Chocolate Banana Cupcakes

I just wrapped up my last order. There are no other mandatory projects on the horizon and everything coming out of my kitchen from now on will be entirely done for fun. Not that orders aren't fun, I just think that I can experiment more and try cool stuff when it's just for me (or rather just for my friends and coworkers who end up eating my creations). The funny thing is that even though I haven't "had" to do anything this week, so far it's been so crazy busy that I'm reaching for a morning cup of coffee with much more urgency then usual.

But back to the order. There were three kinds of cupcakes and a small smush cake for the birthday boy (who was turning 1). And while the chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting were good, as were the pear spice cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, today I'm going to tell you about the uber moist, super flavorful, chocolate banana cakes with banana frosting.

Banana Chocolate Cupcakes
Cake recipe from Joy of Baking and the frosting is my own concoction.

2 cups (400 grams) granulated white sugar
1 3/4 cups (245 grams) all-purpose flour
3/4 cup (75 grams) unsweetened cocoa powder (regular or Dutch-processed)
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1 cup mashed ripe bananas (about 2 medium sized bananas)
1 cup (240 ml) warm water
1/2 cup (120 ml) milk
1/2 cup (120 ml) canola or corn oil
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Banana Frosting:
2 8oz packages of cream cheese at room temperature
1/4 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
2 pureed bananas (pick out any black spots to get a nice consistency)
4 Tablespoons instant banana pudding
4 Tablespoons heavy whipping cream
Powdered sugar to taste
A few drops of yellow food color

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and place rack in the center of the oven. Line 24 regular-sized muffin cups with paper liners. I found these awesome monkey cups at Woodman's. They are made out of nonstick foil magic stuff and look just as lovely in the box as they do when filled with yummy cupcakes.

In a large bowl whisk together the sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

In another large bowl, whisk together the eggs, mashed bananas, water, milk, oil, and vanilla extract. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir, or whisk, until combined. Pour or scoop the batter into the muffin cups, about 3/4 full, and bake for about 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean. Check the cupcakes at about 17 minutes. I don't know if it's my oven, but mine were done a bit earlier. They bake up beautifully with a nice dome on top that doesn't collapse as they cool. Remove from oven and let cool on a wire rack.

In a clean bowl, whip the cream cheese and butter until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add the banana mush and whip to incorporate. Add the pudding and the whipping cream and whip on high for another 3 minutes or so. Taste the frosting. I thought the pudding mix and the bananas provided enough sugar, but if you like your frosting sweeter, add some powdered sugar. If you want it a LOT sweeter, also add some more heavy cream to maintain the right consistency.

Pipe the frosting onto completely cooled cupcakes and stuff your face. They're even better the next day...and the next...and the one after that. There are bananas here, so it's perfect breakfast food :D

And this cute little guy was made with the same stuff as the cupcakes and a bit of chocolate frosting for the decorations:



I still have to work on my piping, but I think I'm getting better :D

Morel Hunting and Morel Onion Quiche

Despite the dismal rainy weather, the Bake Sale was a success, so I'd like to say a great big Thank You to any of you that made it out there and picked up a treat or two. I believe all in all we ended up raising $1040 for Share Our Strength, which is pretty great (at least I think so, but then this was also my first bake sale).



It's funny that on the one day we wanted it to be sunny it rained and the previous weekend when we could have used a bit of rain, except for a few rogue rain clouds that snuck through the area in the night, we had nothing but sunshine. You see, last weekend I went hunting. No no no, no one gave me a gun, don't you worry. I was mushroom hunting for Morels. You see, when I was little, sometime around my 8th birthday my family went on a trip. We rented a cabin somewhere in the woods of Georgia (the country, not the state) and explored the area. I was pretty young and don't remember too much about that trip. I remember that the people at the cabin next to ours gave me a chocolate bar when they found out it was my birthday, I remember the black squirrels with white tummies and little tufts of fur on their ears, and I remember that when a group was heading out to go mushroom picking early one morning, my parents forbid me to go. I begged and pleaded and stomped my feet and in the end I stayed at the cabin and sulked. Thinking back I understand why they said no: unless you know exactly what you're looking for, it's easy to pick a poisonous fungus and die. That's right mushroom picking is not for the feint of heart, but the 8 year old me didn't care. I remembered that slight and I've waited for an opportunity to present itself for over 20 years (turns out I'm tenacious).

A few weeks ago, a friend on his way through the flat and boring outer reaches of Illinois noticed a billboard advertising a Morel Fest in a little town of Ottawa, IL. And in case the town name calls out to the history buff in you, apparently this was the site of the Lincoln vs. Douglas debates back in 1858. But more importantly then that, they were going to have guided mushroom hunts followed by a mushroom picking contest, and there was no way I'd be missing out again. I make my own decisions these days :D

After a brief review of all things morel, and after a nice dodge on all "where are the best spots to find them" questions, they drove us around until we were thoroughly disoriented and then dropped us of at the edge of a forest and set us loose with a few guides.

Hunting mushrooms is hard work! You fight your way through the brambles, trudge through dirt and down ravines, fight your way past snapping branches all the while keeping your eyes on the ground looking for the tell tale mushroom caps and ignoring the ones that that just look cool, like these:



Occasionally you look up and see the forest:



And every once in a while you remember, that there are real animals in the woods, not just flora. By the end of the weekend it started to feel a bit like an episode of Bones:



Even the trees looked sinister:



And then you find one. And you squeal and you take a picture and you carefully put it into your net:



And then you find another and you're hooked:



At the end of the first day we had a handful of mushrooms to take home and plan our return the next morning.



So this is where the excitement winds down a bit. We spent hours scouring the forest the next day, risking life and limb (I'm not kidding, there was a Girl Scout camp near by and we were warned that if we wander into their turf we might get shanked...I guess there's a badge for that?) and in the end I found only two mushrooms. Some people had better luck, but I'm convinced they cheated.



And look at this guy! That mushroom was close to seven inches tall!

Me? I slunk home with my haul and made a quiche for Mother's Day. My dad said that I tried to poison them all with my magic mushrooms, but he ate two slices and we're all still kicking, so I'm calling it a success.



Onion and Morel Quiche
adapted from the recipe by Southern Saturdays with Virginia
Makes one 9-inch quiche

Onion Confit:
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 Tbsp olive oil
5 onions, she suggests Vidalia but I just used sweet white onions, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon firmly packed dark brown sugar
Coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup dry red wine
1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme, plus small sprigs for garnish

To make the confit, heat the butter and olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onions and sugar, and season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions are soft, 15 minutes. Add the minced garlic and cook another 5 minutes.

Increase the heat to medium-high. Add the wine and cook, stirring occasionally, until the wine is reduced and the onions are a deep golden brown, about 15 minutes more. Add the thyme; taste and adjust for seasoning with salt and pepper. Transfer to a bowl to cool completely for continuing with the quiche.

French Pie Pastry (go to her site, trust me the recipe is worth it)

2 large eggs
3 large egg yolks
1 cups whole milk
1/2 cup heavy cream
Small heap of fresh or dried morels, about a dozen depending on the size
Pinch of cayenne pepper
Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper (she suggested white pepper, but I find the flavor weird and don't mind the specks, but you can do as you like)

Prepare the pastry shell and let cool slightly. I'm assuming that by now you already made the confit listed above.

Preheat the oven to 350°F. To make the custard, whisk together the eggs, egg yolks, milk, cream, and cayenne pepper in a large bowl. Season with salt and pepper. Set aside.

If you have fresh morels, cut them in half and soak them in salted water for 30 min to make get any dirt or bugs out of them. If you're working with dried, then soak in clean water. Pat dry with paper towels and sautee lightly in a bit of olive oil with a touch of salt. Set aside.

Spread the cooled onion confit in the pastry shell. Arrange the morel halves on top of the onions in a circle, or however you want. Pour the custard over everything and bake until the custard is lightly browned and set, 30 to 35 minutes. Remove to a rack to cool slightly. Serve warm or at room temperature.

2011 Chicago Food Blogger Great American Bake Sale

There are no recipes in this post, but I'd like to take a quick moment and invite all the folks in the Chicagoland area to come out to 2011 Chicago Food Blogger Share Our Strength’s Great American Bake Sale! Food bloggers from across the country will unite to support the Share Our Strength’s efforts to end childhood hunger in America by holding bake sales in their states. Proceeds from the sale will support the 17 million children (almost one in four) who face hunger in America. More information on SOS can be found at www.strength.org.

Where: The Poison Cup Wine & Art Boutique at 1128 W. Armitage Ave (between Clifton and Seminary)
When: This Saturday, May 14 from 12pm – 3pm
Who: The lovely Maris Callahan of In Good Taste is organizing this event and there will be over 20 local bloggers contributing their amazing baked goods (I'll be there too). Here are just a few of the amazing folks participating:

What’s Cookin’ Chicago
West of the Loop
EZ Bake Oven
Not a Crazy Vegan
Joy’s Misadventures
Engineer and an Oven
Chefdruck Musings
NBC Feast
The Pink Apron
and many more!

So grab your wallet and your sweet tooth and come buy treats for a great cause! I hope to see you all there.

Guinness Marshmallows and the Birth of an Experiment

You know, I named this post "Birth of an Experiment", but I think I like "Gateway Drug" better. You see, that's exactly what this marshmallow recipe is. It's not like it's the first recipe I've tried, believe me, I've tried a few. There was an uber fluffy (one could say too fluffy) pink beauty made from dried Hibiscus flowers. I didn't post about that one because it had a very odd mouth-feel and while it acquired a nice natural pink blush, the taste was lacking. There was an egg-white based one that I learned in pastry boot camp, but for some reason I'm not a huge fan of that one either. Something about using eggs that weirds me out. Then there were a series of variations on Martha's recipe that used jam as the main flavoring agent, and this has been my staple recipe for the past 5 years. But now I have a new love. One that has opened up a world of flavor possibilities, and while my first attempt fell just shy of my rather high expectations, I think this recipe and I will be great friends.



The recipe comes from the kitchn newsletter that I subscribe to and it caught my attention almost right away. The subject was Beer Marshmallows, and doesn't that just sound genius? I had a few bottles of Guinness extra stout sitting in my fridge, so I popped one open and left it on the counter to de-fizz. Once the fluffy mess was whipped up and cut, I thought I'd try a few different presentations, so I dunked a third in chocolate and sprinkled with pretzels, just as the recipe instructed, rolled a few in pretzels skipping the chocolate, and left a few plain, just dunking them in a bit of powdered sugar to de-stickyfy them. While I really liked the chocolate covered ones (I mean it's chocolate, what's not to love), I think the flavor was still a little too faint and it only really came across in the pretzel and plain variations.

But think of the possibilities! Next up, I'm thinking of a wine reduction infused marshmallows in dark chocolate. I'll keep you posted :D



Guinness Marshmallows
Adapted from The Kitchn
Makes about 3 dozen marshmallows, the first few will be neat but you'll be tempted make giant marshmallow blocks by the end, so your results may differ.

For the Bloom:
3 tablespoons (1 ounce or 4 packets) unflavored gelatin
4 teaspoons vanilla extract
2/3 cup (5 ounces) flat Guinness Stout

For the Sugar Syrup:
1 cup (8 ounces) flat Guinness Stout (basically, dump whatever is left in the bottle....unless you've been drinking it, in which case... Come on! It's flat beer!)
1.25 cup (10 ounces) corn syrup or sugar cane syrup
1.5 cup (12 ounces) granulated sugar
pinch salt

Powdered sugar for coating and a bit of vegetable oil for coating the pan

To flatten the beer, open the bottle and let it sit overnight. If you're in a rush, pour it into a bowl and stir the beer with a whisk to release as much of the carbon dioxide as possible. Do not, and I repeat, do NOT attempt to whirr the beer in a blender to de-fizz it. Beer will foam up and leak out everywhere. I won't tell you how I know, but trust me on this one.

Line a 8x8 or 9x9 square cake pan with parchment paper and brush it lightly with vegetable oil. You can try and tape the flaps to the outside of the pan so the paper stays in place when you spoon in the marshmallow or just crease it and fold it over (for some reason I couldn't get the tape to stick to the parchment for very long).

For the bloom, sprinkle the gelatin in the bowl of a stand mixer. Mix the vanilla and flattened beer, and pour this over the gelatin. Whisk or stir until no lumps remain. Set the bowl back into your mixer and fit the mixer with a whisk attachment.

For the sugar syrup, dump the beer into a 6-quart saucepan or larger. I used my large dutch oven, the biggest pot I own, plus I think it's heat retention helps you achieve the high temperatures necessary. Simmer the beer until it's reduced by half, then add in the corn syrup, sugar, and salt. Clip a candy thermometer to the side, or stick your probe thermometer in there. Turn the heat to high and bring the sugar mixture to a boil. As the syrup heats, it will foam up to nearly fill the pan. Keep an eye on it so it doesn't boil over. When the mixture is between 225° and 230°, let it bubble for another 5 minutes and then remove it from heat. You want the syrup to reach somewhere between 240° - 250°. If you're having a hard time getting a read but think you're almost there, turn off the heat, stir down the bubbles really quick and take a read. You'll lose a degree or two, but you'll know for sure where you're at.

With the mixer on low speed, carefully pour the sugar syrup down the side of the bowl into the gelatin bloom. (This was where using my dutch oven became not such a great idea...that sucker is heavy! So if you used yours, you might need to solicit help.) Slowly turn the mixer to high once all the syrup has been added and let it whip for 8-10 minutes, until it looks like glossy meringue and is very thick. Pour the marshmallow into the loaf pan and let it cure, uncovered, for 10-12 hours or overnight.

When the marshmallows are cured, rub the top with a little powdered sugar and turn the marshmallows out onto a cutting board. Rub the top with more powdered sugar. Cut into 18-22 squares of equal size. Marshmallows will keep in a covered container for several weeks.

The original recipe had you dip the 'mellows in chocolate and top them with pretzels, and I tried a few that way, but the chocolate completely overpowers the beer flavor. I tried just pretzels too and that was a bit better, but plain marshmallows were the best. So learn from me and skip the extra work :D

Homemade Greek Yogurt

Bwahahahahahahaha! Look at this, look at what I have created! Okay, fine, it's not evil, but it is delicious. I know it doesn't look very impressive here, but what if I told you that it used to be milk? I made homemade Greek yogurt and it can be yours too for a mere fraction of the cost that those tiny little tubs run for at your local grocery store.

I ran into an article at NY Times about this a while back and I finally worked up the nerve to try it myself. You can use any milk you like (obviously whole milk will produce a richer and tastier yogurt), but it's always been frustrating to me that Greek yogurt can only be bought in full fat or completely fat free (and weird tasting) versions. So I picked up 1% milk and a tiny tub of full fat greek yogurt to use as a "starter". It takes very little work, a bit of patience, a cheese cloth and some fridge space. I portioned the thickened deliciousness into a bunch of small jam jars, topped half of them with a spoonful of my raspberry jam and after a glamor shot or two tucked into the first one. Yum!



To make your own, pick out the milk you'd like to start with. Local, organic, or raw would no doubt give you amazing results, but even regular store bought stuff will work here. You can use as much, or as little as you like, but half the point is the value of doing this yourself, so start with a half gallon of milk, at least.

Heat the fresh milk at 180F to 190F degrees, or to the point that it’s steaming and beginning to form bubbles. I used my thermometer, watched the pot closely, and took it off heat exactly at 183F. The heat alters the milk’s whey proteins and helps create a finer, denser consistency. Don't overheat the milk or you'll start to alter the taste or it could boil up and run away.

Let the milk cool to around 115F to 120F degrees, somewhere between very warm and hot. For each quart of milk, stir in two tablespoons of yogurt, either store-bought or from your last batch, thinning it first with a little of the milk. So for your half gallon, a quarter cup of yogurt should do it.

They say to put the milk in a warm jar or container or an insulated bottle, cover it, and keep the milk still and warm until it sets, usually in about four hours. I don't like getting extra containers dirty, so I tightly wrapped the pot with three kitchen towels, stuffed it into the microwave and left it to "cure" overnight.



In the morning, the yogurt was nice and set, so I lined a colander with several layers of cheesecloth, set it over a pan to catch the whey, and dumped the yogurt in to drain while I was at work. You can see the whey and its lactic acid drain out in the picture above.

After several hours, scoop the thickened stuff into clean containers of your choice and enjoy. So far I've just been eating it straight, but I think it would be lovely in lots of recipes too.