Cake Byte: Margarita Cupcakes at Cupcake Royale, Seattle

It's May, and I officially wanna get cupcake-cruuuunnnk.

Happily, Cupcake Royale wants to help me, all month long, with their Margarita Cupcakes. As they put it,

Grab your party hat and some sunglasses, we are having margaritas! Cupcake Royale is celebrating Cinco de Mayo all month long with our moist lemon cake topped with a delicious lime buttercream spiked with tequila. The cupcake is beautifully finished with a rim of salt and sugar. We will bring you to the islands with this tasty treat!

I certainly want to go to the islands with this tasty treat.

Get one for yourself--they're available all month long at Cupcake Royale. For locations, visit cupcakeroyale.com.

Cake Byte: Trophy Cupcakes offers Margarita Cupcakes for May

Happy May, Sweeties. Which brings us to the first order of the month...May I have a Margarita Cupcake?

Why, yes you may, if you're in Seattle! Because Trophy Cupcakes has a sweet (and a little salty!) special for this month: Margarita Cupcakes! Prepared with Tequila Lime Buttercream and a sprinkling of salt, these treats may not be for kids, but they sure are delicious for adults.

They can be obtained at Trophy Cupcakes all month long; find locations here. 

Sweet Dough: Sugar Cookies that Look Like Doughnuts

So, you're making sugar cookies. Awesome. Good for you.

You've got the batter all mixed. At this point, you pretty much have two choices. You either roll out the dough and cut out some cute shapes, or you're going to drop them on the sheet and bake them. Right? WRONG.

Put away your rolling pin, because I've got an easy way to make your sugar cookies cuter: bake them in a mini doughnut pan .

If you own a mini doughnut pan, like I do (jealous? I got it at the Wilton tent sale when I visited their headquarters), you simply must employ it to make your sugar cookies more adorable.

Honestly, it couldn't be easier to do (provided you have a mini doughnut pan). Here's how I did it.

First, prepare a batch of sugar cookie dough. I am not going to be bossy about what recipe, but I will tell you that I used the one on page 13 of this e-book. Once mixed, set aside for a little bit.

Preheat your oven to the temperature your recipe says it ought to be.

Next, lightly butter your mini doughnut pan. Or spray it with non-stick spray. Whatever you want. 

After it's greased, stuff the dough in the mini doughnut wells. Fill them til they're mostly full. If you think your cookies are going to spread, put less dough in (or put a cookie sheet under the mini doughnut pan while you bake them).

Bake the cookies, but check them about 5 minutes before your recipe would call for, because they're baking in a different vessel.

Once golden brown, remove from the oven. Let them cool for a while (maybe 20 minutes) in the doughnut pan. Then, gently remove. I found that after loosening one edge with a sharp knife, they basically just popped out. 

Let the cookies cool, and then apply a dab of pink icing (pink is really best) and be sure to put sprinkles on them too.

Enjoy! They're adorable and sweet. But they're not doughnuts, they just look like them.

Cake Byte: Bake Sale at CakeSpy Shop to Benefit Seattle Children's Hospital

At CakeSpy Shop, sweet events are always a-foot. While no actual sweets are sold at the shop on a daily basis, from time to time, it acts as venue for bake-sales to raise funds for good causes. And yesterday, the store had a fantastic bake-sale benefiting the Seattle Children's Hospital! 

But--here's where you're really lucky--if you're in Seattle, you can still support the good cause today! 

As store manager Natalie reports, 

We have raised about $100 for Seattle Children's Hospital so far, but we have some leftover goodies that are still fresh and delicious, so we are going to host an additional day today! We have homemade peanut butter cookies, chocolate chip cookies, Rice Krispy treats, cake pops, pretzel brownies, and chocolate cupcakes stuffed with a Reese's peanut butter cup. Yesterday was really fun, and we are looking forward to our NEXT Bake Sale with Bake it in a Cake and One Wild Strawberry Cake Pops, with proceeds going to benefit Teen Feed on May 19th!

To get some delicious stuff, visit CakeSpy Shop at 415 E. Pine Street, Seattle WA 98122! 

Want to bake for a cause? If you are interested in hosting a fundraising bake sale here, email cakespyshop@gmail.com for more details.

Sweet Times: An Epic Tasting at Petrossian Bakery

A few weeks ago, Petrossian, the bakery accompaniment to the fancy-pants restaurant of the same name (they're mega-famous for their caviar), invited me for a delicous tea party where they were debuting their new line of baked goods. On the roster? A creative new slew of cookies, including rosemary and fennel-parmesan shortbread, and lemon-thyme muffins.

Sounded fun, but alas--I was attending the Pillsbury Bake-Off. Kind of a cool reason to not be able to attend, don't you think? By the way, did I tell you I met the Dough Boy there?

But I digress. Regarding Petrossian, here's the really awesome part: we rescheduled, and I got a private tasting of basically every delicious thing there, along with their awesome public relations agent, Cynthia. 

I was very excited because Petrossian is located in a building I love in New York City: Alwyn Court. It's really more like a sculpture than a building. I'd like to live there, please. But lacking a few spare million dollars, I'm content to eat pastries nearby. Are you ready to talk pastry yet?

Spoiler:

First, there were (of course) the new items: the sweet-meets-savory shortbreads and the new muffin. And their new line of jams. 

Let's start with those.

Not being a "muffin person", I would nonetheless file the lemon-thyme muffin under "very pleasant", very bright and lemony and with a perfect thyme kick to temper the zestiness. Overall, more poundcake than muffinlike, and with a sticky coating of something that made it even tastier. 

The new jams were also quite pleasant. They're made specifically for Petrossian, in Florida. They included seasonal flavors by a jam-maker who keeps her recipes and methods super-secret, but apparently they are done in "the French way". Well, the French secretive way is fine with me as long as it continues to involve chocolate. Raspberry chocolate jam? Yes please.

But (here, I will say it), even better than the jam was the delicious Petrossian brioche which they brought for us to sample the sweet stuff on. This brioche was light and fluffy and extremely delicious.

But even better than the brioche was...

The croissants. Have I ever graced my mouth with a more beautiful croissant than this? These perfect pastry crescents shatter in the mouth, not the hand. The secret? Butter and love.

Apparently, the pastry chef, Antoine, has been doing the pastries (and doing them right) since day one. I wished I had a chance to meet him--but it was a pretty busy day. Next time.

But the tasting didn't stop there. It was time to move on to the everyday shortbread: plain, pecan, checkerboard, and a few other variations. The Petrossian shortbread is a thing of beauty, perfect when paired with tea: lightly crumbly but very buttery, inviting you to take another bite. And another. And another.

Cynthia insisted that we try one of their fruit tarts. The pastry, she said, was unlike anything else. Well, ok. Now, I will confess, I was slightly dubious. Those fruit tarts always look better than they taste, in my opinion.

But you know what? This thing was good. Now, the fruit was good...but it was really just along for the ride with this buttery pastry crust. Like, OMG! How did they force feed a tart crust like 12 sticks of butter? At least, that's how it tasted. 

Of course, I simply had to try one of their fancy pastries, too. Which one do you think I wanted to try? And P.S., how did I not know I could add glasses to pastries on flickr?

Well, here's the one I chose. It was some sort of fruit-and-cream cheese puree, according to our waiter--it sat atop a little shortbread crust. He didn't know for sure what it was called. Well, whatever the name, it was delicious. I want another right now. 

Finally, we got to the savory cookies. We also met with Helena, who is part of the family that owns Petrossian, and who manages various aspects of product development and the cafe.

She told us that the cookies were designed as a way to get a satisfying morsel in a small bite.

And what a fantastic solution. They're extremely satisfying.

The rosemary one was the standout for sure, fragrant and buttery. The fennel-parmesan was good, but not as compelling as the rosemary. With both, the cookies straddled the line between sweet and savory: they seemed as nice with tea as they would with, say, a bowl of soup. Very interesting. Worth a try. Worth two or seven tries, actually.

My overall summary? Go to Petrossian. Please. You get a taste of this storied company, and the pastries are not as pricey as getting their famous caviar. Try the new stuff, yes, but DEFINITELY be sure to stock up on the foundation items: croissants, brioche, and shortbread. And be sure to pick me up one of those pink things again.

Petrossian Cafe and Bakery, 911 Seventh Ave (between 57th and 58th St.)  New York, NY; online here.

Salted Caramel Tart Recipe from the Edible Seattle Cookbook

I don't know if we have actively discussed how awesome Jill Lightner is. So awesome that I'm not even going to pause and correct the fact that I ended a sentence with "is". Make that two sentences. Hey, it's my website, I do what I wanna!

But back to Jill. She's the editor of the incredible publication Edible Seattle, and she has an encyclopedic knowledge of all things foodie in the greater Seattle area. And even better, her sweet tooth just about matches mine. She was one of the first in line to get a copy of CakeSpy Presents Sweet Treats for a Sugar-Filled Life signed at my book launch party. Yes, I like Jill very much.

And now she has her own book out: Edible Seattle: The Cookbook . This gorgeous volume includes recipes for Pacific northwest specialties by Seattle area cooks and pastry chefs, as well as profiles on the local providers, ingredients, and inventors of these lovely recipes. It's a vital volume for anyone living in the greater Seattle area, but a great buy for non-Seattleites too. And the dessert chapter is very, very nice, including sables, pies, homemade ice creams, and--my favorite--a salted caramel tart.

The recipe comes from the Volunteer Park Cafe, and yields a crack-like addictive result. The caramel recipe will yield double what you need for two tarts, but it keeps well in the fridge, so save it for a second tart, or just eat it by the spoonful til it's gone.

Here's the recipe for that tart to get your motor running--for more, buy the book.

Salted Caramel Tart

For the crust

• 1 box (9 ounces) Nabisco famous chocolate wafers
• 1 stick unsalted butter, melted

For the caramel

• 2 cups sugar
• 1 cup filtered water
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1 stick (8oz) chilled unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
• 1 teaspoon pink Hawaiian Alaea sea salt, smoked gray salt, or fleur de sel

For the chocolate ganache

• 8 ounces fine quality bittersweet chocolate, chopped (chocolate chips ok)
• 1 cup heavy cream

Procedure

1. Preheat the oven to 325 F. Grind the cookies in a food processor or crush by hand until they are fine crumbs. Drizzle the melted butter over the ground cookies, and either pulse in processor or mix by hand until combined. Press into a 9-inch fluted tart pan. Bake 10-15 minutes, until it is fragrant (light browning will be hard to detect on the dark chocolate wafers). Cool to room temperature.
2. In a heavy medium saucepan, bring the sugar and water to a boil over medium-high heat. Do not stir. Brush down the sides of the pan every 5 minutes with a pastry brush dipped in water to keep crystals from forming. Continue cooking until the caramel is a deep golden brown, keeping a watchful eye on the pot so it doesn't burn. Remove the pan from heat and slowly pour in the heavy cream, whisking constantly. The hot caramel will bubble, so be careful--if it hits your hand, it WILL hurt. Whisk in the chilled butter pieces. Add the sea salt, whisking to comine. Pour half of the caramel into the cooled chocolate crust. Chill until firm in the refrigerator, at least one hour.
3. Near the end of your cooling period, prepare the ganache. Place the chocolate in a heatproof medium bowl. Over medium heat, bring the cream to a simmer in a small heavy saucepan. Immediately remove from heat and pour over the chocolate, stirring with a rubber spatula until the mixture is smooth and glossy.
4. Gently pour the ganache over the firm caramel, spreading with an offset spatula. Chill until firm, at least one hour. When slicing, use a warm knife (hold under hot water and dry before using)and wipe off the blade between cuts. Sprinkle each slice with more salt, and serve immediately.

Buy the book: Edible Seattle: The Cookbook.

Morning Sweets: Mini Banana-Maple Pancake Muffins Recipe

Um. Did I tell you that my bloggy BFF Bakerella (I love alliteration, what can I say?) contributed a recipe to the fantastic new book Home Baked Comfort, released by Williams-Sonoma and including fantastic recipes from bakers across the country?

Well. Miss Bakerella's contribution is rather delicious: Mini Banana-Maple Pancake Muffins. Really, just uttering the title of the recipe ought to have you running to Williams-Sonoma to purchase the book...but in case it doesn't, here's the actual recipe.

Like little pancakes in muffin form, these are a snap to make and unbelievably easy to eat. How did you just eat ten? Huh?

The book is full of plenty of other awesome stuff. Go buy it.

Mini Banana-Maple Pancake Muffins

Makes 2 dozen

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2/3 cup buttermilk
• 1 large egg
• 2 tablespoons pure maple syrup, plus more for dipping
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
• 1 very ripe large banana, mashed

Procedure

1. Position a rack in the middle of your oven. Preheat to 350 degrees F. Generously grease 24 mini muffin cups with nonstick cooking spray or butter it up.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking soda and powder, and salt. In another bowl, stir together the buttermilk, egg, 2 tablespoons of maple syrup, and butter until just combined. Add the wet to the dry ingredients and stir until combined. Stir in the mashed banana until evenly distributed.
3. Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin cups. Bake until puffed and golden, 10-12 minutes. Let hte muffins cool slightly in the pan on a wire rack, then unmold onto the rack. Serve while still warm with extra syrup for dipping.

Baker's Dozen: A Batch of Sweet Links

Philadelphia bakeries and sweet shops to receive landmark status.

Don't be blue: cornmeal blueberry cookie bars!

Coconuts for this: Coconut Cream Cake.

"Naked Ladies" - no, it's a recipe.

I dream of pizza...stuffed with Pumpple.

Butter makes it better: Butter cake!

More butter cake!

Petrossian is totally sweet: look at this stuff.

Baked goods: totally going Ombre.

Store I wanna visit: The Head Nut (thanks, Angela!)

OMG: A pretzel bakery that offers caramel mustard.

Get in my belly: strawberry pancakes!

Sweet: CakeSpy Shop featured in Seattle Met!

Magically Awesome: Rainbow Unicorn Pinata Cookies

CakeSpy Note: if you follow me on facebook or Twitter, you probably know I'm partial to documenting my sweet discoveries and daily goings-on. Here's where I post a daily feel-good photo, for no particular reason other than to showcase these sweet little nothings, in hopes that they'll make you smile.

Behold, the most magical cookies, possibly ever: Rainbow Unicorn Pinata Cookies. 

As Sheknows.com contributor (and possible soul twin) Sandra Denneler says,

These multi-striped, burro piñata sugar cookies come complete with hollow centers that you can fill with a secret stash of your favorite candies. Break open or bite into these festive treats and be greeted with a sugary surprise. Olé!

Now. I know that they are meant to be rainbow burros - but really, they look like unicorns to me, so I would like to announce that I have made my decision: unicorns they are.

In the day or two since this recipe was published online, an astonishing number of family, friends, and readers have sent this recipe to me, which is beyond flattering: when you think of sweet, magical, rainbow, unicorn things, YOU THINK OF ME! That's about how it should be, I think.

Find the full recipe and tutorial on sheknows.com.

Sweet Schooling: Wellesley Fudge Cake Recipe

Wellesley Fudge cake--a deeply decadent chocolate cake topped with a slab of fudge frosting--seems an unlikely sweet to associate with the prim-and-proper ladies of Wellesley (the college featured in the classic feat of cinema Mona Lisa Smile). 

Clearly by the popularity of this recipe, it seems that those young ladies had as voracious an appetite for the sweet stuff as they did for knowledge. But to really look at the origins of this cake, we’ve got to rewind a little bit, to the invention of fudge itself.

Fudge, that semi-soft candy made from butter, sugar, and various flavorings (very commonly chocolate) is an american-ized version of french bonbons and creams, and it became popular in the US in the early 1900s. The Oxford English Dictionary suggests that the name is perhaps derived from the word “fadge”, which is an old-timey term for “to fit pieces together”. Of course, not to confuse you, but an Irish dish called “Fadge” does exist, but it is actually an apple potato cake, traditionally served at Halloween.

As an interesting side note, the word “fudge” referring to a cheat or hoax dates to the 1830s, before the candy was popular--but this may explain how the name was assigned to the candy, too.

You see, those young college ladies would use the sweet stuff as their excuse to stay up late: candy-making was an acceptable activity, and they would use it as an excuse to stay up late, ostensibly to talk about boys and other forbidden subjects. “Nearly every night at college,” said the Vassar girl, “some girl may be found somewhere who is making ‘fudges’ or giving a fudge party.” The timing seems to work out: the word “fudge” for a confection showed up as early as the 1890s, and by 1908 the term was commonly used in association with women’s colleges.

A 1909 cookbook produced by Walter Baker & Co. (producer of Baker’s chocolates) includes three different recipes for fudge, each just slightly different and named, respectively, after Vassar, Smith, and Wellesley colleges.

In fact, there is a letter in the Vassar archives which says,

“Fudge, as I first knew it, was first made in Baltimore by a cousin of a schoolmate of mine. It was sold in 1886 in a grocery store...I secured a recipe and in my first year at Vassar, I made it there--and in 1888 I made 30 pounds for the Senior auction, its real introduction to the college, I think.”

So why would it proliferate, and be adapted to an even richer and more over the top treat, the decadent Wellesley Fudge Cake, at this particular school? Perhaps because it was such a forbidden pleasure there. An 1876 circular to parents states that the college refuses to accept students who are broken down in health, maintaining that a proper diet is key for proper learning, and that “we have therefore decided not to receive any one who will not come with the resolution to obey cheerfully all our rules in this respect, and pledged in honor neither to buy nor receive in any manner whatsoever any confectionery or eatables of any kind not provided for them by the College.” Further, the founder of Wellesley College held that, “pies, lies, and doughnuts should never have a place in Wellesley College”. Well, naturally it would take off here: it tasted positively sacre-licious!

By 1913, fudge and fudge cakes were was common on the tea-room menus surrounding the college.

Every few decades the cake enjoys a renaissance; a little fussy to make in that it requires a bit of candy-making prowess, it is astoundingly easy to eat. The confection was bound for success too: soon, it was even featured prominently as

Some versions call for an unfrosted cake; others, which I favor, feature a double dose of chocolate, the base of which is brownie-like, coated with a more fudge-like frosting.

Note: Traditional recipes called for “thick sour milk”; I'm not quite sure what that even is, so this recipe employs buttermilk. After testing another traditional recipe with some help by Java Cupcake, I find this a superior cake. 

The recipe that finally ended up tasting best? This one, lightly adapted from the geniuses at Cook's Country Magazine. Their original version appears in the book Cook's Country Blue Ribbon Desserts.

Wellesley Fudge Cake
Adapted from Cook's Country Blue Ribbon Desserts

Cake

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 t. baking soda
• 1 t. baking powder
• 1/2 t. salt
• 3/4 c. hot water
• 1/2 c/ Dutch-processed cocoa powder (I used Hershey's Special Dark which also works fine)
• 16 T. (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into 16 pieces and softened
• 2 c. granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 c. buttermilk, room temperature
• 2 t. vanilla extract

Frosting

• 1 1/2 c. packed light brown sugar
• 1 c. evaporated milk
• 8 T. (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces and softened
• 1/2 t. salt
• 8 oz. bittersweet chocolate, chopped
• 1 t. vanilla extract
• 3 c. confectioners’ sugar, sifted

To make the cake:

1. Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and heat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour two 8-inch square baking pans, then line the bottoms with parchment paper. Combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Set aside.
2. In a small bowl, whisk the hot water and cocoa together until smooth and set aside. In a large bowl, beat the butter and granulated sugar together with an electric mixer on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, 3-6 minutes. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, until incorporated. Mix in one-third of the flour mixture, followed by 1/2 cup of the buttermilk. Repeat with half of the remaining flour mixture and the remaining 1/2 cup buttermilk. Add the remaining flour mixture and mix until combined. Reduce the mixer speed to low and slowly add the cocoa mixture until incorporated.
3. Give the batter a final stir with a rubber spatula to make sure it is thoroughly combined. Scrape the batter into the prepared pans, smooth the tops, and gently tap the pans on the work surface to settle the batter. Bake the cakes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with a few crumbs attached, 25-30 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through baking. Let the cakes cool in the pans for 15 minutes. Run a small knife around the edges of the cakes, then flip them out onto a wire rack. Peel off the parchment paper, flip the cakes right side up, and let cool completely before frosting, about 2 hours. (The cakes can be wrapped tightly in plastic wrap and stored at room temperature for up to 2 days.)
4. To make the frosting: Stir together the brown sugar, 1/2 cup of the evaporated milk, 4 tablespoons of the butter, and salt in a large saucepan and cook over medium heat until small bubbles appear around the edge of the pan, 4-8 minutes. Reduce the heat to low and simmer, stirring occasionally, until large bubbles form and the mixture has thickened and turned deep golden brown, about 6 minutes. Transfer to a large bowl. Stir in the remaining 1/2 cup evaporated milk and remaining 4 tablespoons butter until the mixture has cooled slightly. Add the chocolate and vanilla and stir until smooth. Whisk in the confectioners’ sugar until incorporated. Let the frosting cool to room temperature, stirring occasionally, about 1 hour.
5. Line the edges of a cake platter with strips of parchment paper to keep the platter clean while you assemble the cake. Place one of the cake layers on the platter. Spread 1 cup of the frosting over the cake, right to the edges. Place the second cake layer on top, press lightly to adhere, and spread the remaining frosting evenly over the top and sides of the cake. Refrigerate the cake until the frosting is set, about 1 hour. Remove the parchment strips from the platter before serving.