Before I begin the Year of the Cheese Cake I decided I needed an interlude of Egg Rolls. Mostly because I found a bunch of recipes I wanted to try and I didn’t want to wait or devote a whole year to egg rolls.
Some are sweet like the cherry Cheesecake, Strawberry Cheesecake and the S’more roles.
Some are savory, like lumpia, bacon Mac and Cheese and Jalapeno cheese.
I really enjoyed the year of the cupcake, even if the fam has stopped eating them. I got to share a lot of cupcakes, try a bunch of flavors, and learn lots of new techniques. Cupcakes are easy to share on a plate, tote or bubble, and don’t need to be refrigerated so that made it easy to spread the love. I also sold a bunch to support a knitting club.
This past year I learned how to make a moist, domed cupcake, that does’t stick to the wrapper, Swiss Meringue buttercream frosting and orange curd.
My favorite flavors have been:
Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough
Salted Caramel
Triple Chocolate
Cherry Almond
Toffee Crunch
Chocolate Orange
Chocolate Truffle
Chocolate Raspberry
Total number of cupcakes: 1026
Unique Flavors: 37
This is the last month for the year of the cupcake. I would say I am sad, but the whole family has stopped eating cupcakes. I have an Egg Roll interlude planned before the Year of the Cheese Cake starts in Aug.
To go out with a bang I planned what I thought would be two favorites: Death by chocolate and Chocolate Raspberry.
Death by Chocolate has chocolate cake, chocolate chips in the cake, chocolate cream cheese frosting, topped with chocolate chips and chocolate gauche.
The chocolate raspberry is very good with chocolate cake, raspberry jam filling and raspberry cream cheese frosting. So yummy! But raspberries and chocolate are two of my favorite things.
For June I made Strawberries and Cream cupcakes with a white cake mix and Strawberry Fanta soda, stuffed with strawberry Jam and cream cheese frosting.
The second flavor was Chocolate Truffle with chocolate cake, a chocolate truffle center and chocolate Swiss meringue buttercream frosting. Both flavors were awesome!
For May I made Cherry Dr. Pepper cupcakes (spoiler alert: you can’t taste the cherry or the Dr. P, just the chocolate) and Peanut Butter Swirl cupcakes.
So I know a lot of food posts have tons of photos and lots of writing, but I like to get to the point. These are gluten free and about 95% of what a brownie should be.
Ingredients:
1 can chickpeas, drained
2 eggs
1 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons milk
`1 teaspoons instant coffee granules
1/2 cup melted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/3 cup Cocoa Powder
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips, melted
Directions: Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 8″ X 8″ baking dish. In a blender mix all ingredients, liquids on the bottom, into a blender and liquefy until smooth. You may need to scrap the sides of the blender to make sure all batter is incorporated. Pour batter into greased baking dish and back for 45 min or until it stops giggling when you gently shake the pan. Cool and enjoy!
In April I made a chocolate flour less chocolate cake with a caramel Swiss meringue buttercream frosting and a Lemon Blue berry with a lemon cake, blueberry jam filling and lemon blueberry frosting.
Total cupcakes made: 892
Unique Flavors: 31
Both of these were a winner!
March has been a busy month, but unfortunately only a couple of resounding successes.
Cherry Cheesecake Cupcake. This had a bottom of a vanilla wafer, which was OK, but honestly I found it weird to have a cookie in the bottom. But the powdered sugar is sure pretty!
This was the unqualified winner of the bunch. Toffee crunch cupcake. It had a chocolate cake base, with toffee pieces mixed in. Then a topping of chocolate gauche that I rolled in more toffee pieces and finally topped it off with caramel Swiss meringue buttercream frosting. Yummy!
Always on the look out for gluten free alternatives this Chocolate Orange Garbanzo bean cake was OK. The chocolate gauche topping really improved it. So I would say it is good for gluten free, but peeling each chickpea might not have been worth it.
The last flavor of the month was Dark Chocolate Brownie with caramel frosting. I found the caramel frosting waxy, I could even mold it with my fingers, so I greatly prefer the caramel Swiss meringue buttercream frosting from above. Also, either I over baked the brownies so they were cakey instead of fudgey or that is the way they are supposed to be. I followed the directions. I have decided that if you are going to eat brownies, then eat a brownie.
The Stats:
Unique flavors so far: 28
Total number of cupcakes: 785
ONLY FOUR MONTHS LEFT OF THE YEAR OF THE CUPCAKE.
Chocolate Orange
This month I challenged myself with making orange curd. The chocolate orange recipe is one of my own devising, using a box cake add zest of two oranges, and substitute water for orange juice. Then make a homemade orange curd and fill the cupcakes (cutting out the middles). Finally, make a chocolate orange cream cheese frosting by using zest of two more oranges. I loved it, and work was complementary, but my husband really, really didn’t like it.
Carrot Cake with White Chocolate Frosting
These were good, and I put in raisins and crushed pineapple, so it is practically a salad!
Rum Vanilla
This has rum in the cake and in the cream cheese frosting. While it wasn’t enough to become boozy, it was enough to really make the vanilla pop, and if I am FORCED into a plan vanilla cupcake, it will probably be this.
Total unique flavors so far: 24
Total cupcakes made: 659
In case you haven’t added this up, but there are 21 unique flavors, and 566 total cupcakes made so far. That is in 6 months, so an average of 3.5 new flavors a month. It is a good time to be my friend!
Black Bottom
Chocolate cake with a cheese cake center. I had never heard of this, but with tons of recipes online, it must be a cultural touch stone for some. To me is it like a cross between a cupcake and a cheese cake.
Butterfinger
My husband loves butterfingers, so when I found this recipe, I had to make it! It is one of my favorites. It is a peanut butter cake, with butterfinger crumbs in the batter, a chocolate gauche top layer, and a peanut butter butterfinger frosting.
Pumpkin Pie
This was nothing compared to the pumpkin ginger, so I won’t be making again. Plus, I didn’t use foil wrappers and I really, really should have. It did have a nice cinnamon clove cream cheese frosting.
