Black Thai Cupcakes

Each year, Scharffen Berger chocolate sponsors The Chocolate Adventure Contest where, for a chance at $10,000, entrants are challenged to come up with a recipe featuring Scharffen Berger chocolate and any number of items from a list of "adventure ingredients."  It's like a chocolate Iron Chef!

Previous years' contests have allowed participants to make any kind of dish (I, of course, entered a cupcake last year anyway), but this year's contest is all about cupcakes!  The entry period ends on Jan. 2 and you know that I'll be playing - I hope you do, too!

Be sure that you are a Cupcake Project Facebook fan because I've got a giveaway coming up there exclusively that may inspire your entry.

My Chocolate Adventure Contest entry last year was Black Thai cupcakes - black bottom cupcakes with Thai spices like coconut and pandan (the Asian vanilla) and a little kick from smoked paprika and smoked sea salt.  The cupcakes also contain black-eyed peas, but the peas don't affect the flavor; they just provide a moist texture (like baking with applesauce).

As you can see from the photo above, instead of baking the cupcakes in a cupcake liner, I baked them in a banana leaf!  Whether or not you try my exact recipe (I recognize that gathering all of these ingredients might be difficult), I highly recommend trying out baking in banana leaves. Banana leaves make for a striking, exotic presentation.  If you can't find them at a grocer near you, you can buy banana leaves online. 

Give a Little Cupcake Love

Are you looking for a gift for the cupcake lover on your holiday list? I've developed a shopping list just for you. I'll be adding to the list in the coming weeks, so be sure to check back. Please leave a comment here if you notice that I omitted a cupcake gift that you love.

Speaking of Gifts

There are only 2 days left to give to Cupcake Project 4.0.  $1 (or more) buys you the ultimate chocolate peanut butter cupcake recipe and the opportunity to help provide Haitians with much needed water filters. Perhaps you'd like to make a donation in someone's name as an early Christmas present?  Remember that with every $200 donation, I will create a custom dream cupcake recipe just for the donor!

Chocolate Cranberry Cupcakes for Paula Deen

In addition to writing this blog, I regularly develop cupcake recipes for Paula Deen's website.  This month's recipe is a chocolate sponge cake cupcake filled with cranberry sauce and topped with cranberry cheesecake.  Yes, it is as good as it sounds!  Head over to Paula Deen's site now for the recipe.

5 Thanksgiving Cupcake Ideas

I'm taking this week off to spend time with family and friends, but I wanted to take just a minute to share five outstanding Thanksgiving cupcake recipes with you.  If you are responsible for dessert at your Thanksgiving meal, check out my list of five scrumptious Thanksgiving cupcake recipes and consider making cupcakes a new Thanksgiving tradition for your family!

This photo is off the first of many filters that was made
and distributed because of money that we
have raised through Cupcake Project 4.0.

I also wanted to make another plea for help for FilterPure.  Though I take it for granted most days, I am so thankful to have clean water to drink.  For just one dollar (or more), you can help people in Haiti to have potable drinking water and get a sensational chocolate peanut butter cupcake recipe.  I committed to raising $4000 by the end of November, and while we have made amazing progress, we aren't quite there yet.  Instead of putting a dollar in a soda machine this week, consider drinking some free tap water and putting the dollar in the ChipIn box below.

Thanks again to everyone who has already donated!  I have been sending out the recipes every couple of days so if more than a few days have gone by since your donation, please check your spam and email me if the recipe isn't there.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Sweet Potato Casserole Cupcakes 3 Ways

I love sweet potato casserole cupcakes!  I can't get enough of them.  I love them so much that I'm giving you three different recipes:

1. The first sweet potato casserole cupcake recipe is one that I made back in 2007.  The best part about it is the maple marscarpone filling.  You could put that filling in any Fall cupcake and get rave reviews.
2. The next sweet potato casserole cupcake recipe has a crumb topping and crumbs baked into the cupcakes that give it a fun oatmeal-like texture.
3. This year, I made sweet potato casserole cupcakes with candied pecans.  It is probably my favorite recipe of the three.  But, you can't go wrong with any of them.  This year's recipe is below.  Sorry, they were all gobbled up before I could get a photo!  They look just like the cupcakes above, only they have toasted marshmallows on top instead of crumbs. 

Sweet Potato Pecan Cupcakes Recipe

Yield: 10 cupcakes

Cupcake Ingredients

• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• ½  teaspoon cinnamon
• ½  teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 cup sugar
• ¼ cup + 2 tablespoons pureed sweet potatoes (I used the kind from the can. Try to get the kind without corn syrup if possible.)
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1/4 cup apple cider
• ½ cup candied pecans (make your own or buy some premade)

Cupcake Directions

1. In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together flour, cinnamon, and baking soda.
2. In a large bowl, combine the sugar, sweet potatoes, and eggs. Beat until smooth.
3. Mix the oil and apple cider into the sweet potato mixture.
4. Slowly add the flour mixture and mix until fully incorporated.
5. Fold in pecans
6. Fill cupcake liners ¾ full.
7. Bake at 350 F for 25 minutes.

Brown Sugar Frosting Recipe

Top each cupcake with brown sugar frosting and mini marshmallows (you can toast them with a culinary torch for added fun).

Gluten-Free Red Velvet Cupcake Recipe with No Food Coloring

Gluten-free red velvet cupcakes that don't taste gluten-free and are red without the use of food coloring were not easy to achieve.  It took hours of web research and four batches of cupcakes, but I did it!

Update on Cupcake Project 4.0 - We're Off to a Great Start!

Lisa Ballantine, the Executive Director of FilterPure, shaved her head to show
that the $30 she spends on a haircut (many of us pay even more than that)
could buy a family a water filter that would last 5 years.

For those visiting Cupcake Project for the first time, here's the "filtered" down version of Cupcake Project 4.0:  We are in the process of raising $4000 for FilterPure, a non-profit providing water filters to Haitians who are desperately in need of potable water.  Our $4000 will provide 133 families with fresh water for five years!  When you donate $1 or more, you get my recipe for the ultimate chocolate peanut butter cupcakes and are entered for a chance to win a Cupcake Tower. The first 50 people to donate $50 or more get a free cupcake corer. Anyone donating over $200 gets a custom cupcake recipe created by me.  See my original post to get more information and make a donation (you can also donate from the ChipIn box in this post or on the right side of the blog).

Look how far we've already come: 

Thanks so much to everyone who has donated!  Be sure to tell your family and friends!  If you make a donation and don't hear back from me with the recipe within a week, please check your spam folder.  If it's not there, please email me so that I can be sure that you get it.    

I want to share this email that I received from Lisa Ballantine, the Executive Director of FilterPure, so that you can see how much our donations mean to the organization.

Persimmon Cupcakes - How to Bake with Persimmons

Persimmons are the goths.

Persimmons don't hold to a traditional standard of beauty.  When you think that your persimmons have gone bad - when they are ugly and smooshy and make people turn away in disgust - that's the perfect time to eat them.  In fact, if you eat a persimmon when it's still "pretty", it can cause a weird numbing reaction in your mouth.

Persimmons are elusive.  You have to be in the store during the correct couple of weeks of the year (now) or be lucky enough to know someone with a persimmon tree.  Once you find persimmons, you're never quite sure what to do with them.  While there are millions of pumpkin recipes, the goth vegetable is almost exclusively used for persimmon pudding - a dark and heavy dessert.

Pumpkins are the cool kids.

Everyone wants pumpkins.  People love them so much that they keep some just for decoration and don't even eat them!  They're easy to find.  They are the vegetables that are featured in the front of the store.  They are the ones that people want to pose their children with.

I couldn't help but throw in a cute photo of our son!

News Flash

If you are looking for a unique flavor, don't look to the cool veggie on the block.  Pick up some persimmons now - while you can - and use them in place of pumpkin in any pumpkin recipe.  You can make persimmon pie, persimmon cake, persimmon cookies, persimmon ice cream, and of course persimmon cupcakes!  Don't put persimmons in a persimmon pudding corner!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Hi-Hat Cupcakes for FilterPure - It's Time to Raise $4,000

Update 8/31/2011: This post does not include the cupcake recipe. I only provided the recipe to those who donated.  Since enough time has gone by, I've made the recipe public on my Chocolate Peanut Butter Hi-Hat Cupcake Recipe post.

These chocolate peanut butter cupcakes loaded with dark chocolate chips, topped with peanut butter frosting, then dipped in more chocolate are a sight to behold.  This is the ultimate chocolate peanut butter cupcake!  Take a look inside:

Want the recipe?  Sorry, it's not free.