Vanilla Cupcakes with Blueberry Butter Cream Icing

Ok ... this post could also be called:  "Lesson Learned" or "What I Hope No One Finds Out About!"  Read on ** to get the deets of that.
As you know I'm on this cupcake mission these days.  After discussing with some work colleagues what kind of cupcakes they'd like me to bring in to work (the overwhelming consensus was chocolate ... any kind of chocolate), so I decided to make Vanilla Cupcakes with Blueberry Butter Cream Icing.  I mean, really.  I just made chocolate the week before; I've got to try new things.

Vanilla Cupcakes

2-3/4 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
200g unsalted butter
1-3/4 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 cup milk
seeds from1/2 a vanilla bean

In a large bowl, sift together the flour and baking powder.  Set aside.
Cream the butter for 2 minutes.  Add the sugar one-third at a time, beating for 2 minutes after each addition.  After the last addition beat mixture until light and fluffy.  Add the eggs, one at a time, beating for 1 minute after each addition or until mixture is light and fluffy. (** ok ... here's the 'lesson learned' or 'what I hope nobody figures out!).  Add the vanilla extract and beat until combined.
Add the flour mixture one-third at a time and beat on low speed until combined (you may want to retain the last bit of flour until after all the milk has been added to judge the consistency of the mixture).
Add the milk half at a time and beat till incorporated.  Add the vanilla seeds.  Do not overbeat as the batter will be tough.)  Spoon the mixture into lined muffin tins; about 2/3 full. 

Bake for 18-20 minutes at 350*F, until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

** Well, you all know how I LOVE LOVE LOVE my new Kitchen Aid mixer (in Boysenberry colour) you can see the edge of it in this picture.  The thing is, if you are continuing to beat things, while adding eggs and you ACCIDENTALLY drop half of an egg shell into the mixture WHILE the mixer is mixing ... well, the egg shell gets smashed up pretty damn quickly!  I shut the machine down right away, but then spent a good 10 minutes (at least) sifting through the wet batter trying to extract little pieces of egg shell.  And I did get LOTS of it; I thought it was possible that I even got all of it out!  The very LAST one that I ate was slightly crunchy.  But I hoped that I was the only one that got any shells.  The next day my sister told me that she had shells in all the ones she ate!!!  Well no one at work said that they found any shells so maybe it was just the bottom few cupcakes that got the extra protein.  And, hey ... I learned a valuable lesson about shutting off the Kitchen Aid when cracking eggs directly into batter!

Anyway:  here they are all baked and cooling, waiting for their icing.  Not an egg shell in sight here.  Don't they look pretty?  This is the first dozen; the second dozen are still baking.

Blueberry Butter Cream Icing

250g unsalted butter
4 cups sifted icing sugar
1/4 cup milk
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup blueberry puree (I used frozen blueberries and pureed them with the immersion blender; I added about 1 tablespoon corn starch to thicken them up.  I also warmed them slightly in a hot water bath.)

Cream the butter for 2 minutes.  Add about half of the icing sugar and mix slowly at first.  Add the milk and vanilla and continue beating.  Add half of the remaining icing sugar and the blueberries.  Add the remaining sugar, as needed to attain the proper consistency for icing.  Beat continuously for several minutes until blueberries are fully combined, the icing is a consistent colour and fluffy.  Pipe onto cooled cupcakes.

The cupcakes had excellent flavour.  The cake is more like a pound cake; it is dense (four eggs ... yeah, its dense) but not dry and its a nice white colour.  Here are the little babies all packed up for their car ride to the office.

I'm getting some good practice at piping so I tried two designs, which both turned out pretty good I think.  Here is a closer-up view of one of each of the patterns to compare.  And that is the colour the icing turned out just with the blueberries - no added colour required.

And I think they are  W-A-Y better looking than the picture that Caitlin drew before I made them to give me an idea of what they should look like!

Schnitzel Works

So after a few more than a few beers (mmmm beers!) at the Mess the other night, I woke up the following morning with a GIANT craving for schnitzel.  All I could think about was this schnitzel and sauerkraut that I had at the Hofbrauhaus in Munich in 2007.  But that is not going to help me with my current craving here in Ottawa.  About a year and a half (or so) ago, I noticed a small restaurant in the industrial area of Cyrville Road, called Schnitzel Works.  I had never been there before but I thought this might be a good substitution for a trip to Germany.
Schnitzel Works is a small restaurant ... maybe 8 or 10 tables with what seemed like a self-serve coffee bar; newspapers and magazines available for browsing.   Oh, and desserts.  To eat in or packaged up to take home.  I was greeted with a friendly "hello" by the one server and being right at noon when I arrived she seemed busy but attentive to the three or four tables already there.
The menu is schnitzel sandwiches and each of the approximately twelve 'country' versions is topped with their unique specialties.  I chose the "Austrian" which is straight up, pure and simple:  schnitzel with dill pickle.  I added sauerkraut to mine (gotta have sauerkraut) which is on the "Polish" version, but which also comes with melted cheese.  I just didn't see schnitz, cheese & kraut going well together.  At least not in my frame of mind at the time.  All country schnitzel sandwiches are $8.99; I got mine to go.
As I was driving home, it was all I could do to keep myself from breaking open the take-out container and starting in on my schnitzel.  Man, did it smell good.  Finally home, I was sooooooo HAPPY when I opened up the container to see this:

Fantastic!  Eating with your eyes first:  I was very very satisfied.

But now to dig in.  The schnitzel is h-u-g-e!  There is as much hanging off the bun as there is on it.  The schnitzel is perfectly juicy - not at all dried out and not the least bit greasy.  The breading is light and delicate.  I am sure the sauerkraut is homemade; it was crispy and very fresh.  This is not sauerkraut that has been canned.  It is still bright yellowish-green and not overly salty.  It was well drained before being added to my sandwich to avoid making the bun soggy.  There was mayo, lettuce, tomato and the pickle on the bun.  I ditched the tomato, and ate the pickle on the side.  I'm pretty sure the pickle was also homemade and pickled with something besides cucumbers:  I'm thinking some kind of pepper.  Its not spicy but had a slightly different flavour than just cucumber.  A bit more ... ummm perhaps zesty than a usual dill pickle.  It was different, not bad but had a unique flavour.  It was also very nice and crunchy.  A perfect side accompaniment.  The large kaiser bun is soft and fresh -- in fact I could only eat half of it.

I thoroughly enjoyed the whole sandwich and it fully satisfied my schnitzel craving.  I will definitely be back to Schnitzel Works ... probably sooner rather than later.  You have to really appreciate a great restaurant that knows how to do something so right and they are not trying to overcomplicate their food.  They've got a good thing going.  If you go to Schnitzel Works you know exactly what you are going to get:  some good schnitzel.  The German Girl in me says "ja, lecker!"

The Cupcake Files

Ok. I'm obsessed with cupcakes. Everywhere I go, I'm always checking out cupcake shops. But recently I've been thinking so much about just baking my own. The Flour Shoppe in Ottawa makes a strawberry butter cream icing which is to die for.   It is the palest shade of pink, the butter is smooth and creamy (and none of that greasy-lard like film left in your mouth that you sometimes get: i.e. Isobel's) and they have just the perfect hint of sweetness from the strawberry flavour.

Now I'm thinking ... I can make that. It can't be that hard. So I decided to give it a try on my own. I googled a number of different recipes for both butter cream and strawberry butter cream. They run the gamut from uber-complicated (Martha Stewart I'm looking at you) to uber-simple (adding a dollup of strawberry preserves to butter cream resulting in a revolting Pepto Bismol colour). Mine was somewhere in between. Here is my attempt.

Chocolate Cupcakes with Strawberry Butter Cream Icing

Chocolate Cupcakes

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1 cup boiling water
1-1/3 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup white sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Mix cocoa and boiling water in a small bowl. Let cool to room temperature.
Mix dry ingredients in a separate bowl. Beat butter and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time. Beat until smooth. Add vanilla. Add dry ingredients and beat until just incorporated. Add cocoa mixture and stir till smooth.
Line muffin cups with papers or grease. Fill to 2/3 full. Bake for 16-20 minutes at 375°F until springy to the touch and a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Do not overbake.

I found the cake somewhat dry but it had really good chocolate flavour. I used salted butter so did not add the additional salt called for in the recipe. I made mini and medium sized cupcakes and only cooked them for 16 minutes; they probably could have been taken out of the oven after 14 or 15 minutes, which is probably why they were kind of dry.

Strawberry Butter Cream Icing

3/4 cup butter at room temperature
1-1/2 cups icing sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1-2 tablespoons cream or milk
4-5 fresh strawberries, pureed

Beat butter until fluffy and add sugar and vanilla. Continue to beat; slowly add cream/milk until desired consistency is reached.
Add the strawberries and adjust taste with additional butter/sugar as needed. Beat till smooth.

My mistake in making the icing was that the strawberry puree was cold and when I added it to the basic butter cream, it congealed the butter somewhat. The strawberries should be at least at room temperature if not slightly warmer. In the end, I had to use the immersion blender to smooth out the icing but as you can see, it was still an inconsistent colour. Because the strawberry puree was liquidy (ya, its a word! look it up!), it made the icing very soft. It was best to be kept refrigerated. The strawberry flavour was really really good, though. Just like fresh sweet strawberries.

Everyone liked them and thought they were good despite the slightly off-putting colour. Also, I'm only just learning to using the piping bag, so between my inexerience and the extremely soft icing they were a bit odd looking. But taste is the most important -- and that was a definite success!

My 45th Birthday

Hello friends.  Well I know its been a crazy long time since I've posted anything.  As most of you know I was on a very limited diet for a good part of last year and really ... what's the point of blogging about grilled chicken and salad with low-cal dressing?  Its not worthwhile eating and certainly not worth reading about.  But now I'm off the strict diet ... and back to eating some yummy-yum-yums its time to get back to blogging.

This first post is actually 6-months old ... I just didn't get around to writing it till now.  Last October I turned 45 and for my birthday weekend I got my best girlfriends together for a long weekend at a BEAUTIFUL cottage on Georgian Bay in Parry Sound. 

My wonderful friends planned various surprises for me, including an amazing massage and pedicure, as well as organizing amazing food for us to eat.  They decorated the cottage while I was having my massage and I came down stairs to find the dining room all decked out for our big dinner later that night.

Molly made some incredible nutella/peanut butter/banana french toast for breakfast.  Man ... did I stuff myself with that!  It was delicious.  Unfortunately I wasn't on the ball enough to get the recipe or to take any photos of it.  Everyone loved it though, that's for sure.

As evening approached, everyone went to work contributing to their portion of the birthday dinner.  They at least let me be in charge of the Signature Cocktail of the birthday party evening.  That is the purple concoction in the foreground of this picture.  We went through quite a few pitchers of these Signature Cocktails and there were many dead wine and vodka soldiers by the time we were packing up to leave at the end of the weekend!  Main course was grilled chicken and ribs (my request) with roasted potatoes and salad.  Here is Karen, slaving away at the bar-b-que.

The recipe is from LCBO's Food and Drink magazine and it is fantastic.  Just look at that meat.

I can't even wait for it to make it to the table!

We ate (and drank) like royalty that night and I owe all the work, planning, cooking to my wonderful friends.  Thank you so much to each of you!  You made this birthday and entire weekend so special for me.  I will remember this forever and trust me, it will be hard to top this weekend in the future.

This party was my first experience with "Cupcake" wine and we also had cupcakes for dessert.  But by the time we got through the main course there was little room for any of us to be able to eat cupcakes ... and you all know how much I love cupcakes! (hint for future posts ... stay tuned).  I had a special thanks for each of my girls who were able to spend the weekend with me.  It wasn't easy for some of you to pick up and leave your families and responsibilities for me and I truly appreciate that you were all there.

 

 

There were also a few other friends, who although they were not able to make it to the cottage for the weekend they still contributed to my on-going birthday celebrations and treated me to a day at Bleu Spa and an AMAZING meal there. We won't talk about how drunk I got ... and how I really was spinning out of control! But I send a special thanks to each of you too.