Tuesday, December 10, 2023

Baby Cakes – Extra Special Cupcakes

fudgycupcakes

Fudgy Cupcakes

Baby Cakes are cupcakes designed for dessert.  Emphasis is on taste, not design and fancy decorations are not necessary though they should be attractive enough to serve at a dinner party. We first made these from scratch, little chocolate cupcakes with coconut added and served in a caramel sauce.  The recipe follows.  But a mix is quicker and easier.  We used a Fudgy Baby Cakes Mix.  Instead of making the caramel sauce from scratch, we used a buttermilk syrup mix.  My interpretation of buttermilk syrup is “butterscotch and caramel combined.”

 

 

Chocolate Coconut Baby Cakes (Mixes)

  1. Mix a Fudgy Baby Cakes mix and      make cupcakes per the package instructions but add 3/4 cup shredded      coconut.  There are chocolate pieces in the mix and the combination      will be a deep chocolate and coconut combination.
  2. Make a batch of buttermilk      syrup.  We added coconut flavor to make a coconut buttermilk syrup but the dessert is      great without doing so. A teaspoon and a half of coconut flavor is about      right.
  3. After the cupcakes are baked,      remove the paper liners and place one cupcake on each dessert plate.       Pour warm buttermilk syrup over the cupcakes and top with dollops of      whipped cream.  Serve while the syrup is still warm and before the      whipped cream melts.

 

Chocolate Coconut Baby Cakes (Scratch)

This is straightforward to prepare and fancy enough to serve to guests.

 

 

For the cakes:

1 cup butter
4 ounces unsweetened baking chocolate
1 1/2 cup sugar
3 large eggs
2/3 cup milk
1/2 tablespoon baking powder
1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cup flaked sweetened coconut

 

 

Prepare baking cups by greasing well and flouring the bottoms or use paper liners.  A jumbo muffin pan works well.  We sell paper liners for jumbo muffins pans.

 

 

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

1. In a large mixing bowl, melt the butter and chocolate together in a microwave stirring once or twice.
2. Stir in the sugar until it is dissolved.  Then stir in the eggs one at a time.  Add the milk.
3. Stir in the baking powder and flour.  Finally, fold in the coconut.
4. Spoon the batter in the prepared cups.
5. Bake for 23 to 28 minutes depending on the size of the baking cups.  A toothpick inserted in the center of the cake should come out clean when done.  Cool on wire racks.

Serve with Caramel Sauce.

 

 

Caramel Sauce

1 12-ounce can of evaporated milk
1 1/4 cup brown sugar
6 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

 

 

Mix all the ingredients except the extract in a heavy saucepan.  Heat over medium heat, stirring often, until the mixture boils.  Gently boil for eight to ten minutes or until the mixture thickens.  Remove from the heat and stir in the extract.  Cool until the sauce thickens to serving consistency.

Tuesday, December 10, 2023

Vanilla Bean Cakes

Vanilla Bean Cakes

Guest Author, Dennis Weaver from The Prepared Pantry

Every day is bake day at The Pantry.   We bake, we test, and we share the good stuff with our customers in the store.

 

Last Friday and Saturday, we made cakes using our Vanilla Bean Baby Cakes mixes and then topped them with fresh or frozen fruit, sauces, and flavored whipped cream.   When we got them right, they were luscious.

 

The Vanilla Bean Baby Cakes mixes are cream cake mixes, denser and moister than the fluffy mixes from the store.  They are about half way between the fluffy mixes and a pound cake.  With more substance, we think they are more suited for these desserts.

 

Get your vanilla bean cake mixes here

 

Raspberry/Lemon Vanilla Bean Cake

Raspberry/Blackberry Vanilla Bean Cake

 

 

Lemon and raspberry is a great combination.  We made the lemon sauce from a mix and then added raspberries.  We concluded it was better not to mix them, rather, pour the lemon sauce over the cake and add the berries.

 

We tried several flavors of whipped cream.  We liked the lemon cloud whipped cream the best.

 

Step 1:  Make the cake according to package instructions.

 

Step 2: Make the lemon sauce according to package instructions.

 

Step 3: Make the lemon whipped cream according to the recipe below.

 

Assemble the dessert.

 

Vanilla Bean Cake with a Blueberry Lemon Sauce

Vanilla Bean Cake with a Blueberry Lemon Sauce

Lemon and blueberry is a classic combination. We liked the berries mixed right in the lemon sauce. It made a beautiful pink and magenta sauce. 
The lemon cloud whipped cream was really the only choice for this dessert. 
Step 1: Make the cake according to package instructions. 
Step 2: Make the lemon sauce according to package instructions. 
Step 3: Make the lemon whipped cream according to the recipe below. 
Assemble the dessert