Oregon Ducks Cupcakes

The same weekend I made all those wedding cupcakes I was asked by another friend at work to make cupcakes for her son's baseball team party. I asked if there was a theme and she said their team was the Oregon Ducks and their colors were yellow and green. Apparently all the teams in the league are named after colleges. I took that and ran with it. I searched out the Oregon Ducks logo on the internet and liked the simple "O" they used. The night before, when I was waiting for the wedding cookies to dry, I came across a video that showed how to pipe royal icing onto wax paper, that could then be used to top cakes or cupcakes. That was in the back of my mind, and since I'm not that great at freehanding logos just yet, I thought this would work out perfectly for the Oregon O.

  

I printed out some Os and taped them to the table. I took wax paper and placed it over the top. As I finished one O, I would move the wax paper around and pipe several Os on the same paper.

 First, trace the shape, as if piping the outside of a cookie.

 Then fill the shape in. I used the same consistency of royal icing to pipe as I did to fill. My frosting is on the thicker side, I using the ten second rule to gauge. I wanted to make sure my lines would hold. 

These needed to dry overnight, just like royal icing on a cookie would. The next morning I frosted the cupcakes and placed the O on top of the wet frosting. I thought they turned out fantastic! The best part was, a guy friend walked in and said, "Oh, Oregon cupcakes, cool." They were recognizable, mission accomplished! I love this little cheating way of getting the logo to match almost exactly. I will definitely use this technique in the future. Even if I do get a little better at free handing, I thought the royal icing decorations were so fun as cupcake toppers.

 

Just a few notes on the actual cupcakes. I used Barefoot Contessa coconut cupcakes for the cake, just without the coconut. It was the perfect white cake.  For the frosting I used a new buttercream frosting recipe I found on Food Network. I loved it! These was the perfect combination of frosting and cake.

Coconut Cupcakes

 

Working my way through the original Barefoot Contessa Cookbook let me to these little lovelies last weekend. And as hard as I tried to give all of them away, Brian and I were still left with a dozen. So we decided to exercise a little self control and not eat them all in one day. Yeah, that didn't happen. They maybe lasted until Monday. Brian would eat one for breakfast, then we'd each have one in our lunch, for an afternoon snack, and then for dessert. If I haven't mentioned it before, I love, love, love Brian's sweet tooth. He is so fun to bake for, and loves all my treats. Anyway, I mention all of this as a round about way of saying that these cupcakes are a. mazing. The use of the almond extract, that I've never used in cakes before, took these babies over the top, and gave them that little something extra. And, still wanting use up the extra buttermilk I had from two cakes ago, makes the cupcakes very moist. I got about 28 or so cupcakes from one batch, using regular size muffin tin. But I only used half a batch of frosting. I actually use this frosting for my coconut cake, and knew how much it made. So I cut it in half and had plenty to top the cakes with. Also, note that she uses extra large eggs in this recipe. Ina seems to be the only one using extra large eggs in baking, but I didn't doubt her, and went ahead and got the larger ones for this recipe. Loved the cupcakes. Love Ina.

I gave these away as a thank you. How cute do they look in this box?

I wrapped these up as pre-Valentine's Day treats!

Coconut Cupcakes
Ingredients:
3/4 pound unsalted butter at room temperature
2 cups of sugar
5 extra large eggs at room temperature
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 teaspoons pur almond extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk
 14 ounces sweetened, shredded coconut
 Cream Cheese Icing (recipe follows)

• Preheat oven to 325 degrees. 
• In bowl of electric mixer fitted with paddle attachment, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes
• With mixer running on low, add the eggs one at a time, scraping down the bowl after each addition. 
• Add the vanilla and almond extracts and mix well
• In separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. 
• In three parts, alternately add the dry ingredients and the buttermilk to the batter, beginning and ending with the dry. Mix until just combined. 
• Fold in 7 ounces of coconut. 
• Line a muffin pan with paper liners.
• Fill each cup to the top with batter
• Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until the tops are brown and toothpick comes out clean. 
• Allow to cool in pan for 15 minutes. 
• Remove to a baking rack and cool completely. 
• Frost with cream cheese frosting and sprinkle (or dip) in remaining coconut. 

Cream Cheese Icing
(This is the half recipe, for more just double)
8 ounces cream cheese at room temperature
3/4 cup butter at room temperature
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon pure almond extract
3/4 pound confectioners' sugar, sifted

• In bowl of an electric mixer, blend together the cream cheese, butter, vanilla and almond extracts. 
• Add the confectioners' sugar and mix until smooth

Source: The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook

Chocolate-Coconut Cheesecake Squares

A few weeks ago I mentioned that I went to a cookie exchange. I enjoy a good cookie exchange for a couple of reason. First, you get a variety of cookies to give out, or enjoy yourself, without having to make a bunch of different recipes. But what I really like most is just trying everyone's different cookie recipes. It takes the guess work out of debating whether or not you should make a recipe yourself. You taste it and then you know. This year we voted on the best cookie. (Had I know that before going I might have thought a little bit more about what cookie to bring!) The winner was these tasty little chocolate-coconut cheesecake squares. They got my vote, they were seriously so good. They reminded me of the chocolate coconut fudge bars I made this summer, but the cheesecake put these over the top! I will caution that they are very rich, so heed the advice to cut them into one inch squares.  When I brought mine home and refrigerated them I liked them better cold, but room temperature is fine.  Even though I haven't made these, yet, I have tasted them and totally approve, so I wanted to share them with you for your holiday baking. They are on the top of my to bake list, and with my two week vacation just starting, I have a good feeling I'll get to them. Enjoy.

Chocolate-Coconut Cheesecake Squares

Coconut and Chocolate Fudge Bars

So the no posting thing has been because of the no cooking thing! And oh how I've missed it. I've had my eye on the school year ending and looking forward to summer where I can devote more time to cooking, baking and other things I love. This week was the last week of school, and while my students were being entertained by projects I would not be grading, I had some time to search around the internet for new food blogs and recipes. I happened upon The Pioneer Woman's blog and her Tasty Kitchen blog. Both of these are filled with recipes and pictures that will want to make you drop everything and get in the kitchen. If you're not familiar with these two blogs, just real quick, The Pioneer Woman is quite amazing. She blogs daily about food, photography, her daily life and homeschooling. The Tasty Kitchen is a separate page, she created, where anyone can post up a recipe to share. (But I'm sure most of you know who she is, she's wildly popular.)

So I happened upon a recipe for coconut and chocolate bars over at the Tasty Kitchen. In the introduction to the recipe the author compares to them to Almond Joy candy bars. Sold! And lately Brian and I have been loving us some coconut. The recipe is simple to follow. It only makes a 8x8 pan, so not a huge serving. But that's ok because they are really rich. I cut them into pretty small pieces and they go well with a tall glass of milk or water. Also, it says prep time is 20 minutes, and cook time is 45 minutes. But in there you have to wait about an hour for the crust to cool and another two hours to cool after baking the fudge, before cutting, so be advised. (I actually made some other bars while I was waiting. I'll post those tomorrow!) I made these Saturday afternoon and we didn't cut into them until about midnight. We were out and about for a while, but mmmmm, what a great late night snack!

Here are some pictures from my baking, and a link to the recipe. Try these, I'm pretty sure you'll be thanking me! I've got rave reviews from everyone who has.

Making the crust:




Making the chocolate fudge:




Chocolate & Coconut Fudge Bar Recipe

Joan's On Third

Continuing on with our LA food trip, we spend our first meal on Friday at the cutest little bakery/cafe I have been to in a long time, Joan's on Third. I heard about Joan's on Third from The Best Thing I Ever Ate. I can't remember which chef it was that was going on and on about a chocolate coconut cupcake from Joan's on Third, but I like chocolate, coconut and cupcakes, so I added Joan's on Third to my list of places to visit.

We went there about noon, thinking we'd grab some lunch and a cupcake to go. We walked in and it was the most amazing site I'd ever seen, I was in love. Off to the right was the bakery counter, cake plate after cake plate filled with everything from cupcakes, to cookies, to dark chocolate bouchons. Their cafe counter had cases of wonderful looking salads, meat, and pastas on display and you can also order their signature sandwiches, soups. Throughout the rest of the store was gourmet food market that is complete with a wide variety of cheese, olives and prepackaged pastries.




I decided to order a warm short rib sandwich that was featured on the cover of Bon Appetit magazine. It was amazing. So warm, perfectly toasted and the meat was very tender and seasoned to perfection. It was topped with just the right amount of cheese and arugula. But let's not forget the pickled caramelized onions, they made my mouth very, very happy! (I looked up the Bon Appetit article they gave the recipe for the sandwiches. That might be fun to try, but if you can go there, even better.) Brian ordered one of their newer menu items, the Croque Monsieur. It is also a hot sandwich, built with ham, gruyere, Dijon mustard and béchamel sauce. I made him give me a bite, and I would have been equally satisfied if I had ordered that sandwich. Another melt in your mouth sandwich, with some very flavorful cheese and sauce. Brian is already talking about going back!





Now that our stomachs were very satisfied, we decided to get dessert to go and eat as a snack when we weren't quite so full. I planned on just getting the chocolate coconut cupcake I came for, but the selection was too good, and I knew we wouldn't be back for a while. So, I also ordered a chocolate chip cookie and a dark chocolate bouchon, I love dark chocolate. Brian then proceeded to order a peanut butter and jelly bar, a snickers cupckate, a white chocolate raspberry cupcake, a chocolate cupcake with marshmallow filling, and a vanilla coconut cupcake. (I'm happy to report this is not all gone yet, two days later.) I made Brian give me bites of a few of his. I loved the chocolate marshmallow. It was so moist and the marshmallow was soft and gooey, not like a hard store bought marshmallow stuck in the middle. The bouchon was good, very rich dark chocolate flavor. I thought the cookie had good flavor but was a little dry, not my favorite chocolate chip cookie. The chocolate coconut cupcake was every bit as dreamy as I imagined. The cake was moist, which is my number one quality of a good cake, I hate dry cake. The coconut frosting with coconut flakes on top was super creamy. It wasn't the cream cheese type of frosting I was expecting. Just sweet and the perfect compliment to the chocolate cake.




All in all I'd say we had a very successful trip to Joan's on Third. I'm pretty sure Joan has my dream job, and I'll be back to visit her very, very soon.

German Chocolate Cake

Monday was by husband Brian's Happy Birthday! I was so excited to celebrate his birthday this year. It's the first one we've been married for, and I got to make a new cake and throw a party! I asked Brian what kind of cake he wanted and he picked German Chocolate. I was up for the challenge. I have never made one before and was anxious to being my search the a recipe. I headed right over to food network to search it out. I expected to find a recipe from Ina and maybe a few others. I came across an episode of Throw Down with Bobby Flay where he challenged Harlem, NY bakery Make My Cake to a German Chocolate Cake throw down. Turns out I saw that episode and the cake looked delicious. Make My Cake actually lost the throw down, but I figured it must be a pretty amazing cake for Bobby to want to challenge it. So I went for it.

I made the Coconut/Pecan Frosting and a chocolate ganache the day before. I read over the recipe and it looked like a lot to take on after work on Monday before I had to serve it up that evening. Doing half of it ahead of time was perfect. Then the day of I just had to make the cake, which was very doable, and put it all together.


The coconut/peacan frosting was absolutely delicious. When I tasted it I figured if the cake didn't turn out too great it wouldn't matter because I would just slather it with the frosting and all would be well! I cooked it according to the recipe. I thought it seemed a little runny after the 12 minutes, but once it cooled (I refrigerated it over night) it was just the right consistency for a frosting. I toasted my pecans in a pan on the stove just for a few minutes. The recipe calls for a chocolate frosting to put around the outside of the cake, but her's is a secret family recipe that she didn't give out. I read through the reader comments on the recipe and a lot of people just used a basic ganache and said it worked out great. The recipe I used is below.


Again for the cake I followed the recipe as written. I started melting the chocolate and water in a make shift double boiler with a glass bowl and pan, but apparently my glass bowl wasn't heat proof and it cracked. (Mom it was that little one you gave me.) Yikes! So I carefully got rid of the broken glass and hot liquid and started again. This time in the microwave and it worked like a champ. I used the Baker's German chocolate as recommended. I beat the egg whites, which I had never folded into a cake before, but it definitely made the cake very fluffy and the other ingredients made this a very moist and delicious chocolate cake. And just the right amount of chocolate taste too! One thing different from the recipe, that I found, is that I didn't have enough batter to fill three 9-inch pans, so I just filled two. Not sure if that is a miss print, but it didn't matter. The cook temp isn't included so I just cooked it at 350 for a little more than 30 minutes until my toothpick came out clean.


When I put the cakes together I had quite a bit of the pecan frosting, and maybe that's because I didn't end up with three layers, but I used most of it and no one complained of too much frosting. I forgot to take pictures of the layers as I was putting it together and it was eaten up so fast once we cut into that I couldn't get any pictures then either. Oh well. I'd say the cake was a hit and made Brian's birthday. If you like German Chocolate Cake I strongly recommend giving this recipe a try.

Make My Cake German Chocolate Cake Recipe

Chocolate Ganache
4 oz semisweet chocolate, 1/2 cup heavy cream, 1 tsp vanilla.
Melt chocolate and cream together on low heat until even, add vanilla, chill 15 minutes

Just a few pictures from the party. Brittany and I made this fabulous, if I do say so myself, Happy Birthday sign and hung it over the food table. Brian loves Henry Weinhard's Root Beer, so we chilled some of those and put them in cute bowls. My wrapping paper even matched the sign! It was a very successful birthday party.

Christmas Cookie Exchange

For the first time ever I participated in a cookie exchange. I made eight dozen cookies and went to exchange them with eight other girls who did the same thing. A little shout out to Jennifer for hosting a lovely evening with the ladies. At the end of the night I came home with eight dozen different cookies that I could package up and give to friends to spread a little Christmas cheer.

When deciding which cookies to bake I took into consideration the fact that I had to make eight dozen. I had made a recipe from Food Networks “Ask Aida” for Orange Coconut cookies about a month before and remembered that they made a lot of cookies! I only had to double the recipe to get my eight dozen. And you have to put them in the refrigerator before you cook them, so it’s a great make ahead cookie. Besides tasting amazing, these cookies are very impressive to look at. I dipped half of them in chocolate, like the recipe says, and they just look so festive! I still have a hard time using chocolate chips to dip things with. It never works right, so this time, because I needed it to work, I bought Wilton chocolate baking chips from Michael’s. It worked like a champ! Perfect on every cookie, dried hard and smooth.

A few tips on the cookies, if you like a crisper cookies, just cut them thinner, which makes sense. But I like them a bit softer so I cut the cookies a little on the thicker side. Also, I toasted my coconut by putting it in the oven on a cookie sheet and watching it until it was barely brown. But like I said, this is a great make ahead recipe or one to use when you need a lot of cookies. Happy Baking!
Toasted Coconut and Orange Cookies Recipe

Nothing Says Happy Birthday Like Coconut Cake

Happy Birthday Little Sister!

My younger sister, Brittany, had a birthday this past Tuesday and I wasn’t sure if her boyfriend was going to tackle the task of baking the birthday cake or not. When I asked her if I could make it she said that I was her first choice, and boyfriend was the backup plan! Yay! I asked her what flavor she wanted she said something coconut. I was so excited. I had a coconut cake recipe I wanted to try out. It’s always a little dangerous trying out a new recipe on a special occasion, but I figure, hey, she’s family.

The recipe I wanted to try I actually got from my mother-in-law. It was supposed to be from a restaurant, Cedar Creek Inn, that has amazing coconut cake, but you know those recipes are never the same. As I looked up the recipe last night I noticed that it used a cake mix and vanilla pudding as a base. I don’t know if that counts as “from scratch” but it was going to be a busy day so it was good to save time. As always, I also checked out the food network for recipes. There were some that looked interesting, but like I said, I wasn’t going to time to take on a huge project that afternoon. Bobby Flay’s looked good, but it was quite a project. I came across Ina’s recipe (I love her) but her cake was just a basic white cake with coconut frosting. As I read some of the reviews I found that some of the readers had replaced the water with coconut milk. I thought that sounded like a plan. So in the end I changed my first recipe to incorporate the coconut milk and used Ina’s frosting recipe. Readers raved about her frosting!

The cake was a huge hit. Everyone loved it and it looked so cute on my new cake stand. I think Britt had a great birthday and she said the cake was just what she was hoping for!

Coconut Cake:
*Changes I made: replaced half of the water with coconut milk, and I used a white cake mix because it’s what I had and I didn’t use the walnuts because I didn’t have any.

2 cups shredded coconut
Butter, for preparing pans
Flour, for preparing pans
1 package cake mix, yellow
4 eggs
2 packages instant vanilla pudding, 3.4-ounce boxes of instant
1 1/3 cups water
1/2-cup oil
1 cup walnut halves, chopped

To toast coconut:
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Spread the coconut on a baking sheet and lightly toast, stirring often, 10 minutes. Set aside 1/2 cup for topping the cake.

Butter and flour 2 (9inch) round cake pans.

Mix the cake mix, eggs, pudding mix, water and oil in a mixing bowl. Mix at medium speed until the batter is thick and smooth. (4 minutes) Fold in the walnuts and 1 1/2 cups of the coconut. Divide the batter evenly among the pans.

Bake the cakes until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean, or 30 minutes. Cool completely in the pans, then turn the cakes onto a wire rack.

Ina's Coconut Frosting