Tag-Archive for ◊ cupcake ◊

20 Oct 2010 Cupcake Tin Turkey Pies
Author:  |  Category: Appetizers, Main Dish, Pizza and Tarts, Poultry  | Tags: , , , , , , , ,  | 3 Comments

I’ve posted this recipe before, on my Polly, Julie, and Julia Facebook page.  I think this is one of my Top Ten Posted Recipes 🙂

When asked what his favorite kind of pie is, my son always answers, “meat” and then gets those raised eyebrow are-you-kidding-me looks from Americans not familiar with Great British cooking. Meat pies are one of the delicious cornerstones of British cookery. That being said, this is a very American recipe from Epicurious.com (but it stays true to the spirit of a great British meat pie). This meat pie uses boxed pastry crusts (although you could make your own), ground turkey, grated apple, grated onion, and sage. The pies can be eaten hot, warm or cold. Whole trays of unbaked pies can be frozen to be baked later. Baked pies can be frozen to be reheated in the oven, oven or microwave . Cupcake Tin Turkey Pies can be a quick snack, breakfast, lunch or dinner, they are good for game day parties, buffets, and picnics, and they are tasty all the time. My grandson giggled his way through his first Cupcake Tin Turkey Pie and that meant he liked it a lot!

I have two dozen Cupcake Tin Turkey Pies in the freezer. At my house, one never can tell when a gaggle or bevy of college students will stop by.

Try these! They are so much better in taste, nutrition, lack of preservatives, and cost-per-serving than Hot Pockets and other similar packaged food products. Don’t eat those nasty things! Try these instead! They’ll become a staple at your house, too.  BTW…, how much would two dozen Hot Pockets cost?  Waaaay more than two dozen Cupcake Tin Turkey Pies, that I am sure of.

I have made a lamb version of these pies, but I didn’t likethem nearly as much.  If you want to try Cupcake Tin Lamb Pies, change the herbs and spices to 1/2 cup chopped fresh mint, 1 teaspoon allspice and 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon.

Cupcake Tin Turkey Pies

¾ pound ground turkey
1 medium (or ½ large) onion, peeled and grated
¼ cup applesauce or ½ grated, peeled apple
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon chopped fresh sage (or ½ tsp dried)
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley (or 1 tsp dried…or omit)
1/2 cup bread crumbs
2 eggs, beaten
2 boxes pre-rolled, refrigerated pie dough (such as Pillsbury)or a double batch of your own pie crust

Preheat oven to 375°F. In a large bowl, combine all the ingredients but the dough and 1 tablespoon of the eggs; refrigerate mixture while you prepare the pastry. Unroll the dough and cut out twelve 4-inch circles with a biscuit cutter or the rim of a drinking glass. Line the bottoms and sides of the tins with the 4-inch rounds. Remove the bowl of filling from the refrigerator and divide evenly among the pastry filled muffin cups. Press the 2-inch rounds on top, pinching the edges together to seal. Poke a hole in the center of each pie. Brush tops with the reserved egg. Bake until the tops are browned and puffed slightly, 30 to 35 minutes. Loosen pies with thin metal spatula, place into a paper or foil cupcake/muffin liner. Let cool for 15 minutes before serving. Eat with hands. Serve warm…although my kids eat them hot, cold, warm and at room temperature. Can be frozen before baking-when ready to bake just follow directions above but bake for 40-45 minutes. Makes 18 cupcake sized turkey pies. Can make mini-muffin size for an appetizer buffet (but the mini pies have too much crust, and not enough filing,  for my taste.)

If these become a frequent item in your home, you might want to dedicate one cupcake pan to them, because a few batches do mess up the pans. I have two older pans for meat pies, and three pans for cupcakes. The pans stack and store easily, and you can buy a cupcake pan on sale for $3.99 sometimes.  OK, so I might have a few too many cupcake pans…

Thanks for stopping by my kitchen today.  See you again, soon! (Pssssst…! Vegan version to be posted shortly.  Yes, it’s true, veganized Cupcake Tin Turkey Pies!)

16 Oct 2010 Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins
Author:  |  Category: Breakfast & Brunch, Cakes & Cupcakes, Holidays & Events, Muffins, Seasonal  | Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,  | 3 Comments

My new favorite pumpkin recipe, and my new favorite muffin recipe, just in time for your fall weekend baking:  Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffin!  Am I your favorite food blogger, or what?!  This recipe is all over the food blogs right now, and I am a bit late-for-the-train in posting it (one of the casualties of the lost camera saga).

This muffin has been likened to the Starbucks Cream Cheese Pumpkin Muffins.  I think that’s a fair comparison, but I like this recipe better, for two reasons.  One,  I think the Starbucks muffin cook is heavy handed with the cloves, this recipe has no cloves, and that’s a very good thing.   Two, you can make two dozen of these muffins for the cost of buying just two muffins from Starbucks. Yes.  I said twenty-four muffins.

Unfortunately this recipe makes 24 muffins.  Not that I am opposed to 24 muffins, but I hardly ever need or want that many.  I try to have each muffin recipe make 12 muffins, which is usually more than enough for a home cook. I tried to cut this recipe in half and I tried to cut it down to two-thirds.  Neither attempt worked.  The muffins were dry.  The twenty-four muffin recipe is not dry, so you’ll just have to make them all.  Invite the neighborhood over!  Drop some off at a friend’s house! Have a bake sale!  Give some to the gardener or your child’s teacher! These muffins stay moist for several days.

Start this recipe the night before.  The cream cheese filling needs to sit in the freezer for at least a few hours, and overnight is fine, before baking.  That’s ANOTHER great thing about this recipe. FINALLY, a method that works for inserting a cream cheese layer into a baked goods.  Ohhh, it’s a good day to be stopping by my kitchen!

I have inserted three options for the topping of the muffins.  The fourth option is to not add a topping to the muffin.  These muffins really don’t need a sweet topping. The cream cheese layer, and the muffin itself, are sweet enough.  I found the struesel layer to be just a bit too much.  Imagine me saying that!  Me,  a Sweet Tooth Queen!  I like the idea of sprinkling a few pumpkin seeds on top (the green ones, pepitas), which is what Starbucks does, but I couldn’t find pumpkin seeds the last time I was at the store.  The muffin above has a slight sprinkling of raw sugar on top. I like the little crunch.

So, without any further ado…

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins

Cream Cheese Filling

8 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla

Optional Streusel Topping (see notes above):

½ cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
¼ cup pecans, chopped finely
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
½ teaspoon cinnamon

Alternate toppings: a sprinkling of green pumpkin seeds (Pepitas) or raw sugar

Pumpkin Muffin Batter:

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 tablespoons pumpkin pie spice
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
½ teaspoon salt
1 ¼ cups canned solid-pack pumpkin (or 1 ¼ cups fresh pumpkin puree, drained)
3 eggs, lightly beaten
1/3 cup vegetable oil
½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

The night before: Make the cream cheese filling. In a medium bowl, beat the cream cheese and confectioners’ sugar until smooth. Add the vanilla, and blend to combine. Form the mixture into a log on a piece of plastic wrap, wrap it, and freeze it overnight, or at least an hour or two.

Preheat oven to 350 ºF. Line two 12-cup standard muffin tins with paper liners. Set aside.

Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and spices in a large bowl. In another bowl, lightly beat the pumpkin, eggs, oil and vanilla.  Make a well in the center of the flour mixture, and pour the pumpkin mixture into the well. Mix with a fork just until moistened.

Remove the cream cheese from the freezer, and divide it into 24 slices. (I usually cut the log into 12 pieces then cut each of those pieces in half)

Evenly divide half of the batter among the muffin cups-about one tablespoon of batter in the bottom of each muffin cup. Place 1 slice of the cream cheese filling in the center of each cup.  Top the cream cheese with another tablespoon of batter.  Cover the cream cheese completely.

Sprinkle top of muffins with pumpkin seeds, raw sugar OR this Pecan Streusel. In a medium bowl, combine flour, sugar, pecans, butter and cinnamon. Sprinkle some of the pecan streusel on top of each muffin.

Place muffins in a preheated oven and bake until golden, about 20 to 25 minutes. Cool on wire racks.  Muffins should be served at room temperature.  Hot cream cheese is really not very appetizing.

Happy Fall!  Go on, bake a batch of these, enjoy them with your family, friends and neighbors.  Here’s a picture of my grandson enjoying his.  He loves his Grandma’s muffins <3

17 Jun 2010 Hershey Bar Cupcakes
Author:  |  Category: Cakes & Cupcakes  | Tags: , , , , ,  | Leave a Comment

These are good! Do you remember the depression era recipe for Chocolate Cake, or Wacky Cake as it was sometimes called? I think the base of this cupcake is based on that recipe. There’s no egg in the cake and no butter either. The surprise ingredient is white vinegar! It works. Wacky cake is good. It has a good chocolate taste, great color, not overly moist, but definitely not dry either. It’s a good cake! This cupcake recipe has two OTHER bonus points. One, filling. All great cupcakes have a filling, right? Two, a no-work, one ingredient frosting! Need I say ANY more?! Other than I should learn to take better pictures?

Hershey Bar Cupcakes

For the Filling

8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg
1/8 teaspoon salt
6 oz. HERSHEY’S Milk Chocolate Bars chopped into 1/4-inch pieces (use any sized bars, get whatever is cheapest at the store. You’ll need about 1 cup of chopped Hershey Chocolate for the filling)

For the Cake

3 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
2/3 cup Hershey’s cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups water
2/3 cup vegetable oil
2 tablespoons plain white vinegar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

For the Frosting

2 large (4.4 oz.) bars of Hershey Chocolate (again, you can use any size bar…but I found one section of the 4.4 oz bar to be the right amount of frosting for my preference. Each bar has 12 portions, 2 bars frosts 2 dozen cupcakes)

Directions:
1. Prepare the filling. Beat cream cheese, sugar, egg and salt in small bowl until smooth and creamy. Stir in chopped chocolate bar pieces. Set aside.

2. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 24 cupcake tins with paper liners.

3. Prepare the cupcake batter. With an electric mixer, stir together flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda and salt to combine. Add in water, oil, vinegar and vanilla; beat on medium speed for 2 minutes. Fill each cupcake pan 1/3 of the way with batter. Spoon 1 level tablespoon of the reserved filling into the center of each cupcake. Top with more cake batter until cupcake pans are full. (I had some excess batter, but not excess filling or chocolate…so I also made 6 plain cupcakes.)

4. Bake the cupcakes. 18-20 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in cake portion comes out clean. Remove from oven to wire rack.

5. Frost the cupcakes. Top each cupcake with one section of the large sized Hershey bar. Let chocolate melt (5-8 minutes) and then spread with spatula to ice the top of the cupcake. (How easy is that?!)

5. Let cupcakes cool completely. Chocolate will harden (You may need to put cupcakes in RF for an hour or so to finish the hardening process).

Yummy! Wonderful cake, creamy filling, and a hard chocolate frosting. One of the best cupcakes in the I’ve ever tasted, actually. My poor daughter (the one on Weight Watchers) is usually very good about ignoring the baked goods I often have hanging out on the counter…but she’s having a very hard time with these….

The original recipe was found at Hersheys.com.

Thanks for visiting my kitchen today!

09 Jun 2010 Guest Recipe: Mini Peanut Butter Brownie Cupcakes
Author:  |  Category: Cakes & Cupcakes, Guest Recipe, Sweets  | Tags: , , , ,  | One Comment

WHOOOHOOOOO!!!! My friend Louise is generously sharing this recipe with us. These little cupcakes are TO DIE FOR. Honestly. I want these for my birthday this year! Louise pulled these lovelies together with the help of Paula Deen, Ina Garten and a good dose of her own creativity.

Louise writes “The recipe for these cupcakes is both very easy and very yummy! For over-the-top goodness, frost with the Peanut Butter Frosting–you can even crown them with chopped, salted peanuts for that salty, sweet thing!” Please, crown with chopped salted peanuts.

My daughter Abby made these for the French exchange students in her dorm.  She not only got kissed,  on both cheeks, by both exchange students, but they also made her  famous.  Students stop her in the hall and ask for these cupcakes.  Dorm residents knock on her door and ask for these cupcakes.  Louise’s Mini Peanut Butter Brownie Cupcakes have defiantly been the highlight of her year at college so far <Sigh.  And to think I sent her there to STUDY. ..to graduate…with a degree…in Biology…in Forensic Genetics…>

Mini Peanut Butter Brownie Cupcakes

from Paula Deen

1 (18 1/2-ounce) package chewy fudge brownie mix (I’ve used Duncan Hines and Ghirardelli, either was fine)
24 miniature peanut butter cups
Peanut Butter Frosting, recipe below
Chopped, salted peanuts

Cupcake Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line mini-cupcake pan with paper liners. Prepare the brownie mix according to package directions for cake-like brownies. Fill the cups half full with brownie batter. Press 1/2 peanut butter cup into the batter in each muffin cup until the batter meets the top edge of the peanut butter cup. Bake for approximately 10 minutes, until the cupcakes are set. When they can be handled safely, remove them from the muffin tins and let cool completely on wire racks.

When cool, frost with Peanut Butter Frosting. Top frosted cupcakes with chopped, salted peanuts for extra yumminess.

Peanut Butter Frosting

from Ina Garten

1 cup confectioner’s sugar
1 cup creamy peanut butter (I use Skippy)
5 TBSP unsalted butter, at room temperature
¾ tsp vanilla extract
¼ tsp kosher salt (omit if using salted butter)
1/3 cup heavy cream

Frosting Directions

Place the confectioner’s sugar, peanut butter, butter, vanilla, and salt in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Mix on medium-low speed until creamy, scraping down the bowl as you work. Add the cream and beat on high speed until the mixture is light and smooth.
Frost cupcakes when cool, and top with chopped, salted peanuts.

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