I know, I know, I’m an incredible slacker, but it’s finally time for an update! I have a few things that I need to address and then I’ll get down to business with my Daring Bakers stuff (because that’s really all anyone cares about)!

First off, I know I was super excited about joining Tuesdays with Dorie. I know I bought the book as an excuse to bake more. I know that I got lucky because they closed off membership. I know, I know that I should really be more active with it, but I’m just so busy with school that if I actually do want to bake on the weekends, then it’ll be something I’m craving and not a TwD recipe that I have to make.

I did, however, attempt the Thanksgiving Twofer Pie over break, thinking it’d be my amazing contribution to Thanksgiving dinner, but I failed miserably at it. I’ve never had a fancy for any type of pie so it was my first time every bothering to make one. The recipe sounded so simple; the hardest part was making the crust, which really wasn’t all that complicated (it tasted amazing by the way). However, when I took my pies out of the oven they weren’t, let’s just say, the most appealing things I’ve ever seen. Frankly, at least to me, they looked kind of disgusting, but my dad assured me that it was just funky because the sugar crystallized a bit on the top. No biggy, right!? Not quite.

I thought it’d be smart to have a taste test and although they tasted alright (the vanilla was a bit overpowering), they just weren’t worth it. My pies lacked the nice smooth, silkiness of a pumpkin pie and were strange and crumbly. Oh well! At least I can say I’ve made pie before!

Now, does this explanation mean I’ll make an effort to attempt more TwD recipes? Probably not. The recipes chosen for this month are actually appealing to me, but who knows how many I’ll get around to. (Plus my sister makes like thirty bazillion sugar cookies in December so I doubt I’ll be trying any cookie recipes)!

Secondly, I have a lot of recipes I’ve tried, taken amazing pictures of, and started posts on. I’ve just been too lazy to actually complete them. I’m not going to make any promises, but I’m going to try and them up because I’ve made lots of yummy things should definitely be shared with the world!

Okay, now for the only thing people probably care about, my cake for November’s Daring Bakers!

The fantastic hosts of this month, Dolores, Alex, and Jenny, chose Shuna Fish Lydon’s signature Caramel Cake, which was published in Bay Area Bites! Shuna, of Eggbeater, is a pastry chef that has been baking and cooking professionally for over 15 years. Along with this cake challenge, they also gave us the option to attempt Golden Vanilla Bean Caramels, which I would have loved to try, but I wasn’t about to buy golden syrup because I’d probably never use it again.

Now I must admit that I was a little intimidated by this challenge because I had never been successful with caramel in the past and am still not after making this cake. I actually almost didn’t even make this cake because I was so frustrated after failing FOUR TIMES at making the caramel syrup that I didn’t want to bother with it anymore. My first attempt became hard as a rock when it cooled. On my second try I was overly cautious and didn’t use enough heat, which caused all of the water to evaporate, leaving me with crystallized, white sugar. For my third try I turned the heat back up, but this time I cooked it for too long and it ended up being burnt. Sadly, after burning it, I foolishly repeated the mistake from my second attempt again.

After wasting eight cups of sugar I was ready to give up, but figured, “Hey I’ve come this far! What’s two more cups?” and decided to give it another go. This time I needed to be ready! I needed to have a clear vision of what I was supposed to be looking for while making the caramel syrup. I am a very visual person when it comes to baking and the recipe provided obviously didn’t include any pictures so I took it upon myself to watch multiple caramel tutorials on youtube. Let me tell you, they were incredibly helpful! I’d definitely suggest watching some for anyone that has trouble with caramel.

Most people seemed to stick to the basics when it came to this cake and didn’t get too fancy, but since I’m not much of a light frosting on light cake type of person I felt that my cake needed some chocolate. Between my cake layers I added dark chocolate mousse covered in a blanket of caramel syrup and then cheated by frosting the cake with a different caramel buttercream. The frosting we were required to use was more like a brown butter frosting and I absolutely hate how that tastes so I wasn’t about to use that. Finally, I poured a dark chocolate ganache over the cake and also piped it around the top and bottom.

In the end was this cake everything I hoped for? Not quite. I obviously have not yet mastered caramel and I think my syrup was a bit underdone because it didn’t have that amazing sugary goodness that caramel usually has. However, I wasn’t about to try again and my lame caramel syrup definitely caused the cake to lack flavor. Between you and me, the beautiful caramel syrup you see dripping down the sides of the cake in my pictures was secretly the kind you get at the store. I felt like the cake needed it added because it had absolutely no caramel flavor to it at all.

Overall my sad little cake was nothing to write home about and less than a fourth of it was eaten before being thrown out. From reading everyone else’s posts about how amazing this cake was I’m sure it was meant to be great, but it frustrated me so much that I doubt I’ll ever try it again. I’m so bitter towards this recipe that I’m not even going to post it. Instead you can go to Shuna’s post on Bay Area Bites or visit the DB blogroll and read the many posts about it.

I do not have the pleasure of baking as often as I’d like because my family is often always on some sort of diet. As much as I’d enjoy eating a plate full of cookies or a dozen deliciously unhealthy cupcakes, I’d much rather eat one and share the rest with other people. Luckily, this weekend was father’s day weekend, my father’s birthday, AND my friend’s birthday. That meant my father would be allowed to break his diet and have whatever I baked AND I could give some of the extras to my friend.

So as usual, I went on my almighty quest to find the next type of cupcakes that most appealed to my fancy. With so many amazing types how was I ever going to choose just one? After countless of long and brutal browses through cupcake images on Flickr and many voyages deep into the vicious jungle of baking blogs, my journey was complete! I finally found the cupcakes I wanted to make!

Turtle & Peanut Butter Cup Cupcakes!

Turtle Cupcakes: Dark chocolate cupcake, caramel filling, dark chocolate ganache, vanilla buttercream frosting, caramel drizzle, pecan pieces, and some Valrhona chocolate shavings.

Peanut Butter Cup Cupcakes: Dark chocolate cupcake, peanut butter filling, dark chocolate ganache, peanut butter frosting, Reese’s peanut butter cup pieces, and chocolate drizzled on top.

They were both absolutely amazing. I’m actually not sure which one I liked the most because they each contained something I definitely love (peanut butter and caramel). The cupcakes came out moist and delicious and coupled with the filling made them even better. Although, I’d definitely suggest eating the peanut butter cup ones with a big glass of milk because all that peanut butter is sure hard to swallow!

The recipe I used was a combination of many recipes from many other websites. There is a list to where I got them all at the very end and I would certainly urge everyone to check out the sites because they are all fantastic (especially Chockylit’s Cupcake Blog).

Dark Chocolate Cupcakes

(About 16 cupcakes @ 350 degrees)

• 8 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces
• 2 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped (I used 56% Valrhona)
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 large eggs
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Chop the chocolate and place into a double boiler.
3. Add butter and cocoa and stir until the chocolate melts and the mixture fully combines.
4. Remove from heat and set aside to cool until just warm enough to touch. (About 10 minutes.)
5. Sift the flour, baking soda, and baking powder into a small bowl and set aside.
6. In an electric mixer beat eggs well for a few seconds.
7. Add sugar, vanilla, and salt and beat until well combined.
8. Add cooled chocolate mixture and beat until well combined.
9. Add about one-third of the dry ingredients into the mixture and beat briefly until combined.
10. Add about half of the sour cream and beat until combined.
11. Continue adding, alternating between the dry ingredients and sour cream, and finish with the dry.
12. Stir in chocolate chips. (optional)
13. Scoop batter into cupcake cups about 2/3 full. Bake at 350 degrees for about 18-20 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.

Chocolate Ganache

• 1/2 cup dark chocolate, chopped (I used 56% Valrhona)
• 1/3 cup heavy cream

1. Chop the chocolate into pieces and place in a small bowl.
2. Heat the heavy cream in a small saucepan until it just starts to boil.
3. Pour the cream over the chocolate and stir until blended. Let the ganache cool for 15 minutes or until it begins to thicken before spreading on cupcakes.

Turtle Cupcakes

Caramel Filling

• 3/4 cup evaporated milk
• 7 oz (or more) wrapped caramels, unwrapped

1. Combine evaporated milk and 7 oz of caramels in double boiler over medium heat.
2. Stir until caramels are melted and the mixture is smooth.
3. Continue adding more caramels in order to achieve the desired consistency. I ended up using about 2/3 of the Kraft caramel. (optional)

Vanilla Buttercream

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 tablespoon milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2-3 cups powdered sugar

1. Using an electric mixer, beat the butter at medium speed until creamy.
2. Add the milk, vanilla extract, and 2 cups of powdered sugar and beat at low speed, occasionally stopping to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl, until light and fluffy. Add more powdered sugar to arrive at the consistency and sweetness you like.

Assembly

1. Using a small pairing knife, cut out a circular cone from the top of the cupcake and slice off pointy end.
2. Fill the hole with caramel filling and replace the top.
3. Scoop ganache onto cupcake and smooth evenly with an icing spatula.
4. Refrigerate for about 10 minutes in order for the ganache to harden a bit.
5. Pipe vanilla buttercream frosting onto cupcake and add extra toppings if desired. (I drizzled on some of the caramel filling, sprinkled on Valrhona chocolate shavings, and topped a few with pecan pieces.)

Peanut Butter Cup Cupcakes

Peanut Butter Filling

I had intended to use the peanut butter frosting as a filling, but the first frosting recipe I chose turned out rather thick (maybe because I used natural peanut butter for it). The recipe can be found here if you want to use it, but otherwise you can simply use the frosting recipe I later chose as a filling instead.

Peanut Butter Frosting

• 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 cup creamy peanut butter
• 2 cup powdered sugar
• 1/2 cup heavy cream

1. Sift the powdered sugar into a small bowl and set aside.
2. In an electric mixer at medium-low speed, combine butter, peanut butter, and sugar until well blended.
3. Add heavy cream and increase speed to high until frosting looks light and fluffy

Assembly

1. Using a small pairing knife, cut out a circular cone from the top of the cupcake and slice off pointy end.
2. Fill the hole with peanut butter frosting and replace the top.
3. Scoop ganache onto cupcake and smooth evenly with an icing spatula.
4. Refrigerate for about 10 minutes in order for the ganache to harden.
5. Pipe peanut butter frosting onto cupcake and add extra toppings if desired. (I drizzled on some melted semi-sweet chocolate and sprinkled on pieces of chopped up Reese’s peanut butter cups)

Recipe resources:

Dark Chocolate Cupcakes: smcgee’s cupcakes

Chocolate Ganache: Cupcake Project

Vanilla Buttercream: Cupcake Bakeshop

Peanut Butter Filling: Eggs on Sunday (It’s their frosting recipe)

Peanut Butter Frosting: Slashfood

All gone!