Posts Tagged cupcakes

Saint Patrick’s Day Guinness Cupcakes

March 11, 2010 at 8:25 am · Filed under baking ·Tagged , , , , ,

Guinness Cupcakes 3

Guinness Cupcakes - perfect for St. Patrick's Day. Or any day.

I’ll admit, I’ve never done that much for St. Patrick’s Day. I mean, my mother would festoon the dining room with green clover garlands and chocolate “gold” pieces around the holiday each year when I was little, given our Irish heritage. And I’ve gone out to a couple of Irish bars on the holiday. And there was that one memorable Saint Patrick’s Day during college at Earl’s on the Ave (the old one) with a bunch of blue drinks and my friend Sara. But let’s not talk about that.

It may be a holiday that has garnered little of my attention, but I think that Saint Patrick’s Day is due for a second look. Not because it celebrates a certain Irish Saint, but because it’s an opportunity to bake with beer.

Everyone should bake with beer. I’m just going to put that out there. Baking with beer is awesome. It adds a smoky, almost savory note to baked goods that’s a lovely compliment to sugar. It’s an excellent addition to bread recipes – just replace the water or liquid called for with an equal amount of beer. And dark beers like stouts or porters go exceptionally well with chocolate.

These Guinness cupcakes with Guinness glaze take advantage of the dark beer/chocolate pairing. The smoky flavor of the Guinness helps balance the sweetness of the cake, and brings out the cocoa in the cake. It also contrasts with the sugar in the glaze, which keeps the cake soft and sweet. The only problem I had with the cake is that it turned out exceptionally moist – maybe even a little gummy in the center. I guess a quest for a perfect cake is never really done. But baking with beer? That’s a quest that I’m happily convinced will never be done – there’s just too many things to experiment with.

Guiness Cupcakes 2

Love that you can see the bubbles from the beer in the frosting.

Recipe: St. Patrick’s Day Guinness Cupcakes

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Bake Sale Success! And The Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcake Recipe

November 2, 2009 at 6:52 am · Filed under baking, DC ·Tagged , , , , ,

Bake sale - cupcakes

Devil's food cupcakes with almond frosting - just some of the bounty for sale at the DC Food Blogger's Bake Sale.

Thanks to everyone who came out to the first annual (we hope ) DC Food Blogger Spooktacular Bakesale Saturday! We sold out of everything – and raised $500.50 for Martha’s Table. Highlights included watching really cute kids parade around in their Halloween Costumes, talking frosting with Warren Brown (!!!), and seeing the baking talents of DC’s food bloggers -like those cupcakes in the photo from Thrifty DC Cook. Adventures in Shaw did a fabulous job of organizing – kudos to her for putting the event together!

Bakesale - Snickerdoodles

Little kids were especially drawn to the packaging.

Prettily wrapped snickerdoodles from Macheesmo.

Bake Sale - Cranberry Muffins

Did I tell you it rained?

Also prettily wrapped cranberry muffins from The Arugula Files.

Bake Sale Loaf Cake

The world needs more loaf cakes.

Chocolate loaf cake from Gradually Greener.

Also, my chocolate peanut butter cupcakes were a hit! And my individual packaging solution – placing the cupcakes in plastic disposable wine cups and wrapping them in cellophane, actually worked out really well.

Bakesale - Peanut Butter Cupcakes

I topped them with little pieces of chopped peanut butter cups. Yum.

So, as promised on Friday, here is the recipe. I really can’t take credit for them – these cupcakes owe their deliciousness to the combined genius of Martha Stewart and Ina Garten. Who knew that Martha Stewart’s “easy” cupcake recipe would turn out to be such a stroke of genius?

Recipe: Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes

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Food Blogger Bake Sale Preview: Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes

October 29, 2009 at 8:51 am · Filed under DC ·Tagged , , , ,

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcake 1

My homage to the Reece's Peanut Butter Cup.

Why should you come to the food blogger bake sale this Saturday at the 14th and U Farmer’s market? These cupcakes. Now I know they don’t look like much, but believe me – I am in love with these chocolate peanut butter cupcakes (my homage to one of my favorite Halloween candies, the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup).

Now, I tend to be very critical of my own baking. Even if something comes out well, I always see room for improvement – my cakes could always be a little moister, my frostings a little less sweet or more flavorful.

But this cake recipe is everything I’ve been looking for in a cupcake – the cake is moist and fluffy, but still chocolately enough for the chocolate lover. The frosting kind of tastes like the inside of a Reese’s Pieces, which I consider a personal triumph. In fact, that’s one of the reasons I adorned them with Reese’s Pieces – well, that and Reese’s Pieces are much more decorative than peanut butter cups.

I served these to my book club last week and they got rave reviews. Even my coworkers, who are usually carbohydrate shy, loved these cupcakes.

If you want the recipe so you can make them yourself, just sit tight – I will reveal the recipe next week. In the meantime, you’ll just have to come down to 14th and U to the Farmer’s Market Saturday morning and pick up one of mine.

Besides, it’s all for a good cause to benefit Martha’s Table.

See you Saturday!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes 2

After the book club party, only one cupcake remained. Spooky.

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Interview With Josh Short, Executive Pastry Chef at Buzz Bakery

September 23, 2009 at 6:28 am · Filed under baking, DC ·Tagged , , , ,

Joshcloseup_small

Josh Short, Executive Pastry Chef

I’ll be honest. I have never been to Buzz Bakery in Alexandria. It’s not that I don’t want to – I do. Buzz, which is a Neighborhood Restaurant Group establishment, has been on my “to visit” list ever since  I read about them in the Washington Post Cupcake Wars. But let’s just say that when you live in Adams Morgan and don’t have a car, getting down to Alexandria requires a certain amount of personal will that I rarely have.

Still, Josh Short, the Executive Pastry Chef at Buzz Bakery found the time to talk with me a couple weeks ago about, among other things, the pastries at Buzz, the dessert menu at Talulla (another NRG joint), gluten-free baking, and cupcakes (you knew that was coming).

Short has an impressive resume, training at New England Culinary Institute in Vermont and getting his start in the Vegas restaurant scene. In the DC area, he’s served as the Executive Pastry Chef for the Star Restaurant Group, and was a 2005 and 2008 nominee for the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington’s “Best Pastry Chef of the Year” award. In his current position, Short oversees all the baking operation at Buzz Bakery – cookies, cupcakes, pastries, and all. Short also collaborates with the chefs of the Neighborhood Restaurant Group restaurants (Rustico, Tallula, EatBar, Vermilion and Evening Star Café), to create and implement their dessert menus.

Does that sound exhausting? I’m exhausted just typing that last paragraph. Needless to say, I’m glad Short found some time in his busy schedule to dish about baking with ModernDomestic.

MD: Is there anything really good on the fall dessert menu at Tallula?

JS: Right now, we’re making a toffee chocolate brownie cake. It’s a layer of double chocolate brownie, and on top of that we put a layer of our own, homemade, English toffee, then a layer of chocolate mousse, and then pistachio ice cream. It’s great.

MD: How do you come up with desserts for Tallula and the other Neighborhood Restaurant Groups restaurants? What’s the process like?

JS: I’ll go over there and sit down with a chef. He’ll come up with ideas, and I’ll talk about what’s new and trendy.

MD: Are there any trends you see for this fall?

JS: Apples are a trend this fall because they’re getting ready to be in season – apple tart tatins, caramel apples, that kind of thing. I’d like it to be figs, but I have a hard time finding them – I want to make fig jam really badly.

MD: When you’re planning a desert menu, do you have to have a variety?

JS: Yes, you’ve got to hit everybody’s palate. And there are a lot of diet restrictions with our customers – like gluten free – that you have to think about.

MD: I always think that gluten free baking is so much harder to do.

JS: At first I thought that, but now I’m really into it. Have you heard of this place called Babycakes, in New York? Most of their stuff is vegan, and some is gluten free. I’m made these raspberry scones out of their book and they’re so good. I’ve made them three times this week.

MD: I always shy away from ordering gluten free desserts.

JS: I was the same way – I thought “this is not going to be very good.” Here’s the thing – you have to use good ingredients. I use rice flour and almond flour [in gluten-free baking], which is full of fat and flavor, and adds a whole other dimension to the dessert. We sell a gluten-free brownie at Buzz that uses rice and almond flour, and it’s really good.

MD: Buzz is known in the cupcake blogosphere for your signature cupcakes. Like the bacon cupcake you sold in August [devils food cake topped with a bacon peanut butter frosting].

JS: The bacon cupcake – that was fun. We got the idea for that because Vosges came out with that chocolate bacon candy bar, and we were skeptical. But once we tried it, we realized it was really good, and we thought, “how could we make this better?” The peanut butter adds a whole other dimension. And it helps that we use really good, applewood smoked bacon. I think people are skeptical of the bacon cupcake, until they try it.

MD: Do you do signature cupcakes every month?

JS: Yes. Right now it’s a s’mores cupcake. October will be a Guinness cupcakes for Oktoberfest, caramel apple cupcakes, and pumpkin cupcakes. I just got this new Halloween book, and I’m really excited – I want to do ghosts and other Halloween cupcakes, probably using marshmallows.

A bumblebee cupcake from Buzz.

A bumblebee cupcake from Buzz.

MD: Do you think the cupcake craze is just a craze?

JS: I don’t think there’s room for anymore out there – the fittest are the one that are going to stay open. But I don’t think it’s a fad – I don’t think it’s going to die out.

MD: Is there something that you love to bake that you never do – because it’s not profitable?

JS: Not really – everything can be profitable. If you put a lot of expensive ingredients in an item – like nuts and chocolate – your customers will pay for that. So I don’t think there’s anything out of our price range. But there are some things that you can’t eat all the time. Like cupcakes we make for the 9:30 club are so good – chocolate cupcake filled with a vanilla butter cream, topped with a mousse, and glazed with chocolate. But you can’t eat one of those every day.

When I first came here, we did a lot of fancy french desserts, but people didn’t want that. Simple, down-home cooking is more my thing now – straight forward desserts. It’s the flavors, but it’s also the memories that are tied to the flavors. That’s more my thing now.

MD: Any other events happening this fall?

The Neighborhood Restaurant Group is putting together an event for Octoberfest on Saturday, October 10. Rustico will have a band and different special beers, and we’ll have the Guinness cupcakes. It’s a benefit to help raise money for DC Central Kitchen. You should grab some friends and come down.

MD: I will try!

And I will – it’s an excuse to get down to Alexandria, drink some good beer, and finally check out Buzz. Who else is with me?

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On Pastry

September 7, 2009 at 6:55 am · Filed under baking, Uncategorized ·Tagged , ,

Cupcake Jones - Cookies 'N Cream

Cookies 'N Cream Cupcake from Cupcake Jones in Portland

Pastry is a deeply personal subject. This is probably the most important lesson I’ve learned as an avid cupcake consumer in the DC area. Each of my friends has their own tastes and preferences. One friend doesn’t like the “tang” of the vanilla frosting at Georgetown Cupcake, while I find it utterly addicting. Some friends prefer the huge pile of of frosting one gets at Hello Cupcake, while I like a bigger cake to frosting ratio. Some friends think the Red Velvet Cupcakery isn’t worth bothering with, but I love their chocolate peanut butter cupcake.,

But sometimes, a cupcake is so bad, so misguided, I have to wonder – does anybody like this? Is this really someone’s idea of good pastry, and I’ve just completely missed the boat?

This is how I felt when I visited Cupcake Jones in Portland, a cupcake shop in the city’s happening and chic Pearl district. I dragged my parents there after I discovered the shop was near to our hotel, determined to see what this great food city had to offer in the way of cupcakes.

Cupcake Jones - Interior

Inside Cupcake Jones - you can see the pastry chefs in action.

But the results – dry, dense butter cakes frosted and filled with the classic, all-butter buttercream frostings, were really not worth the visit. In fact, it so shocking, I had to take a step back and wonder – is this just a matter of personal taste?

I’ve encountered the dense, butter cake of Cupcake Jones before. I’ve had it in restaurants, when I’ve ordered cake slices that sounded great on the menu, but were much too cold, too dense, and too dry for my taste. I’ve had the classic butter cake when I went to Cakelove – and, again, it was so dense and so rich that I couldn’t finish the slice. Hell, I’ve even made cakes like this before, and wondered why I didn’t like them more, since the person putting together the recipe surely thought they were good.

Cupcake Jones - Lemonade and Rocky Road

Strawberry Lemonade and Rocky Road cupcakes.

The same thing with buttercream frosting – I’ve eaten it at restaurants, at CakeLove, and I’ve even made it myself, and damned if it doesn’t taste like eating a stick of butter to me. The frosting on these cupcakes was definitely room temperature, which is ideal for its flavor and texture, and yet it just tasted oily and unpleasantly slick.

Sometimes I feel as though there’s an entire style of pastry – the classic, dense, butter cake topped with the classic all-butter buttercream frosting – that I just don’t “get.” Perhaps it’s growing up eating Safeway cupcakes at school birthday parties, but I really like very fluffy, very light, very moist cake – and I like the sweet powdered sugar frostings. If I had grown up in France, perhaps it would be too sweet and pedestrian for me, but I have a decidedly American cake pallet.

So perhaps it’s just my personal taste, but I will not be returning to Cupcake Jones. Even if the cake and frostings were more in my style, the cupcakes had too much going on to be a real success. The store only offered six kinds of regular sized cupcakes, but all of them were filled, topped with buttercream, and then sprinkled with decorative accents. With the exception of Georgetown Cupcake’s toasted marshmallow cupcake, I strongly believe that cupcakes shouldn’t contain any kind of filling – if the frosting and cake is good enough, why would it need anything else? I hate it when desserts are excessive just to be decadent – with little regard for how the final product actually tastes. With cupcakes and with desserts in general, I favor simple items that are really well done – it’s certainly what I strive for in my own baking.

Cupcake Jones - Case

I am biased. I think filled cupcakes are a bad sign.

Do other people have thoughts on classic cake styles? If I ordered a butter cake frosted with buttercream in Paris, would it taste different than what I get at CakeLove? Do you sometimes wonder if you don’t like buttercream frosting because you’re not European?

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A Visit To Cupcake Royale

August 31, 2009 at 7:50 am · Filed under Uncategorized ·Tagged , , , , ,

Cupcake Royale - Peppermint Cupcake

A perfect mint chocolate cupcake from Cupcake Royale, in Seattle.

It’s sad to say that I was a better cupcake consumer in the Northwest than I’ve been in DC. I still haven’t been to Baked and Wired or Buzz Bakery or Best Buns Company, but I managed to visit three cupcake shops on my West Coast jaunt. One of them, Tacoma’s “Hello, Cupcake,” was really delightful, and helped my coworkers and I muddle through the final days our convention. The second one, Cupcake Royale, was a must-do item on my Seattle to-do list. And the third . . . well, I won’t go there just yet.

Cupcake Royale - Sign

The sign outside the Capital Hill store.

I was very excited to visit Cupcake Royale during my two days in Seattle. Unlike many of the DC cupcake shops, which are recent transplants (Hello Cupcake just had its first birthday), Cupcake Royale opened before I left Seattle four years ago. It has four locations, including one in Ballard (the Nordic-inspired, trendy neighborhood that celebrates both vikings and boutiques), Madrona, West Seattle, and Capitol Hill (Seattle’s resident gay district – no relation to DC’s Capitol Hill). I visited the latter location, along with my friend Aiko, who unexpectedly had some time off from her teaching masters program.

Cupcake Royale - Interior 2

I heart the store's design.

First off, the store is delightful. The store opens with a large stained glass cupcake window, and has art pieces scattered throughout. The store’s clean white and pink color scheme and open floor plan makes the space feel both whimsical and modern – not an easy thing to accomplish. It’s also huge. There’s a large display case, counter, and huge seating area – theoretically, one could get a cupcake, a cup of coffee, and spend an hour reading a book or watching all the Capitol Hill types pass by the large windows. Try to do that in Georgetown Cupcake.

Cupcake Royale - Interior 1

I want that lamp! In another color . . .

Due to waistline considerations, I wasn’t able to sample all the cupcake flavors I wanted. So I tried to choose a representative sampling, and went with a chocolate cupcake with peppermint frosting, and a vanilla cupcake with lavender frosting. Both cupcakes were the generous “muffin top” style cupcakes – like the kind one gets at Cakelove, and both were covered in powdered-sugar based buttercream frosting.

Cupcake Royale - Case

The cupcake case . . . I wanted to try them all.

The peppermint cupcake was seriously perfect. I don’t think I could ask for anything more in a cupcake. The cake was really moist and fluffy, and had a melt in your mouth tender crumb. The frosting was very minty and incredibly smooth and soft and flavorful, without being too sweet. Really, this cupcake was spot -on in every way.

Of course, the lavender cupcake had a tough act to follow, and didn’t quite live up to its predecessor. The lavender frosting had the same great texture and sweetness, but I couldn’t help but think that it tasted a little soapy (this is the problem with lavender flavored desserts, I’ve found). The vanilla cake was lovely, however, with the same melting, fluffy texture as the chocolate cake.

Cupcake Royale - Lavender Cupcake

A lavender cupcake to go.

All in all, I left the experience vowing that I would figure out how the hell I could make that peppermint cupcake myself – and vowing to return to Cupcake Royale and Seattle before too long. But when I was proclaiming my cupcake Royale love at happy hour later that day at one of my old college haunts (Kai’s for anyone who’s interested), I found out that there was a cupcake controversy brewing in Seattle. One of my friends told me that the Cupcake Royale cupcakes out in the Ballard store are always dry, and that Trophy, an up-and-coming cupcake shop, made the best cupcake in the city.

Had I found this out before the night before my flight, I would have gone to investigate. But I think I’ll have to save Trophy for another trip. Seattle peeps, care to weigh in on this cupcake controversy? Is the Trophy vs. Cupcake Royale debate just a matter of personal taste, or does Cupcake Royale really have consistency problems? Now that I’m no longer a Seattleite, I can only speculate.

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There Are Cupcakes In Tacoma Washington!

August 24, 2009 at 7:01 am · Filed under baking, Uncategorized ·Tagged , , , ,

Hello, Cupcake - Interior

Hello, Cupcake, in Tacoma Washington.

There’s nothing more warming to the soul when you’re working twelve hours days at a convention and can’t stomach telling one more person where the lunch buffet is, than receiving a box of cupcakes. So imagine my joy when a box of cupcakes from Tacoma Washington’s Hello Cupcake (not affiliated with the DC version) appeared in our makeshift convention office this week – the gift of a very kind and thoughtful husband of one of our board members.

Hello, Cupacake - Vanilla Chocolate

The vanilla chocolate cupcake. I heart those pink flowers.

My coworkers and I loved the cupcakes so much that we stole away for half an hour on Saturday to get an even dozen. We had to protect them from wandering conference participants.

Hello, Cupcake - Warning

Stay out of our cupcakes!

Hello Cupcake is right on Pacific avenue, near the Tacoma Museum of Glass, the University of Washington Tacoma campus, and the Chihuly Bridge of Glass. The store itself was charming, with a clean, bright interior, and beautifully displayed stands of cupcakes. I always forget how much space there is on the West Coast – the store was probably twice the size of Georgetown Cupcake, and felt very spacious.

Hello, Cupcake - Cupcake Display

I love the clean, clear cupcake displays.

The cupcakes themselves were excellent. My favorite was the chocolate cupcake with chocolate frosting and sprinkles. The cake was moist and chocolatey, but the frosting was really something special. It had the creamy texture and lightness of a buttercream, but the rich chocolate flavor of a ganache – exactly the kind of chocolate frosting that I want to make myself.

Hello, Cupcake 2

I want to figure out how to make the chocolate frosting on these cupcakes! It was perfect.

I was also a big fan of the coconut cupcake, which managed to taste of coconut and vanilla, without being too sweet. The carrot cake was also top notch – the cake was nicely spiced, and the cream cheese frosting had the creamy consistency and tang that I look for in a good cream cheese frosting.

Hello, Cupcake - Carrot Cake

A lovely carrot cake cupcake.

I also liked the rich coffee flavor of the coffee frosting on the mocha cupcake.

Hello, Cupcake - Mocha

The coffee frosting had a strong coffee flavor - appropriate in the Pacific Northwest.

I was not a fan of the vanilla cupcake. The vanilla cake with vanilla frosting was way too sweet – the only thing that I could taste was sugar.

Hello, Cupcake - Vanilla

Too sweet - it needs to actually taste like vanilla to qualify as a vanilla cupcake.

And I wasn’t a fan of the peanut butter chips in the cake portion of the peanut butter cupcake.

Hello, Cupcake - Peanut Butter

A good peanut butter cupcake doesn't need peanut butter chips in the cake - just a good peanut butter frosting.

Overall, I was very pleased with the cupcakes over at Hello, Cupcake, although it would have been nice to have a few more seasonal offerings. The store shows a real commitment to quality products – the cake was moist, the buttercream was creamy, and the flavors were (almost always) spot on. A visit to the store would be a perfect way to top off a visit to Tacoma’s excellent Museum of Glass, but it would also be worth a detour on your way to Seattle. And it was the perfect mid-convention pick-me-up.

Hello, Cupcake - Our Dozen, Minus a Few

Almost all of our dozen cupcakes. Just a few fell pray to wandering hands.

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Almond Cupcakes With Amaretto Frosting

June 25, 2009 at 6:48 am · Filed under baking ·Tagged , , , , , ,

Almond Cupcakes with Amaretto Frosting

Almond cupcakes with amaretto frosting.

I’ve never had a thing for almonds. Oh sure, an almond shortbread cookie is a welcome change from chocolate chip from time to time, but ask me what kind of sweets I love the most and almond desserts never make the list. I think this may be because too many almond cookies and candies are so heavy on the almond that it tastes like I’m eating a bottle of almond extract. Bakers be warned – some flavors are best served with a dash of subtlety.

But one of my coworkers is a huge fan of almonds, and I wanted to make her very favorite dessert to thank her for some recent help she gave me. And besides, I love a challenge, and I was very excited to see if I could make an almond dessert that everyone could love. After all, I loved the amaretto flavoring in Michelle Obama’s shortbread, so perhaps my poor opinion of almonds was unjustly founded on too many lousy almond danishes?

I decided on cupcakes because, well, I just can’t resist the opportunity to make them. I went back to my old standby – The Cake Bible – because I remembered making Rose Levy Beranbaum’s almond cake many years ago (possibly when I was still in high school) and being surprised how much I loved it (unrelated side note: sometimes I wonder if I sound too much like a Rose Levy Beranbaum groupie. Although, considering how much I love her books and recipes, I guess I kind of am).

Grinding the Almonds

I ground the almonds for the cake by hand after roasting them. It was suprisingly easy.

For the frosting, I decided that there could be no better use for that huge bottle of amaretto I had sitting in my cupboard that was left over from making Michelle Obama’s shortbread. I modified the Magnolia Bakery’s vanilla frosting recipe, making a half batch and adding amaretto along with the vanilla extract.

You should note that Beranbaum’s recipe didn’t perfectly translate to cupcakes – I probably had enough batter left over to make two more cupcakes, if I was so inclined, but I didn’t want the bother. I also had frosting left over . . . although is that ever really a bad thing?

The almond cake was better than I remembered – roasting the almonds before adding them to the batter really brings out the flavor, and the almond extract is light enough that it gently enhances, but doesn’t overpower, the natural flavor of the nuts themselves. The frosting was sweet, and the amaretto adds an almond note that’s subtle and understated, which I just adored.

So almond haters take note – these lovely nuts may deserve a second look. Just keep a light hand with the almond extract.

Almond Cupcakes with Amaretto Frosting

I think I may have to make these again.

Recipe for Almond Cupcakes with Amaretto Frosting

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A Peek Inside The Lavender Moon Cupcakery

June 17, 2009 at 7:09 am · Filed under DC ·Tagged , , , ,

Lavender Moon Cupcakery 1

Cupcakes at the Lavender Moon Cupcakery.

Two weekends ago Nonna and I braved the weekend Metro service and headed out for a relaxing day at the Armenian Festival, which was held down in Old Town, Alexandria. While we were basking in the upscale picturesqueness of King Street, we happened upon the Lavender Moon Cupcakery, and decided to take a peek inside.

Lavender Moon Cupcakery 7

An inviting facade . . .

Devotees of this blog will know that I did a quick review of the Lavender Moon Cupcakery back in November, when one of my coworkers generously brought in their cupcakes to work. I liked some of what I had, but in general felt that their cupcakes were so heavy and rich that they were an overkill. Lavender Moon didn’t fare so well in the Washington Post Cupcake Wars either; Post testers thought that their cupcakes were overdone in the richness department.

Lavender Moon Cupcakery 5

Cupcake ornaments hang from the ceiling. Okay, so this was a little too cutesy for me, but to each their own.

I was curious to see their operation in person. The store itself was very cute, with colorful styling that matches the whimsy of the store’s name.

Lavender Moon Cupcakery 4

I liked the pink on pink stripes, very Alice-In-Wonderland-esque.

While I didn’t have the stomach to do a full review of the place, which would have required eating more than one cupcake, I was much more impressed with the triple chocolate cupcake I sampled than I thought I would be. The cake was moist and chocolatey, and the fudgy frosting was thick and satisfying.

Overkill? Maybe a little. But I was in the mood for decadence, and enjoyed the cupcake just fine.

Lavender Moon Cupcakery 2

Mmm, cupcakes.

While I don’t know the next time I’ll get back down to Old Town, I feel that Lavender Moon deserves a second ModernDomestic look. Maybe that can be a project for after I get my new place together, which is taking just about every ounce of my energy these days.

Lavender Moon Cupcakery 6

Speaking of decorating, where can I get this chandelier for my new apartment?

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Wheat Free Desserts, Part Two: Flourless Chocolate Cupcakes

May 14, 2009 at 7:43 am · Filed under baking ·Tagged , , , ,

Wheat free cupcake

Flourless chocolate cupcakes

It’s hard for me to get excited about wheat-free baking, because I’m a flour snob. I know, I know, I don’t like to admit to my faults as much as the next person, but I am. I like to buy nice flours and then read about how the protein contents differ from brand to brand. I like to use old-school bread making methods that require elaborate starters, so that the flavor of the yeast will not mask the flavor of the flour. I have at least six different kinds of flour sitting in our kitchen as I type. I am a flour addict.

So it was with great difficulty that I averted my eyes and picked a wheat-free recipe for part two of the May Baking Project: flourless chocolate cupcakes. I used this Epicurious recipe for flourless chocolate cake, but baked them in muffin tins and topped them with sweetened whipped cream and a strawberry.

The result was about what I expected, given my past experiences with flourless chocolate cakes. The cakes were very, very rich, with an intense chocolate flavor that was almost too much for me. I like chocolate, but I’m actually more a fan of milk chocolate than dark chocolate (foodie sacrilege, I know. But what can I say? It’s my enormous sweet tooth). The cake, flavored with bittersweet chocolate and cocoa powder, was too dark for me. The texture was dense and fudgy, but the cakes had a thick, tough crust on top, which I wasn’t a huge fan of.

The cupcakes were fine, they were serviceable, and they’ll do in a pinch if you need to whip up some treats for an unexpected gluten-intolerant house guest. But they gave me the feeling that I often have when eating wheat free baked goods – it was a shadow of what I really wanted.

Which brings me to one final request – to my wheat and gluten intolerant readers, do you have  a great wheat-free dessert recipe that you think I should try? I know that there are excellent ones out there, and I would love your help with ferreting out the best of the bunch. Leave your recipes and links in the comments.

Maybe, with your help, I can get over my flour snobbery after all.

Recipe: Flourless Chocolate Cupcakes

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