alison's birthday a few weeks ago. Surprisingly, the Martha Stewart high was still going strong so I made a pot roast and for her birthday cake I combined her two great (food) loves: chocolate and red wine.

Total time: 30 minutes, including time to cool and frost cupcakes.

VERDICT: The merlot flavor is really subtle in the cake. I can see why other recipes recommend using a wine syrup instead of straight wine. Overall, a good dessert with a roast, very at-home/Sunday dinner-y flavor. Alison (and Ken!) liked it so that's all that counts really.

Chocolate Merlot Cupcakes

adapted from "Wine Tasting Cakes" recipe from Boozy Cakes, yields ~1 dozen cupcakes

1/2 cup butter

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1/2 cup merlot

1 1/4 cup flour

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg

3 oz melted dark chocolate/9 tablespoons cocoa powder

1. Preheat oven 350F. Line cupcake tin with liners.

2. Sift flour, baking powder, spices, and cocoa powder (if you're using it). Stir and set aside.

3. Cream butter and sugar together, make sure there are no lumps of butter or sugar.

4. Beat in eggs, one at a time, to butter mixture. Add melted chocolate (if you're using it) and stir..

5. Add flour mixture to batter, 1/2 cup at a time. Alternate with merlot. Mix well.

6. Fill cupcake tins 3/4 with batter and bake for 20-25 minutes or until just set. Cool before frosting.

Merlot Buttercream Frosting

3/4 cup butter (1 1/2 sticks)

4 cups powdered sugar

3/4 cup merlot

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Soften butter and sift powdered sugar to remove clumps.

2. Add powdered sugar to butter, 1 cup at a time. Alternate with merlot in small batches. You may need more or less merlot to get your desired consistency.

Boozy Chocolate Peppermint Crinkles

I had a ton of peppermint candies and creme de menthe from making peppermint mocha cupcakes and obviously need to use them up. There was a serious lack of cookies in the apartment and making 2 cupcake batches in less than a week seemed excessive (I cannot have 2 tubs of leftover cake topping/frosting in the fridge), so I decided to make chocolate crinkle cookies with a minty and boozy twist.

Total time: ~45 minutes, includes letting cookies cool and drinking wine and catching up on T.I. and Tiny (best show on VH1 in my humble opinion).

VERDICT: the roommate was pleasantly surprised to see even more treats in the apartment and ate a good portion of them after dinner. She also agreed to share with her coworkers if there were leftovers. I assume it's a good sign that she thinks other people might want in on them. Sadly, the booze bakes out of the cookies, but making a cookie sandwich with some leftover boozy ganache would solve that problem or even a quick boozy buttercream.

Chocolate Peppermint Crinkles

adapted from Real Simple, yields 3-4 dozen cookies (depending on size).

1 1/4 cup flour

3/4 cup cocoa powder

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 salt

1 stick butter

1 cup light brown sugar

2 eggs

1 shot creme de menthe

powdered sugar (for dusting)

crushed peppermint candies (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Combine flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

2. Cream butter and brown sugar. Beat eggs in, one at a time, then add creme de menthe.

3. Add flour mixture and mix well. The dough should be smooth and pliable, but not elastic like bread dough. Let the dough rest for ~10 minutes in the fridge to making shaping cookies easier. Optional: crush peppermint candies (see peppermint mocha cupcake post) and mix with powdered sugar.

4. Shape dough into 1-inch balls and place on an un-greased cookie sheet. Roll dough in powdered sugar (or peppermint candy dust and powdered sugar). Bake for 12-15 minutes or until cracks form on cookie surface.

5. Let cookies cool and dust with more sugar.

Boozy Peppermint Mocha Cupcakes

So I somehow convinced a friend to take me as her date to her work holiday party (free alcohol! yay, but no...) As a thank you, I made her these cupcakes, which were "christmas-y," as requested and as much as I hate to admit it, were inspired by the Starbucks holiday menu.

Total time: 2 hours --- 30 minutes to make the cakes and ganache, 30 minutes to let them cool, and an hour to let the ganache set/put on make up and blow out hair.

VERDICT: The friend/date really liked them or was nice enough to eat 3 for my benefit. Added bonus, the hardened ganache glaze keeps the cakes fresh for an extra couple of days.

Peppermint Mocha Cupcakes 

adapted from Mark Bittman's chocolate cake recipe in How to Cook Everything, yields 12 cupcakes.

1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened (or melted if you're lazy like I am)
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
9 tablespoons coccoa powder
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, separated
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
1 shot kahlua
1 shot creme de menthe


1. Preheat oven to 350F and line a cupcake tin with paper liners.
2. Cream the butter until smooth gradually add the sugar and continue beating until light and fluffy. Beat in the yolks one at a time, followed by the coccoa powder and vanilla.
3. Whisk together flour, baking powder, soda and salt in a separate bowl. Add dry ingredients to mixture a bit at a time and stir in by hand alternating with the milk and liqueurs. Don’t overmix.
4. Beat egg whites until they are soft peaks and gently fold into the rest of mixture.
5. Fill cupcake liners ~3/4 the way full. Bake 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of a cupcakes comes out clean.
6. Cool on a wire rack before frosting.

Peppermint Ganache Glaze

12 oz dark/semisweet chocolate, chopped or in chips

1 cup heavy cream

3 tablespoons creme de menthe, or more if you like

1. Heat cream on medium-high heat, take off stove JUST BEFORE cream boils.

2. Pour heated cream over chocolate and stir until smooth and glossy.

3. Add creme de menthe and let cool before topping cupcakes. To top cupcakes, dip cooled cakes into ganache and let set at room temperature for ~1 hour. 

Confession: the ganache glaze was really me being too lazy
to cream butter and sift sugar to make frosting.

Red cupcake liners make the cupcakes really festive AND
compliment the crushed candy topping.

Easiest topping ever. 

Add crushed peppermint candy before ganache
sets for that extra Martha Stewart touch.

Mini Chocolate Souffles

The urge to bake was strong. In fact, it was much stronger than the urge to clean, finish a manuscript, do laundry, or go out with people. Of course, the urge to bake was tempered by being to lazy to do any real work in the kitchen (there's no flour to sift!) or buy any extra ingredients (for some reason there are TWO cocoa powder tubs in the pantry).

Total prep time: 10 minutes + 15 minutes to bake.
Verdict: Excellent way to burn through the extra cocoa powder and surprisingly satisfying given the lack of carbs in the dessert. I detest chocolate, so the roomie bravely tried it and liked it. Overall, tasty and gluten-free (bonus!).

Mini Chocolate Souffles

Adapted from Real Simple, yield = 4 mini souffles

2  tablespoons unsalted butter
3  ounces semisweet or bittersweet chocolate*
1/2  teaspoon Whiskey Vanilla Extract
2  eggs, separated
2  tablespoons sugar

1 tablespoon butter or cooking spray

2 tablespoons cocoa powder

*I almost never buy baking chocolate and replace 1 oz of chocolate with 3 tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa powder and 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil (butter works too).

1. Preheat oven to 375F, spray or grease baking dish (ramekin if you have it, muffin tin works too) and dust with cocoa powder.

2. Melt butter and chocolate together in a heatproof bowl over simmering water until smooth. Remove from heat and add vanilla extract and egg yolks. Stir well.

3. In a separate (not plastic) bowl, add sugar to the egg whites and beat until stiff peaks form.

4. Gently fold egg whites into chocolate batter. Work in small batches, adding egg whites in thirds to the batter, until the egg whites have just been incorporated into the batter.

5. Fill baking dish/cups/tin to the brim and bake for 12-15 minutes.

2 Cupcakes, 1 Party

For the roomie's 24th birthday party, I made two kinds of cupcakes: a boozy white russian cake and a slightly less boozy cupcake version of chocolate covered strawberries. I'm not sure why I decided to make two kinds of cake. The original logic was probably that 24 = 2 dozen. Or that people who aren't into alcohol would appreciate having cake that wasn't soaked in alcohol. Oh well. Everyone seemed to like them and I got a "Holy cupcake Batman!" text from a friend/cupcake connoisseur who got the leftovers.

Total effort for 2 dozen cupcakes: 1 hour to buy ingredients I didn't have, 1.5 hours of active prep (mixing, baking, and frosting both batches), and ~2 hours for cakes to cool.

White Russian Cupcakes

adapted from Baked Perfection, yields 12 cupcakes

1 1/2 cups self-rising/cake flour*

1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup sugar

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup whole milk

1/8 cup vodka (I used Smirnoff because we had a bunch of handles of it for the party, obviously you can use Vladimir or whatever)

1/4 cup Kahlua, divided into 2 portions (aka: 2 shots)

*original recipe calls for 1 1/4 cups all purpose flour and 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder, but I was trying to burn through my cake flour.

1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Line a cupcake pan with paper liners.

2. Mix together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside. 

3. In a separate bowl, beat together the sugar and butter until combined (I'm really lazy, so I melt the butter to make it go by faster). Then add eggs, one at a time, and the vanilla, vodka, and a shot of Kahlua. 

4. Gradually add the flour mixture in three parts to the "wet" butter batter, alternating with the milk in two parts. The last part added should be the flour mixture.

5. Fill cupcake liners ~3/4 the way full. Bake 17 -20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of a cupcakes comes out clean. While the cupcakes are still warm, brush the tops with the other shot of Kahlua. 

6. Remove cupcakes from pan and cool completely on a wire rack before frosting.

White Russian Frosting

1 stick of unsalted butter, softened (Do not be lazy and melt the butter)

3 cups powdered sugar

pinch of salt

3 - 4 tablespoons Kahlua

1. Beat butter until creamy. Add salt. 

2. Add powdered sugar 1 cup at a time, beating until combined. 

3. Add Kahlua 1 tablespoon at a time until the frosting is the right consistency/booziness. If you mess up and add too much, you can always add more powdered sugar to stiffen up the frosting. Spread or pipe onto cupcakes. If you're going to use a piping bag, keep the frosting on the thinner side.

"Chocolate-Covered Strawberries" Cupcakes

This is just a basic chocolate cupcake with a strawberry creme liquer frosting. It would've probably been more accurate to make strawberry cupcake with chocolate frosting.

Chocolate cupcakes

adapted from Mark Bittman's chocolate cake recipe in How to Cook Everything
1 stick + 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened (or melted if you're lazy like I am)
2 cups self-rising/cake flour
9 tablespoons coccoa powder
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, separated
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ teaspoon salt
1 ¼ cups milk

1. Preheat oven to 350F and line a cupcake tin with paper liners.
2. Cream the butter until smooth gradually add the sugar and continue beating until light and fluffy. Beat in the yolks one at a time, followed by the coccoa powder and vanilla.
3. Whisk together flour, baking powder, soda and salt in a separate bowl. Add dry ingredients to mixture a bit at a time and stir in by hand alternating with the milk. Don’t overmix.
4. Beat egg whites until they are soft peaks and gently fold into the rest of mixture.
5. Fill cupcake liners ~3/4 the way full. Bake 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of a cupcakes comes out clean.
6. Cool on a wire rack before frosting.

Strawberry Creme Frosting

1 stick of unsalted butter, softened (Do not be lazy and melt the butter)

3 cups powdered sugar

pinch of salt

3 - 4 tablespoons strawberry creme (I used Tequila Rose)

1. Beat butter until creamy. Add salt. 

2. Add powdered sugar 1 cup at a time, beating until combined. 

3. Add Strawberry Creme 1 tablespoon at a time until the frosting is the right consistency/booziness. Again, if you mess up and add too much, you can always add more powdered sugar to stiffen up the frosting. Spread or pipe onto cupcakes. Keep the frosting on the thinner side for piping.

 

The finished product! beige = white russians cupcakes,
pink = chocolate covered strawberry cupcakes

Helpful hint: If you're not serving them right away, freeze the cupcakes unfrosted (see below) in an airtight, freezer-safe container. You can thaw them before serving by popping them in the microwave for ~10 seconds on high.