Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Champagne Cupcakes with Champagne Cream Cheese Icing

Pink Champagne Cupcakes

Makes 2 dozen cupcakes.


CUPCAKES


1 cup (2 sticks) salted butter, room temperature
2 cups sugar
1 tsp vanilla
6 egg whites
3 cups all purpose flour
3 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
2-3 drops red food coloring (instead of food colouring I threw in 4-8 frozen raspberries)
1 cup champagne (I used extra dry Prosecco, but the recipe recommends sweet)



CREAM CHEESE ICING


8 oz (250mg) cream cheese, room temp, cut into cubes

1/2 stick unsalted butter, cool, cut into cubes

1/2 c white sugar (I can't eat powdered sugar, but you could use that, too)

1/4 c champagne

1/2 tsp vanilla extract



PREPARE BATTER

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare muffin tins by lightly buttering or using muffin cups.


In a medium sized bowl combine flour, baking powder and salt.


In a mixing bowl beat together butter and sugar for 3-5 minutes until light and fluffy. Add vanilla, then beat in egg whites one at a time. Add a few drops of food coloring (or in my case, throw in the frozen raspberries) until the batter is the color of your preference.


Add in flour mixture and champagne in three alternating additions, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Pour batter into cupcake liners, filling full. Bake for 20-30 minutes, or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.



PREPARE ICING


In a mixer on medium speed, cream the cream cheese and butter until smooth. Reduce speed and add the sugar. Increase speed again for about 2-4 minutes, until sugar well combined and mixture is smooth. Reduce speed and add the champagne and vanilla extract until just combined; overmixing at this point will make the icing too runny.


NOTE: My icing tasted a bit too much of champagne (I know!) so in future I would reduce to 1/8 c or even omit, depending on how champagne-y my cupcakes tasted.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Lemon Cardamom Ricotta Babycakes

I bought some ricotta cheese a few days ago with the intention of making cannelloni, but then I realized how much work it would be to come up with a tomato-free sauce (allergy), and I gave up. So then I had this ricotta. I thought, I like cheese. I like cookies. Surely there is a recipe for such a dreamy combination.

So I made these:

(Sorry for the poor photo quality.)

I combined a few online recipes and added some lemon zest and cardamom and: AMAZEBALLS. I call them babycakes because they have a soft, cakey texture inside when baked.

You're welcome.


Ingredients:

1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temp
1 cup white sugar
1 egg, room temp, whisked
1 cup ricotta cheese
zest of one lemon
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ground cardamom

Glaze (optional - I didn't try it)

1 cup icing sugar (I'm allergic to corn, so I can't have this)
3 Tbsp milk
1 Tbsp lemon zest/finely grated lemon rind

To do:

Preheat oven to 350.

In the gorgeous stand mixer that you got from your adoring boyfriend last Christmas (or with whisk), cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Beat in egg, ricotta cheese, lemon zest and vanilla, mixing well after each addition.

In a separate bowl, sift together flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder and cardamom. Whisk to combine. With mixer on lowest setting, add to ricotta mixture. Mix on medium until incorporated.

Drop by tsp/Tbsp onto cookie sheet lined with parchment paper (or Silpat). Using the back of the spoon (or your fingers), spread the blobs out a bit so they bake evenly. Bake until bottoms start to brown, about 12-15min (15min worked for me). Remove from oven and allow to cool before removing from cookie sheets (about 2min). Move to wire rack to continue cooling.

Glaze: In small bowl, whisk together icing sugar, milk and lemon rind until smooth. Dip tops of cookies into glaze. Let stand on rack until icing is set, about 30min.