Pineapple Upside Down Cupcake Cone
Hello faithful readers!
This is my entry in the 2010 Ice Cream Cupcake Roundup, sponsored by Cupcake Project and Scoopalicious. I’m vying to win an awesome Cuisinart ICE-30BC Pure Indulgence 2-Quart Automatic Frozen Yogurt, Sorbet, and Ice Cream Maker and an incredible prize pack from OXO including OXO Good Grips Solid Stainless Steel Ice Cream Scoop
Wish me luck! (I’ll let you know when the public voting begins.)
My inspiration was my ice cream cone-shaped cupcake pan that I got at Crate and Barrel. I wanted to bake some “cone” cupcakes and fill them with ice cream. But if you know me, you know that I have to be a little more flashy than that. So then I decided to turn the cone upside down and call my creation a Pineapple Upside Down Cupcake Cone!
The cupcake is a basic yellow cake, buttery and moist, dressed up with a little rum to complement the pineapple sorbet. YUMMY!
So, what do you think? Can I win this contest?
PS — Thanks to Audra for photography assistance.
Once you pop, you can’t stop
Thank you, Pringles, for sponsoring today’s blog post. Or, rather, for providing that most iconic of taglines for me to “borrow.”
So. According to folks in the big cities of our fair nation, cupcakes are soooooo over. But I live in Kansas, where trends appear approximately six months after they appear everywhere else. I figure I can still ride this train for a while, but that doesn’t mean I’m opposed to trying something new.
Our office had planned a watch party for the first KU game of the Big 12 men’s basketball tournament and I decided (at the last minute) to make cake pops for the party, a la Bakerella.
Well, it turns out that cake pops are a pain the ass.
First you have to make a cake. I USED A MIX. (There, I admitted it. I feel dirty.) Then you have to crumble the cake and stir in frosting. I USED A JAR. (Ugh.) Then you have to roll out the cake balls. This takes a long time, by the way. A single sheet cake with frosting will yield about 60 balls. Then you have to freeze your balls (heh, heh) so they’ll be easier to work with. I let my freeze for about 30 minutes. Then I stuck a stick into the ends and let them set up for another 30 minutes.
So, now you’ve got to decorate. I decided that I would make little basketballs with half and color the other half with KU crimson and blue. I bought pre-colored candy melt at Michaels in three colors. Then, working in small batches, I melted the candy and dipped my balls (HA. Ball jokes! What am I, 12?). Warning, again: This takes a long frickin’ time. The candy hardens really fast, so you have to constantly head back to the microwave to remelt and restir.
Here are my pops:
Cake pop insanity!
Cute, no?
Here’s a close up:
Go Jayhawks!
And here’s what they looked like inside:
Mmmm, chocolatey.
To sum up: Cake pops are delicious. I mean, like, really good. Even from a mix. But they’re a ton of work. I wonder how much one charges for a cake pop? If I could make enough dough (I love puns!), they might be worth it. Otherwise, I think I’ll stick to traditional cupcakes. At least until I start on whoopie pies.
A note: Big thanks to co-worker and fellow foodie/craftster/all-around awesome gal Julie, who stepped in when my camera died. You should read her blog. It’s called What’s Eating Me.
Puddin’
I am just a little bit obsessed with banana pudding.
I’m not sure how or why this obsession started (maybe when I went to Nashville???). But something about the combination of vanilla wafers, bananas and whipped cream makes me very happy. So, naturally, I wanted to make a banana pudding cupcake.
I was eager to try Martha Stewart’s roasted banana cupcake, so that was my base. I started by roasting the bananas.
Bananas fresh from the oven.
Um, yum?
I put a Nilla wafer at the bottom of each cupcake liner and topped them with the banana batter. Once cooled, I filled each cupcake with vanilla pudding. Then I made homemade whipped cream — as in I bought cream and whipped it myself. If you have never made homemade whipped cream, I highly recommend you try it. It puts Cool Whip to shame. And it took about two minutes. Easy peasy.
The finished cupcake.
Then I promptly cut it in half to see all the layers.
See all the layers?
I thought the cupcakes turned out pretty well. BUT — they needed to be served right away. You can’t really keep whipped cream sitting out overnight, so I had to refrigerate them, which dried them out (I was taking them to a movie night the next day). They still tasted pretty good, though.
Minty Fresh
I recently had lunch with three friends from high school that I hadn’t seen in a really long time (none of us attended the 10-year reunion). I wanted to make them some cupcakes, of course. I decided to make the “After Eight” cupcakes from “Cupcakes Galore.”
The chocolate-mint cake part was good — although I have found that mint extract tends to dry out whatever you put it in. The mint frosting was good, too. But I find I’m having trouble whenever I use chocolate ganache. I don’t know how to work with it. (Making it is easy). It looked drippy and not pretty. Maybe I’m not letting it set up enough? Hmmm. Will have to remedy this.
I want s’more
I’ve been wanting to make s’mores cupcakes for a while now. I love s’mores! The combination of chocolate, graham and marshmallow is simply divine. But I hadn’t found just the right recipe. The recipe for s’mores cupcakes in Martha Stewart’s “Cupcakes” calls for graham flour. Graham flour??? So I skipped that one. Luckily, I found a really good recipe in the book “Cupcakes Galore.”
The cupcake is made with crushed graham crackers (is this the same thing as “graham flour?” I’m not sure.) and chocolate chunks. The frosting I chose is a traditional frosting called “seven-minute frosting.” Seven-minute frosting is made with egg whites, sugar and corn syrup, resulting in a marshmallowy, fluffy white frosting.
I really liked seven-minute frosting. (This was the first time I had tried it; it’s really easy!) But the frosting is very messy and goopy and sticky so you have to be very careful when filling the piping bag. Check out those dollops and swirls! Yay!
Overall, these cupcakes were amazing! I’ll definitely make them again.
New recipe
Here is my latest creation: pumpkin-maple-rum cupcakes with apple butter buttercream frosting. Mmmmm.
Took these to work and everyone seemed to absolutely love them. I agree. These were delicious: moist, spiced just right and tender. The frosting was good, too. I made a traditional Swiss meringue buttercream and folded in store-bought apple butter. Soooo gooood.
Hot stuff
Check out these bad boys: chocolate-cayenne cupcakes with chocolate-vodka frosting. Woo boy.
I really wanted to try to make a cupcake with chili powder. I love the spicy-sweet flavor combo. The recipe I used called for nine tablespoons of cayenne. That seemed like a lot to me, so I halved it. Even with only four tablespoons, these cuppies were mad spicy. Too spicy for me, but others loved them. Maybe I’ll try them again with less fire power.
Nutella night
Last night my “Top Chef” crew hosted Nutella Night. Naturally, I brought cupcakes. These little guys were soooooo gooooood. Banana cupcakes stuffed with a peanut butter filling and topped with Nutella frosting and a marshmallow. The combination of flavors was amazing. I’ll definitely make these again!
