Red Wine Chocolate Ganache - This May Be My Favorite Ganache Ever

I thought a red wine chocolate ganache could be good, but I had no idea just how good it would be.  After tasting my red wine chocolate ganache, I wanted to give myself a standing ovation.  This may be the best ganache that I have ever made.  It's intensely chocolaty and buttery smooth with a robust sweetness from the wine.
Try the red wine chocolate ganache on your cupcakes (any will do, but I'll tell you about my wine and cheese cupcakes in my next post) or make a big pot of red wine chocolate ganache to dip fruit or bread into at your next wine party.  Don't be surprised when people start bowing down to you and begging you to make it again.

Sweet Stands Giveaway

Update: This contest is over.  The winners are Trang from Lancaster, PA, Samantha Jo Jordan from Charlottesville, VA, and  Adrienne Rankin from Greenville, SC. Congrats!

Isn't it nice to be selfish sometimes?  There's no need to share your caramel cupcake - it's all for you!  Along the same line, have you ever considered the feelings of your cupcakes?  They are so often forced into crowded conditions, sharing tight living quarters with their peers on large stands.  With Sweet Stands, each of your empowered cupcakes can have a stand of its own.

Sweet Stands (featured in my yogurt and honey cupcake post) would be so cute at your next dinner party, and Hello Hannah (the maker of Sweet Stands) has offered to give three packages of Sweet Stands away to Cupcake Project readers!


How to Win

Yogurt and Honey Cupcakes - A Taste of Greece

Licking honey off of one's paws may be the best way to eat it (assuming you aren't being stung by bees).

But if you must pair it with something, yogurt is the way to go - specifically, thick, rich, tart Greek yogurt.

I first discovered yogurt and honey in Greece.  In college, I had the good fortune to be able to attend Semester at Sea (a floating campus that travels around the world).  One of our stops was Greece.  While I don't remember every meal of my journey, I do clearly remember sitting at a cafe in Athens writing in my journal and eating yogurt and honey.  That meal sticks out in my mind not only because of the comforting sweet, smoothness of it, but because I was spending the day by myself; it was one of the few times that I have spent a whole day by myself in a foreign country.  To this day, yogurt and honey makes me feel independent and free. [Lie Detector: I wasn't by myself the whole day.  I actually ran into someone that I knew from the ship and ended up sharing lunch with him.]

A few days ago, I received a complimentary case of Greek yogurt from Voskos.  Not surprisingly, the flavor that I was the most excited about was this one:

Random fact: One of Cupcake Project's Facebook fans,
Sara Vogt, says that she uses this yogurt as a face mask.

I was worried that the honey yogurt might be too sweet (I hesitate to say it, but there is such a thing as too much honey).  It was not too sweet.  The honey yogurt was just as I would make it for myself - minus the dripping honey mess that always ends up all over my counter and sometimes makes its way onto my keyboard.  The Voskos Greek honey yogurt got me thinking about making a yogurt and honey cupcake.

Apple Pecan Cinnamon Rolls - This Month's Cupcake Project Recipe for Paula Deen

 

As my regular readers know, I create monthly cupcake recipes for PaulaDeen.com.  This month, I was asked to develop something with apples or pecans.  I opted to use both! I made these apple pecan cinnamon roll cupcakes with a glaze that actually contains apple cider! 

Whether or not you make the cinnamon rolls, I'd highly recommend trying out the simple apple cider glaze. The apple cider glaze would be outstanding on my gingersnap cookies.

You'll find both the apple pecan cinnamon roll cupcake recipe and the apple cider glaze recipe on Paula Deen.

Sorghum Cupcakes with Orange Whiskey Whipped Cream - Wild West Cupcakes

To bring Wild West week to a close (so far I've made wagon wheel pasta and wagon wheel cookies), I bring you Wild West cupcakes.  These aren't poser cupcakes. No, no.  The recipe for these sorghum cupcakes comes from a newspaper in the 1800's (it was for cake, not cupcakes, but close enough).  I found the cake recipe (I invented the frosting recipe) on Chronicle of the Old West where they report that, "This was a dessert made either at the ranch or restaurants in town.  It couldn’t be made on the cattle drive because of the need for butter and eggs, two items that would not remain fresh during a two to three month cattle drive."

Cuddrireddra - The Cookie Recipe Worth A Four Year Wait

Orange, red wine, and cinnamon come together in cuddrireddra, an Italian deep fried cookie that resembles a biscotti in texture.  Don't let the frying scare you off.  Everyone was surprised to hear that the cuddrireddra were deep fried - unlike donuts or funnel cake, they are not at all greasy.  The cuddrireddra have a respectable crunch without being rock hard and the flavor is unique but comforting at the same time - like the smell of home cooked food that sometimes fills the hallways of apartment buildings.  One taster couldn't help but remark over and over again that cuddrireddra are much better than chocolate chip cookies.  It's no surprise that she felt that way; cuddrireddra are the cookies that were worth tracking down for four years.

Don't Throw Away Your Citrus Rinds - Dry and Save Them For Recipes That Call for Zest

I can't believe the number of citrus fruit rinds that I've trashed (I'll compost one of these days) because I didn't know about this trick.

Pasta e Fagioli with Wagon Wheel Pasta

Pasta e fagioli with wagon wheel pasta kicks off Wild West Week here on Cupcake Project.  "Wait," you say, "Isn't pasta e fagioli an Italian dish (meaning pasta and beans) that is most notably found at Olive Garden?"  Yes, astute reader, you are correct.  But focus, if you will, on the wagon wheels (rotelle):

Can you now picture covered wagons slowly rolling through the open plains?  If you can't see it yet, don't worry, we'll work on it more later in the week.  You'll get it!  I'm sure the Wild West cupcakes will help.

Cupcake Corer Giveaway

Update:  The winner is Robin from Little Pat of Butter!  But, Jenny from the beautiful food blog Purple House Dirt has generously offered her cupcake corer as a second prize.  Jenny has never used it and wanted it to have a good home.  Joy from Pastries by Joy won that corer (it's just the corer, not the whole kit)!  Congrats to both of you!!

When I first heard about the cupcake corer, I thought that it had to be the most gimmicky product imaginable. For years now,  I've been happily coring cupcakes without ever using the term or the tool -  I just used a small paring knife.  But, as a recent convert to apple corers, when I was offered a free sample of the cupcake corer, I decided to give it a go.

Caramel Cake Cupcakes Inspired by The Help

Have you read The Help yet?

If you haven't, do it now - before the movie comes out. I promise there are no book spoilers in this post.  The only spoiling going on here is the spoiling of your guests when you serve them these caramel cake cupcakes.

One of the main characters in The Help is a maid named Minny. Like some covet clothes from Sex and The City, I wanted to taste Minny's caramel cake. 

Minny near bout the best cook in Hinds County, maybe even all a Mississippi.  The Junior League Benefit come around ever fall and they be wanting her to make ten caramel cakes to auction off.  She ought a be the most sought-after help in the state.

Since I can't buy caramel cake from Minny and I don't have a maid that makes caramel cake (I did have a cleaning lady growing up who made incredible stuffed peppers, but that's not quite the same thing), I had to find the recipe that Minny would have used - and turn it into a cupcake.

I succeeded.

Caramel Icing - Made the Old Fashioned Southern Way

A true caramel icing, I've learned, takes time.  As you stand stirring the saucepan of caramel icing in the making, you'll have an unusual moment of quiet - a chance to come up with ideas even better than your shower-time epiphanies.  But, if you're like me, thirty minutes of slow, repetitive stirring motion will hypnotize you.  You'll soon find yourself simply staring into the sweet confection, monitoring the reading on your candy thermometer as it crawls up and observing the thickening caramel with wide eyed wonder.

You might hear about caramel icing shortcuts, but there is a reason that Southern women have been making their caramel icing using two spoons (one for the saucepan and one for the cast iron skillet) for generations.  This caramel icing may be the best you've ever tried, so be thankful that it takes so long to make (if it didn't, you'd be eating it way too often).