SMS: Devil's Food Cake (Cupcakes) with Peanut Butter Frosting

Happy October to all! This is one of our favorite months around our house - Fall is in full swing, Cole has just had his birthday (turned 2) and as far as Aidan is concerned the entire month should be all about Halloween. The fact that is was Cole's birthday is the reason I chose the Devil's Food Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting for my recipe choice for Sweet Melissa Sundays!

I made a scaled down version of the recipe to come up with 12 cupcakes - mainly just because since we were doing Cole's birthday celebration with just the four of us, there was really no reason to have a full sized big cake. I hadn't really read the recipe all the way through when I made the selection and hadn't realized first, what a big cake it would make, and second, the incredible amount of butter called for to make the peanut butter frosting (which was really much more of a buttercream frosting with a light peanut butter flavor). I know that some SMS Bakers scaled down the amount of butter significantly and increased the peanut butter flavor - personally, I felt I should try to stay as close to the original as possible, for the sake of trying it first, but in the future I will definitely increase the amount of peanut butter since the flavor was very subtle and I would have liked it even more featured just a bit more prominently.

All that said, the birthday boy, his big brother, and his papa and myself, were all very happy with these cupcakes and really enjoyed them. Perhaps my favorite thing about them was the fact that they were even better the next (and the next) day - which is how long it took us to work through our dozen cupcakes. I hate to admit that most of that dozen was still eaten by me!

While I have managed to make a couple of the recipes for Sweet Melissa Sundays since this crazy thing called pregnancy started back in June, I swear, managing to post anything has been a bit ridiculous around here. I'm not entirely sure why, and I'm going to attempt to do better since I am getting more and more (and more behind)! Present count is that I have at least 16 items ready to write up and post, pictures and all - but can't seem to get my act together. So, my point is, I wanted to send out an extra huge thank you to the other SMS Bakers for baking with me this week and for continuing to stop by during my craziness and to all my loyal readers for visiting when I do get my rear in gear, so to speak.

I have included the original recipe below, but if anyone is interested, I did keep track of the conversions I actually used to take the recipe down to a dozen cupcakes (the math was a bit crazy) and can share that recipe as well.

Devil’s Food Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting

from The Sweet Melissa Baking Book

Makes one 9” cake

For the Cake:
6 oz best-quality unsweetened chocolate, coarsely shopped
2/3 cup vegetable or canola oil
2 2/3 cup sugar
1 2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup best-quality unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
¾ tsp kosher salt
2/3 cup sour cream
3 large eggs
1 1/3 cups hot strong brewed coffee (I just used hot water)

For the Peanut Butter Frosting:

1 pound confectioner’s sugar, sifted
1 ½ pounds unsalted butter, softened
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
3 Tbsp whole milk
½ cup smooth peanut butter, at room temperature

Position a rack in the center of your oven. Preheat the oven to 350. Butter and flour two 9×2-inch round cake pans, Line each pan with a 9-inch round of parchment paper.

To Make the Cake
1. In the top of a double boiler set over simmering, not boiling, water, melt the chocolate, stirring occasionally. When the chocolate is completely melted, whicsk in the vegetableoil until smooth. Remove from the heat, but keep warm over the hot water.

2. In the bowl, of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt, and mix well.

3. In a separate bowl, whisk together the sour cream and eggs until smooth.

4. Add the egg mixture to the flour mixture, and mix until combined. Be sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the melted chocolate mixture and mix until combined. add the hot coffee (or water) in a stream, and mix until combined. (Again, scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl.) The batter will be loose.

5. Divide the batter evenly between the prepared cake pans. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, or until a wooden skewer inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove to a wire rack to cool in the pans for 25 minutes before turning out the layers onto the rack. Cool completely before finishing.

The baked layers may be stored tightly wrapped in plastic wrap at room temperature for 2 days. For longer storage, wrap tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for up to 5 days, or freeze wrapped in plastic wrap and them aluminum foil for up to 2 weeks. Do not unwrap before thawing.

To Make the Frosting
1. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the confectioner’s sugar, butter, vanilla, and milk, and beat until light and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes.

2. Add the peanut butter and mix until combined. Use the frosting immediately, if possible. It may be stored in an airtight container at room temperature overnight, or in the refrigerator for up to 4 days. Let the frosting come to room temperature and briefly rebeat it in the mixer before using.

Cake Slice Bakers: Mile-High Devil's Food with Brown Sugar Buttercream

I am back with The Cake Slice Bakers this month, after missing last month's challenge much to my dismay.  I wasn't missing this month since this recipe is one of the main reasons I bought Alisa Huntsman's (which, by the way, if you click on Alisa's name, you will go to her blog!) book, Sky High:  Irresistible Triple Layer Cakes.

Devil's Food cake may very well be my favorite - no surprise there since it is chocolate after all. What I truly love about this recipe though (and for that matter most of the recipes in the book) is that it is so unique to any other Devil's Food I've seen or made.

Most of the Devil's Food recipes I've seen use a combination of unsweetened cocoa and melted chocolate, which is truly rich and delicious, but always a bit overwhelming on my ingredients supplies and budgets.  It is awesome to have a beautiful cake, but when it wants to use my cocoa supply, and a good amount of my chocolate supply, it is a bit of a struggle to justify making it.

Happy Day After Devil's Food Cake Day!  Yes, it's true, May 19 was National Devil's Food Cake Day here in the U.S.!

So, in my opinion, the unique thing about this recipe is that it uses only unsweetened cocoa powder - a full cup of it.  Another thing that was different than a lot of recipes I've seen is that there was no buttermilk, or any milk for that matter.  Also, no granulated sugar.  The other really unique thing I found with this recipe is that it uses no white sugar, but it did put a large dent in my brown sugar supply!  In fact, the cake uses 3 cups of packed brown sugar!  Since I seriously loooooove brown sugar, this was fine by me!

The other portion of the dent in my brown sugar supply came from the buttercream, which got its slightly tawny, creamy white color from making a sugar syrup using 1 1/4 cups of light brown sugar and only a 1/4 cup of water.  It was a really lovely syrup too!  

To further gild the lily, I used some unsalted imported Irish butter in the buttercream that I had on hand for another project that I was planning (I can get more when I actually get around to it I guess) since all my other unsalted butter was still languishing in the freezer - poor planning on my part!

So, overall, the cake itself, funny enough, was rich, moist, chocolatey and absolutely delicious - when I ate a piece out the refrigerator it actually tasted just like a chocolate ice cream sandwich to me!  I know I will make this recipe many more times.

For my layer cake I used a 14-inch square pan and filled it with about just under 3/4 of the batter.  The remainder of the batter made 12 cupcakes for me, which are now in the freezer for some rainy day when I need a chocolate fix!  I cut the cooled large square into four smaller squares that I then stacked to make my layers.  It made one very tall and irresistible layer cake!

Make sure to check out all the other Devil's Food Cakes at The Cake Slice Bakers Blogroll!

Mile-High Devil’s Food Cake

From: Sky High: Irresistible Triple-Layer Cakes

By Alisa Huntsman and Peter Wynne

Makes an 8-inch triple layer cake:

• 1 cup of unsweetened cocoa NOT DUTCHED PROCESSED

• 1 and ¼ cups of hot water

• 3 cups of light brown sugar; packed

• 2 and 2/3 cups cake flour*

• 1 and ½ teaspoons baking soda

• ¾ teaspoon of salt

• 9 ounces of unsalted butter at room temperature [2 sticks plus 2 tablespoons]

• 3 large eggs

• 1 and ½ teaspoons of vanilla extract

• ¾ cup of cold water

{*1 cup of cake flour is equal to ¾ cup of flour plus 2 tablespoons of cornstarch}

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Butter the bottoms and sides of three 8-inch round cake pans. Line the bottoms of the pans with parchment paper and grease the paper as well.

Place the cocoa in a medium bowl and add the hot water. Whisk until smooth and let it cool to room temperature.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the sugar, flour, baking soda, and salt. With the mixer on low blend to combine. Add the butter and the dissolved cocoa. Then raise the mixer to medium speed and beat for 2 minutes until light and fluffy.

In a medium bowl whisk together the eggs, vanilla, and cold water until combined. Add this liquid to the batter in three additions scraping down the sides of the bowl between additions. Divide the batter among the three pans.

Bake for 35-45 minutes or until a cakes tester inserted into the almost comes out clean. There should be a few crumbs attached still. Cool the cakes in the pans for 15 minutes. Then invert and remove parchment paper and cool completely on a wire rack.

Bakers’ choice of: Brown Sugar 7-Minute Frosting or Brown Sugar Buttercream

Brown Sugar 7-Minute Frosting

• 6 egg whites

• 1 and ½ cups of brown sugar

• ¼ cup light corn syrup*

• 2 tablespoons of water

• ½ teaspoon of cream of tartar

{*corn syrup can be substituted with equal parts of treacle OR liquid glucose OR light colored honey}

Do not try to make this frosting on a rainy day or if you live in an extremely humid area. The humidity will make it impossible to work with the egg whites.

Place all the egg whites in a bowl and set them aside while you make the syrup.

In a small heavy saucepan, combine the brown sugar, corn syrup, and water. Bring to a boil over medium-low heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Continue to boil washing down the sides of the pan with a wet pastry brush. Boil until the syrup reaches 238 degrees F (softball stage) on a candy thermometer. Immediately remove from heat.

Add the cream of tartar to the egg whites in the bowl and beat just to combine. With the mixer on medium speed gradually add the syrup in a thin stream taking care not to hit the beaters. Beat until fairly stiff peaks form but the frosting is still spreadable. If the frosting is too stiff it will be hard to work with. Use immediately.

Brown Sugar Buttercream

• 5 egg whites

• 1 and ¼ cups of packed brown sugar

• ¼ cup of water

• 1 pound of unsalted butter (16 ounces) at room temperature

Place all the egg whites in the bowl of an electric mixer; set aside.

In a heavy medium saucepan combine the sugar and water. Cook over medium heat stirring to dissolve the sugar. Then bring to a boil without stirring and cook until the syrup reaches 238 degrees F on a candy thermometer.

Begin beating the egg whites on medium low speed. Slowly pour in the syrup making sure not to hit the beater. Increase the mixer speed to medium high and beat until the meringue has cooled to body temperature.

With the mixer on med-low add 1-2 tablespoons of butter at a time. When all the butter has been added increase the mixer’s speed to medium and beat until the mixture looks curdled or separated. Continue to beat until the icing comes together again looking like soft smooth whipped butter.

Assembling the cake:

Place one layer flat side down and cover it with 2/3 cup of the frosting. Top with second layer and repeat process. Top with third layer and frost the sides of the cake.

Bakers Notes:

A cake topped with the meringue frosting is the best eaten the day it’s made. It does not do well in the fridge.

If you choose the buttercream frosting you can keep it in the fridge for 3 days. Make sure to allow the cake to come to room temperature for 1 to 1 ½ hours before slicing. Otherwise the frosting will be hard and heavy.

Daring Bakers in November - Caramel Cake

The Daring Bakers' Challenge for November was to recreate Shuna Fish Lydon's (of Eggbeater) signature caramel cake. I was really excited because I have been looking for a good recipe for a caramel frosting and cake. While I enjoyed making this (even the dangers of making the caramel syrup) I knew that, even though I do love my sugar, that this was going to be borderline too sweet for me. The cake was dense, moist and delicious and the frosting was creamy, buttery and had a wonderful caramel / vanilla taste to it. For the vanilla in my frosting I ended up using vanilla bean paste. Both were fantastic, but I think I would like the frosting on a dark chocolate cake or something to offset the sweetness instead.

Thanks go out to our hosts this month Dolores of Chronicles in Culinary Curiosity, Jenny of Foray into Food and Alex of Blondie and Brownie, as well as Shuna of Eggbeater for the recipe and support of the groups efforts with graciously allowing us to use her recipe and taking questions, and Natalie from Gluten-a-Go-Go for helping with all the alternative baking questions.

Check out the Daring Bakers blogroll to see all the amazing caramelized sugary goodness this month!

CARAMEL CAKE WITH CARAMELIZED BUTTER FROSTING

10 Tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature
1 1/4 Cups granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/3 Cup Caramel Syrup (see recipe below)
2 each eggs, at room temperature
splash vanilla extract
2 Cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup milk, at room temperature

Preheat oven to 350F

Butter one tall (2 – 2.5 inch deep) 9-inch cake pan.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream butter until smooth. Add sugar and salt & cream until light and fluffy.

Slowly pour room temperature caramel syrup into bowl. Scrape down bowl and increase speed. Add eggs/vanilla extract a little at a time, mixing well after each addition. Scrape down bowl again, beat mixture until light and uniform.

Sift flour and baking powder. Turn mixer to lowest speed, and add one third of the dry ingredients. When incorporated, add half of the milk, a little at a time. Add another third of the dry ingredients, then the other half of the milk and finish with the dry ingredients. {This is called the dry, wet, dry, wet, dry method in cake making. It is often employed when there is a high proportion of liquid in the batter.}

Take off mixer and by hand, use a spatula to do a few last folds, making sure batter is uniform. Turn batter into prepared cake pan.Place cake pan on cookie sheet or 1/2 sheet pan. Set first timer for 30 minutes, rotate pan and set timer for another 15-20 minutes. Your own oven will set the pace. Bake until sides pull away from the pan and skewer inserted in middle comes out clean. Cool cake completely before icing it. Cake will keep for three days outside of the refrigerator.

CARAMEL SYRUP

2 cups sugar
1/2 cup water
1 cup water (for "stopping" the caramelization process)

In a small stainless steel saucepan, with tall sides, mix water and sugar until mixture feels like wet sand. Brush down any stray sugar crystals with wet pastry brush. Turn on heat to highest flame. Cook until smoking slightly: dark amber.

When color is achieved, very carefully pour in one cup of water. Caramel will jump and sputter about! It is very dangerous, so have long sleeves on and be prepared to step back.Whisk over medium heat until it has reduced slightly and feels sticky between two fingers. {Obviously wait for it to cool on a spoon before touching it.}Note: For safety reasons, have ready a bowl of ice water to plunge your hands into if any caramel should land on your skin.

CARAMELIZED BUTTER FROSTING

12 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 pound confectioner’s sugar, sifted
4-6 tablespoons heavy cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2-4 tablespoons caramel syrup
Kosher or sea salt to taste

Cook butter until brown. Pour through a fine meshed sieve into a heatproof bowl, set aside to cool.

Pour cooled brown butter into mixer bowl.

In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle or whisk attachment, add confectioner's sugar a little at a time. When mixture looks too chunky to take any more, add a bit of cream and or caramel syrup. Repeat until mixture looks smooth and all confectioner's sugar has been incorporated. Add salt to taste.

Note: Caramelized butter frosting will keep in fridge for up to a month.To smooth out from cold, microwave a bit, then mix with paddle attachment until smooth and light

(recipes above courtesy of Shuna Fish Lydon)

CH: Chocolate Chipotle Cupcakes with Cherry Cocoa Buttercream

At first this cupcake was going to be a chocolate cupcake with a chipotle cherry ganache center, and while that sounded good... it also seemed fussy to me. I wanted something simple, but still fun and different.

Then, I couldn't decide on whether I wanted a buttercream frosting or a ganache frosting. The only thing I did know exactly was how I was going to incorporate the jalapeno into my cupcakes.

First off, as I am sure most of you know, a smoked jalapeno pepper is called a chipotle pepper. That is what I immediately knew I was going to use here. A while back I made some really terrific chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter truffles in them. For the cake in that recipe it called for hot coffee, since coffee boosts the flavor of chocolate. Well, I don't drink coffee, and had used just hot water (which was fine), but I had long been thinking about what else (besides coffee) I could use to boost the chocolate flavor.

That is where the chipotle came in. I saw absolutely no reason not to puree some chipotles into the water, strain it so that none of the texture got in there and all of the sweet, smokey heat and flavor did.

So, that brings us to these Chocolate Chipotle Cupcakes. I used only one chipotle pepper because I wanted both the flavor and heat to just be subtle and complimentary, but if you wanted to go big you could add more. For the frosting, to help balance out any heat, I decided that a nice light and simple buttercream was the way to go. So, I used my favorite simple buttercream recipe and modified it to give that two toned swirly effect I love so much.

The final creation is my entry for this month's one and only original single ingredient focused cupcake event in the food blogosphere - CUPCAKE HERO HeroHeroHero this month hosted by Rachel of Tangerine Tart and Teri of the 90/10 rule. This month's secret ingredient, in any form, was the jalapeno, so in my case, yup, you got it, the chipotle. Big thanks to Laurie for creating this event and to Rachel and Teri for a fun ingredient!

So, for the brave, here is my recipe for Chocolate Chipotle Cupcakes with Cherry Cocoa Buttercream! Incidentally, these pretties actually ended up at a friend's wedding shower and everyone loved them - we just didn't mention the secret ingredient! ;)

Chocolate Chipotle Cupcakes
(Adapted from 1942 Devil's Food Cake, Perfect Cakes, by Nick Malgieri)

3 ounces unsweetened chocolate
1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 Tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 6 pieces
3/4 cup boiling water
1 whole chipotle pepper (from can with adobo sauce)
1 1/2 cups sugar
6 tablespoons buttermilk
2 large eggs

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Melt the chocolate in a large heatproof bowl set over hot, but not simmering, water. Let cool.

Stir together the flour, baking soda, and salt in a bowl, mixing well.

Puree together the boiling water and chipotle pepper until liquid, strain into a clean bowl and set aside. (Try not to breath in the fumes because it has quite a kick).

Add the butter to the chocolate, then pour in the boiling water/chipotle mixture and stir well to mix. Whisk in the sugar and buttermilk. Stir in the flour mixture. Whisk in the eggs.

Pour the batter into the cupcake liners about half full (it is a relatively thin batter).

Bake for about 25 minutes, or until well risen and firm to the touch and a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely before frosting.

(Makes about 24 cupcakes, depending on how full you fill them - I ended up with 22)

Cherry Cocoa Buttercream
3 cups confectioners' sugar
1 cup butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 to 2 tablespoons whipping cream

1/2 cup cherry preserves, pureed til smooth
1/4 cup good quality unsweetened cocoa powder

In a standing mixer fitted with a whisk, mix together sugar and butter. Mix on low speed until well blended and then increase speed to medium and beat for another 3 minutes.

Add vanilla and 1 Tablespoon of the cream and continue to beat on medium speed for 1 minute more. Add the cherry preserves and whip 1 minute more. Add more powdered sugar or cream to get desired consistency (should be fairly thick).

Place 2/3 of the mixed frosting into a pastry back fitted with the desired tip, keeping the frosting to one side of the bag and leaving a gap down to the tip for the cocoa frosting. To the remaining 1/3 of frosting add the cocoa powder and enough cream to again get the desired consistency. Add to the other side of the bag and pipe as much as desired onto the tops of each cupcake.

Daring Bakers in July: Filbert Gateau with Praline Buttercream

Prepare yourself for one of the strangest analogies concerning baking that you may ever hear from me. Before I get to that though, let me take care of some formalities. This month's Daring Baker's Challenge put before us was chosen by Chris over at Mele Cotte (which is where you can find the recipe as well). I can completely see why she chose this cake because it looked fabulous - and thoroughly complicated. Many components, many skills needed. The end result - well, it really was nothing short of fantastic - and surprisingly different than the Opera Cake from May, which is the only other nut based cake I have made before. The flavors all blended and complimented each other perfectly and the texture was amazingly light and airy.

However, this recipe, in all of its 9 pages of printed glory, task after task and component after component, had me swearing up and down that this cake would most likely never be made by me again. This is the cake that took large portions of two whole days to make, we had to make a cake, a glaze, a ganache, a whipped cream, toast and skin the hazelnuts, make caramel, make nut brittle, make it into praline paste, make a swiss meringue buttercream, make a sugar syrup, torte the cake, use all of the above components to put it all together - along with appropriate waiting, cooling, chilling, wrapping, decorating, etc, etc.

Add on to that trying to make it in a strange kitchen with plenty of challenges (long story short - well, environmental conditions, unknown oven and wrong pan size all contributed to my cake basically falling apart - thus why the layers look so awful and crumbled!).

In other words this was basically a complete process in craziness to make. While I enjoyed the challenge - since I decided to make this at my parents place - they basically thought I was nuts. For two days I just heard "is it done yet?" "You still have to do what??"

So... the analogy that occurred to me as I sat tonight thinking about what I had to say about this cake? Well, it is no secret that pregnancy is not easy for me. I have long believed that women must have some switch in their brain that as soon as you get that sweet baby (or not too long there after) even though the pregnancy itself was (for me anyway) an awful, painful, life threatening experience that I didn't think I would ever be able to or want to repeat - then you find yourself thinking about going through it all over again, because the end result is so worthwhile.

So... while I don't think this cake is near as wonderful as my babies - and I know I couldn't go through making this cake often, its siren song is already calling to me to try again. It really was a delightful new experience to eat (if not entirely to make).

Make sure to check out the amazing creations of all the other Daring Bakers and their adventures.