Very Vanilla-y Cupcakes

Early this month when I was reading the new Master Baker ingredient, I was pleased to see it was vanilla!  Earlier this month I bought a bunch of organic vanilla beans and they have been “burning a hole in my pocket cabinet”.  When I was grocery shopping this weekend I noticed how yummy the strawberries looked, and they were on sale, so I had to get a carton.  After much looking online, I think I have found the perfect recipes.

Coconut & Lime’s husband made her the most delicious looking cupcakes for her birthday 2 years ago.   She said they were very vanilla-y so I knew I need to try them.

In this recipe the vanilla beans had to sit in the warmed milk for an hour.  Since I didn’t want to be making these cupcakes at 8:00 p.m., I decided to start the warm milk mixture at lunch and I just put it in the fridge to futher saturate the milk with vanilla flavor.  (Here’s the milk mixture as I added the last piece of vanilla)

I looove cooking with whole vanilla beans now.  The little specks in the batter are so fun!

I asked my jknottie friends if they knew of a good vanilla frosting recipe and all hands pointed to Alanna’s vanilla frosting.  It didn’t call for much butter so my Paula Dean side came out, and I doubled the butter. 🙂

I also cut up the fresh strawberries mentioned earlier and folded them into the frosting.  These aren’t necessarily the prettiest cupcakes, but everything they lack in looks they make up for in flavor.

I looooved these cupcakes.  The strawberry flavor really balanced well with the vanilla flavor.  My friend Katy came over to get a few and she raved about them too.  She gave them an A.  She said she thought about giving me an A+, but I needed something to strive for next time. 🙂  I also brought the remaining ones up to work and it’s 10:00 a.m and there is only 1 left, I think that means they like them!

 Recipes after the break.

Cupcake Hero Entry!

For several months now (since December) cupcake-iter CB has been forcibly kindly urging me to enter Slush’s Cupcake Hero monthly blog event.  I’ve always thought it looked like fun, but we all know, my cupcakes skills aren’t the best.  But when I heard this month’s ingredient was MARSHMALLOW, I knew I had to make something.

So, without further adieu: Rocky Road Cupcakes…. Nina style

Since I cheated and used a box cake mix, I figured I should at least make some homemade marshmallows.  I also made something else very exciting with the marshmallows, I’ll post about that tomorrow though.

 Marshmallows are sooooo easy to make.  The homemade version are also about 1,864 times better than the store bought variety.  As long as you have a mixer, it’s a piece of cake marshmallow.  🙂

Homemade Marshmallows

.75-oz unflavored gelatin (3 envelopes of Knox gelatin)
1/2 cup cold water
2 cups granulated sugar
2/3 cups light corn syrup
1/4 cup water
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Line 9 x 9-inch pan with plastic wrap and lightly oil it. Set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, sprinkle gelatin over 1/2 cup cold water. Soak for about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, combine sugar, corn syrup and 1/4 cup water in a small saucepan. Bring the mixture to a rapid boil and boil hard for 1 minute.

Pour the boiling syrup into soaked gelatin and turn on the mixer, using the whisk attachment, to high speed. Add the salt and beat for 12 minutes.

After 12 minutes, add in the vanilla extract beat to incorporate.Scrape marshmallow into the prepared pan and spread evenly (Lightly greasing your hands and the spatula helps a lot here). Take another piece of lightly oiled plastic wrap and press lightly on top of the marshmallow, creating a seal.

Let mixture sit for a few hours, or overnight, until cooled and firmly set.In a shallow dish, combine equal parts cornstarch and confectioners’ sugar.

Remove marshmallow from pan and cut into equal pieces with scissors (the best tool for the job) or a chef’s knife. Dredge each piece of marshmallow in confectioners’ sugar mixture. Store in an airtight container.

Now for the Cupcake Recipe:

Rocky Road Cupcakes… Nina Style

1 box Devil’s Food Cake cake mix (plus all the ingredients needed eggs, oil, water, etc.)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts + enough to decorate cupcakes with
1/2 cup crushed pretzels (leave in big chunks)+ enough to decorate cupcakes with
1/2 cup milk chocolate chips+ enough to decorate cupcakes with
1/2 cup marshmallows + enough to decorate cupcakes with

Mix the cupcake batter per the directions on the back of the cake mix box. (I like to use unsweetened applesauce instead of oil when making cake mixes. It’s healthier and the applesauce makes the cake much moister. Then add the remaining ingredients and stir until mixed.

Bake as directed on the box.

When cupcakes cool, top with chocolate icing, marshmallows, walnuts, pretzels, and chocolate chips

You may be wondering why this recipe calls for pretzels.  Well, when I started thinking what Rocky Road ice-cream/fudge contains I started thinking marshmallows (duh), and milk chocolate, walnuts, and something salty it must be pretzels!  When I made my cupcakes, my dear friend Kris started to question why I was putting pretzels in the batter.  She informed me that Rocky Road does not have pretzels in it at all… oops.  Thus, they are now dubbed Rocky Road Cupcakes… Nina Style. 😀

5,000!

As I sleepily rubbed my eyes this morning when I got to work, I couldn’t believe I had finally reached this milestone!  5,000 hits on myblog!  When I started this blog in October thinking this would just be a place to keep my recipes and pictures in order.  In November, I started to become curious how many people were actually reading my blog, so I moved to WordPress near the end of the month.  Here we are 3 short months later and I’ve had 5,000 hits!  So either I have a faithful following or my mom and grandma just click on my blog 100 times a day :).

 So in order to celebrate the lovely 5,000 milestone I am picking 1 lovely reader to send a goody bag/box/envelope/something too.  I haven’t decided exactly what it will contain, but it’ll be great!  It’ll be like a grab bag that I so fondly remember from childhood.

Leave a comment to be entered in the drawing.  Deadline is February 28, 2008 at 5:00 Central Standard Time.  (While I would love to ship this to anybody, I am only able to afford shipping in the US, unless you would like to send me money for shipping. 🙂 )