Showing posts with label Butter Cream. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Butter Cream. Show all posts

Monday, September 28, 2009

Welcome Autumn

Autumn is officially here! There's a definite chill in the air. And the rain is here to stay. It's the beginning of monsoon season in Seattle. =)

In order to celebrate the changing of seasons, I'm doing a two-part series that features two essential flavors of fall: apple and pumpkin! For each series, I will post three blog entries- three great ways to use each ingredient.

First up: APPLE!


Here are the three great apple recipes to look forward to:


(1) Apple Pie - always a classic!


(2) French Toast topped with Caramelized Apple, Cardamom Whipped Cream, and Candied Walnuts. YUM!


(3) Applesauce Spice Cupcakes, topped with a Caramelized Apple Swiss Meringue Buttercream. The chunks of apple in this butter cream = pure joy to your taste buds!


Make sure to check out all the great recipes in the Pumpkin Series!



Thursday, July 23, 2009

Chocolate Matcha Cupcakes

I love chocolate. And I love green tea. So I was super excited when I saw this post on Bakerella's blog about a chocolate matcha bundt! Click here for the recipe. I had to try it! (Maybe it'll inspire the asian side of me to come out...?)

Matcha is a fine powder green tea (think green powdered sugar). When I first set out to try this recipe, I searched high and low for matcha.. to my surprise, not a whole lot of places had it. I ended up getting mine from a specialty tea place. Yes, it can be quite expensive...like $20+ for a couple of ounces. However, it's worth the investment. You'll be making these over and over. Plus, a couple of ounces will get you several batches. You only need a couple of tablespoons per batch, so it'll go a long way.

Since Meaghan told me that bundt pans are completely unnecessary when I was registering a few months ago, I apparently do not own one. Thus, I made them into cupcakes instead! =)



You'll need two different bowls, one for the chocolate batter and one for the matcha. Combine the dry ingredients.





You can see here that the matcha powder is as fine as the flour.





Combine the wet ingredients in a separate bowl and divide it evenly between the two dry ingredient bowls.




You'll get a beautiful green colored bowl of batter for the green tea mixture.




Spoon the batter into lined muffin pans, alternating between the chocolate batter and the matcha. I decided to make a dozen regular sized ones and a dozen mini ones!


While they were baking, I made the frosting. I decided to make two different types: a chocolate butter cream and a matcha one! The chocolate one was pretty straight forward.
To get the beautiful green of the matcha butter cream, I took a regular vanilla recipe and added one tablespoon of matcha powder. If you're not a fan of butter cream, these cupcakes are actually really yummy on its own, without any kind of frosting! Chill the frosting in the fridge until you're ready to use.


The cupcakes came out of the oven looking super cute with swirls of brown and green! Let cool, then frost away!





I decided to put both butter cream flavors on the large ones!


For the mini ones, I alternated between the chocolate and the matcha.

Arent they cute?!


Mmmm, yum!

Since the cake recipe is for a bundt, it came out a little bit dense, which to my surprise, was a nice texture... and everyone who's tried it certainly didn't seem to mind! People have been wow'd by both the beauty of these cupcakes and its unique flavor!

These were truly delicious! The green tea taste wasn't overpowering, like I thought it would be, it balanced the sweetness of the chocolate cake perfectly! If you're a fan of green tea, you should definitely give these a try!

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