Basil Infused Olive Oil Cupcakes with White Wine

Sometimes I get tired of my star tip (the one I use to pipe big cupcake swirls). So, I pick a random tip from my set and see what I can come up with. For these cupcakes, I used Wilton tip 352 and piped a loose spiral with lots of lines criss-crossing over it. I think it's a keeper!

Note: If you click the link to my tip set above, you'll see that it doesn't have 352 in it. I have no idea how I got 352, but it must have gotten mixed in with the others.

Let's Talk About the Cupcake

These cupcakes are not my first ones made using olive oil and I wouldn't even say that they are the best (my olive oil cupcakes with lemon, thyme, and balsamic whipped cream are some of my favorite cupcakes ever). However, this is the first time that I used olive oil in the frosting. I made a basic buttercream frosting and used olive oil instead of milk. The olive oil makes you pucker just a little bit (especially if you use a bold, fruity olive oil). If you like the taste of olive oil, you'll enjoy the effect, although you may wish that it were even stronger (remedy this by drizzling some olive oil over the frosted cupcakes).

I Thought You Said We Were Going to Talk About the Cupcake, Not the Frosting

Ah, yes. The cupcakes. These cupcakes are also not my first cupcakes made with basil (I made vegan chocolate basil cupcakes). However, without the chocolate flavor to serve as a distraction, the basil flavor truly shines here. The basil makes the cupcakes feel light and Springy (as opposed to all the snow we've been getting here in St. Louis), but I will warn you that the cake is quite dense.

My neighbor tasted tasted these for me. She said that she didn't like the first bite because it was too unexpected, but that she enjoyed each subsequent bite more and more and was in love with the cupcake by the last bite.

Olive Oil Cupcake Recipe

Yield: 10 cupcakes

• 1 C extra virgin olive oil
  
• 2 oz fresh sweet basil leaves
• 2 C all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 t baking powder
• Pinch of salt
• 1 C granulated sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 1/2 C sweet white wine
  

1. Soak basil leaves in the olive oil for at least an hour. You can also muddle them to help release the basil's natural oils.
   
2. Pour oil through a sieve to remove the basil. Squeeze out as much oil as you can. No matter how hard you try, some will remain on the leaves. It's OK. You only need to end up with 2/3 cup of oil.
   
3. Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt into a large bowl.
4. In a mixing bowl, combine sugar and olive oil and mix on high speed until completely combined.
5. Beat in eggs, one at a time.
   
6. Add 1/3 of the flour mixture and mix on slow speed.
7. Add half of the wine and continue mixing.
8. Add another 1/3 of the flour mixture, followed by the rest of the wine and the remaining flour mixture and beat until combined between each addition.
9. Fill cupcake liners 3/4 full.
10. Bake at 350 F for 25 minutes or until they bounce back when touched.

Olive Oil Buttercream Recipe

• 1 1/2 C confectioners' sugar (add more until it reaches your preferred consistency)
• 1/2 C unsalted butter, room temperature
• 2 T olive oil

1. Mix together sugar and butter until they are blended and creamy.
2. Add olive oil and continue to beat for another minute.
   
3. Add more confectioners' sugar to make the frosting stiffer, if desired.

Cupcake Hero

I made these cupcakes for February's Cupcake Hero! I'm looking forward to seeing all of the other olive oil entries!

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Digital Kitchen Scale Giveaway - Guess the Weight

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages*, step right up and guess the weight of this piece of chocolate for a chance to win an EatSmart Precision Pro - Multifunction Digital Kitchen Scale.

Leave a comment by 11:59 PM CST on Tuesday, February 9 with your email address and a guess (you can guess in grams, ounces, pounds, or kilograms). The closest guess wins! If more than one person guesses correctly, I will randomly select the winner from everyone who guessed correctly.

More About The EatSmart Precision Pro - Multifunction Digital Kitchen

Judging by the Guidebook to Calorie Counting that came with the EatSmart Precision Pro - Multifunction Digital Kitchen Scale that I was sent for review, most people use their digital scales for counting calories. Not me! A cupcake blogger counting calories would be like a marathon runner counting each step - it's best not to think about it.

I most often use my kitchen scale for CHOCOLATE! I buy baking chocolate in large blocks, chop off the amount I need with my chocolate chipper (one of my favorite kitchen tools) and use my scale to weigh out the quantity that I need.

My second favorite use of my kitchen scale has nothing to do with the kitchen. I use it to weigh letters so that I know how much postage to use - it's really handy.

Like your bathroom scale, the main point of your kitchen scale is to weigh something accurately; everything else is just bells and whistles. Here are the bells and whistles that make the Precision Pro a nice choice:

1. It can weigh up to 11 pounds.
   
2. It's precise to .05 ounce / 1 gram increments.
3. It measures in four different units: grams / ounces / pounds / kilograms.
4. It has a tare (most digital scales do - don't get one without it). This lets you set the weight of a container to zero so that you can measure only the weight of its contents.

*One guess per person + sorry, but EatSmart is only able to ship to a US winner.

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The Ultimate Truffle Cupcake

The Ultimate Truffle Cupcake experience begins with the smell - as the cupcake comes close to your sniffer, a waft of truffle - the fungi kind - hits you hard (Yes, I called it a sniffer; I have a five month old.). You begin to wonder, "Is this a dessert or an Italian entree?" As you take a bite, you reach the rich dark chocolate first. The truffle flavor isn't quite as strong as you would have guessed. Then, the cake itself makes you pause. You realize that while it's a chocolate cake, it's clearly sweetened with honey. It starts to feel like comfort food. But, wait... there is that truffle flavor making it different than anything you've ever tasted before. Did you save the chocolate truffle on top as a chaser? It's not in a box, so you don't know what the flavor is. Here goes nothing... oh yeah!!

The Ultimate Chocolate Truffle Cupcake Recipe

Makes 16 cupcakes

Cake Ingredients

• 1 T apple cider vinegar
  
• 1 1/2 C milk (any kind will work - I used soy)
  
• 2 C flour
• 1 1/4 C sugar
• 1/2 t baking soda
• 1/2 t salt
• 1/4 C white truffle oil
• 1/4 C vegetable oil
• 1/4 C truffle honey

Ganache Ingredients

• 5 oz dark chocolate
• 1/2 C heavy whipping cream
• 1/4 C truffle honey

Optional Toppers

• 2 oz white chocolate
• Chocolate truffles (I used Vosges truffles)
  

Steps

1. Mix apple cider vinegar and milk in a medium-sized bowl. Let sit for five minutes. (This causes it to act like buttermilk.)
   
2. Whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl.
3. Add the truffle oil, vegetable oil, and honey to the apple cider vinegar/milk mixture.
   
4. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir well.
5. For the ganache, mix the truffle honey and heavy whipping cream in a small bowl.
6. Melt the chocolate on the stove or in the microwave.
7. Pour the melted chocolate over the truffle honey/heavy whipping cream and mix well.
8. Mix 1/4 cup of the ganche into the cupcake batter.
9. Fill cupcake liners 3/4 full.
10. Bake at 350 F or until the cupcakes bounce back when touched lightly.
11. When the cupcakes are cool, frost with the remaining ganache. The easiest technique for this is to dunk the top of the cupcake into the bowl of ganache and to twist your wrist slightly as you pull the cupcake out of the bowl. If necessary, microwave the ganache for about 20 seconds to make it easier to work with.
12. Optionally, drizzle some melted white chocolate on top of the dark chocolate and top with a chocolate truffle.

More Photos

Sometimes it's too hard to pick a favorite photo, so here are some more!

Cupcake Project newbies may not realize that all of the photos here are taken by my Valentine, Jonathan. To see more of his work and/or find out about booking him for your wedding photos (he is willing to travel), family photos (for those in St. Louis), corporate photos, or to take artistic photos of your dinner, become a fan of J. Pollack Photography on Facebook. Be sure to tell him I sent you!

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Vosges Chocolate Truffles

The other day, I participated in a hamburger tasting (Andrew Mark Veety's quest to find the best hamburger in St. Louis). One of the tasters was Riverfront Times blogger Kelli Best-Oliver. In writing up the event, she described her perfect restaurant hamburger: "Basically, I want restaurants to make the burger I make at home better than me." If I took this description and applied it to truffles, my perfect truffle would be a Vosges chocolate truffle. While I don't often make truffles at home (OK - I've only made homemade truffles once), Vosges does truffles the way that I would make them myself, only better.

Like my experimental cupcakes, Vosges makes truffles that push the envelope of what you'd expect to find in a dessert.


Vosges sent me their Sweet Coquette Collection for review. In Vosges's own words, "The Sweet Coquette Collection uses chocolate as the medium for illustrating an array of famed aphrodisiacs that drew their histories from various parts of the world." The collection contains truffles with Chinese star anise, rose water, pistachios, oysters, champagne, mamajuana (I had never heard of this drink from the Dominican Republic - it's now on my tasting list), chilies, and more. While you may not like them all, this is definitely the Valentine's Day truffle collection for the adventurous eater.

Do the Vosges Truffles Work as an Aphrodisiac?

;)

Yes, There is a Cupcake Tie-In

Coming up next, you'll see my Ultimate Truffle Cupcakes. The cupcakes feature both these chocolate truffles and truffle honey.

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Truffle Honey for Your Honey

Chocolate truffles in a heart-shaped box are a Valentine's Day staple. In fact, I'll be telling you about some of my favorite chocolate truffles in my next post. However, if you are looking for something different for your honey this Valentine's Day, consider the other variety of truffle - fungi! Specifically, I recommend getting your sweet thing a jar of truffle honey.

I first experienced truffle honey during a trip to a local restaurant, FIVE Bistro. FIVE serves truffle honey with its cheese plates; that in itself is a reason to go to there. The salty cheese dunked in sweet honey with the distinctive musky taste of truffle is a must try!

I will warn you that truffles are an acquired taste. On the same night that I discovered truffle honey, several of my dining companions were disgusted by it. I could barely come down from my place in heaven to hear their complaints, but it wouldn't be nice of me to not warn you that truffle honey isn't for everyone.

Where Can I Buy Truffle Honey?

Back in June, I first met (online) Justin from Marx Foods. He wanted me to review Marx's palm leaf plates (I loved them). When I was browsing Marx's site, I discovered that they sold truffle honey. I immediately began hinting strongly that while the plates were nice, what I really wanted to review was the truffle honey. Seven months later, Justin sent me some. Woohoo!

The truffle honey from Marx Foods was dreamy. Of course, I used some in a cupcake, but I saved enough to eat with bread and cheese and I licked every last morsel of truffle honey out of my measuring cup. The honey costs $31.50, which is less than a box of chocolate truffles might cost.

Give it a try!

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Lamington Cupcakes - Cupcake Cubes Frosted on All Sides

"Think Lamingtons," said Peter of Delicious Delicious Delicious at the conclusion of an email he sent urging me to enter his blog contest, Re-inventing the Lamington. Before I could re-invent the Lamington, I had to find out just what a Lamington was!

What are Lamingtons?

If you are in Austrialia or New Zealand, you probably find it funny that I need to ask what Lamingtons are. In Australia, there is even a National Lamington Day, which falls on July 21.

Lamingtons are a sponge cake or butter cake cut into cubes, dipped in chocolate, and then dipped in dessicated coconut (read more in the Lamington Wikipedia article). Sounded good to me!

How Did I Re-invent the Lamington?

In Peter's Re-inventing the Lamington contest, he challenged participants to come up with a recipe for Lamingtons with a difference. After reading numerous articles on Lamingtons, I learned that one of the more difficult parts of Lamington making is that cutting the cake into cubes may produce lots of crumbs. The crumbs end up gunking up the frosting.

I decided that instead of baking a cake and cutting it into cubes, I would start with cubes and make Lamington cupcakes! I purchased square silcone cupcake liners from Wilton (if you are in St. Louis, you can pick some up at Kitchen Conservatory). The neat thing about using silicone is that the cupcakes easily come in and out of the liners. I was able to remove the cupcakes, frost on all sides, and then put them back in their liners. As you can see above, when the cupcakes were returned to the liners, no one would ever know that they were frosted on all sides. The tasters found a happy surprise of frosting on each side of the cube!

Another (less exciting) change that I made was to decorate half of the cupcakes with coconut and the other half with white sprinkles. Bride and Groom 3.o don't like coconut, but they do like sprinkles!

How to Make Lamington Cupcakes

I got the recipe for the Lamingtons from allrecipes. I am reprinting it below with changes to make it into cupcakes and changes to the frosting to make it a bit less thick and a bit less sweet.

Note: Bake the Lamington cupcakes a day before you want to serve them. The cake needs to sit out overnight to get a bit stale before it is frosted. Trust me - you'll like the stale cake. Frosting it on all sides moistens it up.

Makes 12 cupcakes

For the cupcakes:

• 1/2 C unsalted butter
• 3/4 C white sugar
• 1 t vanilla extract (I used vanilla bean paste)
• 2 eggs
• 2 C all-purpose flour
• 4 t baking powder
• 1/8 t salt
• 1/2 C milk

1. Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter, sugar, and vanilla until light and fluffy.
3. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well with each addition.
4. Add the flour mixture alternately with the milk; beat well.
5. Set silicone cupcake liners on a baking sheet and fill them 3/4 full.
   
6. Bake at 350 F for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean.
7. Leave out uncovered overnight.
   

For the frosting:

• 3 C confectioners' sugar
• 1/3 C unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 T unsalted butter, melted
• 1 C heavy whipping cream
  

1. In a large bowl, combine confectioners' sugar and cocoa.
   
2. In a saucepan, heat heavy whipping cream and butter until the butter is melted.
3. Add the hot mixture to the sugar mixture and mix well to create a fluid, but not too runny, frosting.
   

Putting it together:

• 1 (8 ounce) package flaked coconut or a lot of white sprinkles or anything else fun that you can think of to decorate with (pink sugar hearts for Valentine's day, green shamrocks for St. Patty's day, etc.)

1. Place your topping into a small shallow bowl.
2. Remove cupcakes from liners.
3. Using a fork or a long toothpick or your fingers (if you've cleaned them well, are willing to get messy, and are able to resist the urge to lick them) dip each cube into the icing, then roll it in the topping.
4. Return the cube to its silicone liner. Continue for each piece.
   

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Volcano Cake - Cupcake Style

My quest to take volcano cake and turn it into volcano cupcakes began when my Twitter (and real life) friend Linda from Free Range Cookies (home of some of the best gluten-free baked goods in St. Louis) asked the following:

Truth be told, I had never heard of volcano cake or volcano cupcakes. But, I got excited about the idea!

I found the video below about volcano cake on YouTube and thought that volcano cupcakes would make the most awesome party cupcakes ever!!

But, being me, I decided to do things a bit differently. I saw a recipe for plum upside down cake on Simply Recipes and it occurred to me that the plums strongly resembled molten lava (if you use your imagination). So, instead of a plain white cake with chocolate frosting, I decided that I would use plum upside down cupcakes as my volcano cupcakes. I was happy with this choice. Not only did the upside down cupcakes look like little volcanoes, but they also tasted better than your average volcano.

Unfortunately, I was not thrilled with the eruption part of my volcano cupcakes. There were two problems that I faced:

1. When you make a volcano cake, as shown in the video above, you embed a glass in the cake to contain the dry ice and liquid. I did not have any glass small enough to embed in a cupcake. I tried lining the hollowed out cupcake center with foil and plastic wrap, but I was not able to keep the liquid from being absorbed into the cake.
2. I was unable to get a really big and dramatic eruption. I could only achieve small puffs of smoke. Lots of dry ice = big eruption. Tiny pieces of dry ice = tiny eruption.
   

Please share in the comments any suggestions that you have for how to solve these quandaries. I'd love to hear your thoughts and successes.

In the meantime, I will share with you the method that worked best for me. Even though I wasn't thrilled with the results, I still think it could be fun for a party. But, really, I think anything involving dry ice is fun (except for touching it!).

How to Make Volcano Cupcakes

1. Make the upside down cupcakes:

As I mentioned above, I used Simply Recipe's plum upside down cake recipe for the cupcakes. I have reprinted the recipe below (I modified it slightly to turn it into cupcakes).

Makes 24 cupcakes

• 1 1/2 C unsalted butter (3 sticks), room temperature
• 3/4 C brown sugar, firmly packed
• 4 plums, pitted and sliced
• 1 C buttermilk
• 2 1/4 C cake flour
• 1 1/2 t baking powder
• 1/2 t baking soda
• 1 t cinnamon
• pinch salt
• 1 1/2 C granulated sugar
• Zest of 1 orange
• 3 eggs
• 3 t vanilla extract
  

1. Melt 3/4 cup of the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat.
   
2. Add brown sugar and whisk until smooth.
   
3. Line two cupcake tins with cupcake liners. Pour the mixture into the liners, dividing the sugar/butter sauce evenly among them.
   
4. Arrange a layer of plum slices on top of the mixture as shown in the photo above.
5. In a medium-sized bowl, sift together the cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt.
6. Use an electric mixer to beat together the remaining 3/4 cup butter with the granulated sugar and orange zest.
   
7. Add the eggs and vanilla, mix to combine.
   
8. Alternately add the dry flour mixture and the buttermilk to the batter.
9. Divide the batter among the cupcake liners.
   
10. Bake at 350 F for 25 minutes, until cupcakes are firm to the touch, and a toothpick or skewer inserted in the center does not come out with raw batter on it. (Might be wet from plum juice.)
11. Remove from oven and let cool on a rack until no longer hot to the touch.
12. Unwrap the cupcakes and turn them upside down.
    

2. Acquire dry ice:

The difficult part about this step is finding dry ice. Some ice cream shops keep dry ice on hand and may be willing to sell it to you with or without the purchase of ice cream. I was able to find (after my husband made a bunch of phone calls) a local dry ice supplier, Arctic Ice. They were super nice and even chopped the ice for me so I wouldn't need a hammer (like the folks in the video).

Store your dry ice in a cooler, not in the freezer (the guy at Arctic Ice said the freezer is the worst place for dry ice) and use it within 24 hours.

3. Prepare the cupcakes:

I chose to put my cupcakes on that cheesy fake grass stuff that you find on patios. You can buy a few feet of it really cheaply at Home Depot or Lowes. If you are having a party, you might consider using the fake grass as your tablecloth!

I put some graham crackers around the volcanoes to act as rocks. You can buy them or make homemade graham crackers.

Make a hole in the middle of each cupcake that goes almost all the way to the bottom.

Line the holes with something that will keep the liquid from getting into the cake. As I mentioned above, I tried foil and plastic wrap and neither worked very well; maybe you have a better idea.

4. Drop in a small piece of dry ice:

Drop a small piece of dry ice into each of the holes. Make sure that you press it down to the bottom of the hole. Be careful not to touch the dry ice!

5. Create the poof:

Mix a little bit of red food coloring in with some boiling water and drop a few spoonfuls of the mixture onto the dry ice. Poof - eruption! Again, I warn you, it's not the most dramatic Hollywood effect. But, you guys are smart. I bet you can play with it and make these the most awesome party cupcakes ever!

Parting Photo

I leave you with a photo of Jonathan and me in front of the only active volcano I've ever seen, Tungurahua. It's one of my favorite photos from our honeymoon in Ecuador.

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New Cupcake Project Cupcakes on Paula Deen - Hot Buttered Rum Mugcakes and Eggnog Bread Pudding Cupcakes

If you haven't been over to Paula Deen's site recently, what are you waiting for? There are two new Cupcake Project cupcakes that can only be found there - Hot Buttered Rum Mugcakes and Eggnog Bread Pudding Cupcakes.

Happy Baking!

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