Easter

Here are my Easter offerings for this year....I am going to my aunt's and the BF's aunts - hence 2 desserts. Well, I have been craving coffee cake - coffee-flavored cake to be clear- think coffee ice cream. I found a recipe at chockylit.blogspot.com - her recipe is for Vietnamese Coffee Cupcakes - but it worked fine as a cake. I will paste it below with the slight alteration I used. Recently I bought these do-hickeys that wrap around your cake pan to keep your cake from forming a dome - and then requiring you to trim it to get a nice shaped layer cake. I couldn't wait to try these! The are called "Evenbake Cake Strips" and you can see from the photos that they really worked! No trimming needed to form my nice layer cake. I also decided to try a Dacquoise layer. Dacquoise is simply meringue piped into the shape of a cake layer and then baked at 225 for 1.5 to two hours. Nuts are often incorporated - but I used freeze dried coffee as a flavoring. I haven't tasted it yet - the BF said it tasted like a coffee flavored toasted marshmallow. My friend at work said she liked it. We will see tomorrow how it tastes in the cake. You can see in the photo my dacquoise layer in a large Tupperware with some little mushroom pieces I also piped. Underneath it is the underside of another layer that didn't work out b/c i tried to remove it from the pan too early. To finish this cake I made a mocha buttercream. I tried making it with some blue bonnet light - which is not recommend for baking - it totally didn't work. I thought I might save us all some calories on Easter. That batch had two melted squares of baking chocolate and 1 packet of freeze dried coffee - it tasted great - but the light margarine didn't hold up. The second batch was done with normal margarine - but I was out of baker's chocolate. So I used dark cocoa powder dissolved in a small amount of hot water, along with freeze dried coffee. It turned out much better as far as the texture goes - but the mocha flavor was not as pronounced. The recipe below will yield the tastier kind. I assembled the cake as follows: cake layer on the bottom, a thin layer of mocha buttercream, the dacquoise layer, more buttercream, and the final cake layer. Then I went on to try a basket weave design on the cake. First I did a 'crumb coat' on the cake, then I applied the basket weave - I can't believe it worked! I thought it would be terrible and I would have to forgo the basket weave and ome up with something else. I colored some coconut with green food coloring for the basket filling and topped with some candy malted milk eggs. I hope it tastes good!

Moving on to the Bunny Cupcakes! I baked some buttermilk cake - the recipe came from my kitchen aid cookbook - but I used buttermilk instead of regular milk. I iced them with 7 minute frosting from the "Joy of Cooking". Then I went about decorating.
You will need the following: Large Marshmallows, Small Marshmallows, Coconut, Blue and Green Smarties, Pink Sugar, and Pink Jelly Beans.
1) Cut large marshmallow in thirds, discard middle third and dredge sticky sides of other pieces in pink sugar.
2) Adhere ears to iced cupcakes.
3) Coat faces in coconut
4)Insert pink jelly bean into cupcake to make nose. You only want a little of the short side peaking out - so you have to really push it into the cupcake.
5) Adhere sweet tart eyes - put some frosting on the back to make them stick
6) cut a small marshmallow in half and adhere under nose with some icing.
7) make pupils - color some icing darker than the eyes and dot on with toothpick
It was really pretty easy. For the pink sugar I dissolved a drop of 'neon' pink food coloring in about a teaspoon of water. This was then mixed into about 1/2 cup of sugar. It is a little moist - but still sticks to the marshmallows. It air dried and I may try to save it for future use - why pay for colored sugar?
Now I want to try:
1) making the better tasting mocha buttercream
2) injecting cupcakes with something yummy
3) a pecan (yes I am still on the pecan kick) with some rich chocolate icing and a layer of pecan dacquoise

Coffee Flavored Cake

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups sugar
4 large eggs, room temperature
2-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 cup strong brewed coffee
1/4 cup milk
2 teaspoons freeze dried coffee

1. Beat butter on high until soft, about 30 seconds.
2. Add sugar. Beat on medium-high until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
3. Add eggs one at a time, beat for 30 seconds between each.
4. Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl.
5. Measure out coffee and milk together.
6. Add the flour to the butter/sugar mixture and beat to combine.
7. Dissolve the freeze dried coffee in the coffee/milk mixture.
8. Add the coffee/milk mixture and beat until combined.
9. Pour into prepared pans (I use baker’s joy)
10. Bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes until a cake tester comes out clean.

Coffee Dacquoise
Have everything at room temp
½ cup egg whites
1 tsp vanilla
beat at high speed until peaks form
add 1 tb at a time
1 cup sugar
Pipe onto parchment or silpat
Bake at 225 for 1.5 to 2 hours

Buttermilk Cupcakes
2 1.4 cup flour
1 1/3 cup sugar
3 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
½ cup shortening
1 cup buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs

combine dry ingredients in mixer bowl. Add shortening, milk, and vanilla and beat for 1 minute, add eggs, beat for 30 seconds, scrape bowl, beat on high for 1 minute.
Scoop batter into cupcake liners using an ice cream scoop (with the clicker that releases the ice cream) or a cookie dropper that works the same way (this will require two scoops). The cupcakes should be 2/3 full.
Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes. Will not brown – check with cake tester

7 minute frosting
in the bowl of kitchen aid mixer combine:
5 tablespoons water
1 1/3 cp sugar
2 large egg whites
1 TB light corn syrup
Set bowl in a saucepan of simmering water. Wisk continuously until the mixture is warmed through (about 160F)
Beat on high until stiff peaks form, adding 1 tsp vanilla.

Mocha Buttercream

In bowl of kitchen aid mixer combine
4 large egg whites
1 ¼ cup sugar
Set bowl in a saucepan of simmering water. Wisk continuously until the mixture is warmed through (160) and sugar has dissolved.
Beat on high until stiff beaks form. Switch to the paddle attachment and add
3 sticks butter or margarine (room temp)
one tablespoon at a time
If it separates beat on medium-high until smooth again
Beat in
1 packet (2 tsps) freeze dried coffee dissolved in
2 squares of bakers chocolate, melted
This mixture should cool before incorporating it into icing

*Update* the Dacquoise layer turned gummy inside the cake-i won't try that again in this kind of cake-next time I will try a Mocha pastry cream. The cake was yummy - one comment was that I could even up the coffee flavor.