STRAWBERRY BANANA CAKE POPS!!!
Horrible picture…tasty pops!
When I tasted the pop “filling” I was less than pleased. It didn’t taste particularly strawberry-y or banana-y. After the mix sat in the fridge a bit the flavors came together and I think it for sure comes off strawberry banana! Yay!
So…I like to try new flavors. That should be evident with my bacon cupcakes, chocolate chili, and Guinness cupcakes. True these aren’t new flavor creations, they are just new for me to try as I learn.
So far all of my flavors have worked out and been yummy…until last night.
So I thought a good spring flavor would be strawberry basil.
My first inclination was to do strawberry cake with basil butter cream.
At the last minute I decided instead of basil in the frosting it would just be easier to bake it in to the cake.
Well, it was super easy and the batter was SUPER YUMMY! However…when i tasted the finished product…well…let’s just say I couldn’t serve them at work without getting some questionable glances.
They tasted like POT CUPCAKES!! Ok so if they had been pot cupcakes they would have been really yummy ones…but they were basil and I was not going to serve them lol
I will try this combo again but I think baking the basil takes away the basil flavor and leaves a more herby earthy taste. Next time I will try adding pureed basil straight to the frosting instead.
So tonight I am redoing my cake for my upcoming Easter bake sale cake pops and going with classic strawberry banana…should work fine.
CUPCAKE DUO!!
Today we have Chocolate cake with a kick of cayenne topped with dark chocolate ganache, and strawberry cupcakes with strawberry marshmallow frosting.
Yummy!
STRAWBERRY CUPCAKES ROUND TWO!
Just a quick little look at round 2 of Strawberry Cupcakes.
Strawberry Cupcakes
Last night Kristina made some yummy bacon blue cheese burgers. She asked if I wanted to make cupcakes for dessert. I said of course! She’d been wanting a strawberry cupcake, I’d been wanting to make a strawberry cupcake, so I did!
They were pretty fucking good. I had some frosting issues though. The night I made the cupcakes I was also drinking wine. Every time I have some wine while making frosting something goes wrong. This frosting tasted AWESOME! But it was too runny. Just would not stiffen up. So I tried to add more butter but, being under the influence of wine, I threw in some cold butter, which did not work…duh. So before dinner last night I got more butter and tried again. This time the frosting just wouldn’t get nice and smooth. I think there was too much moisture in the strawberries. Ugh. However, it tasted good and to cover up what I saw as ugly frosting I stuck a strawberry slice on top and sprinkled on some red sugar.
Ok so I should have taken a picture without the wrappers because that red sugar…well it kinda melted into the cupcake making this pretty little red stain.
Anyways, these cupcakes tasted, as Kristina said “like a strawberry shortcake explosion in my mouth”. So, I’m gonna say success for this recipe!
Neapolitan Cupcakes
Well I did it! Neapolitan cupcakes yay! I tried to make a batch last week using the vanilla recipe I used for the lemon blue berry cupcakes. This did not work out so well. Subbing yogurt for sour cream worked perfectly for those. They turned out moist and muffin-like. I think there must be something about the lemon juice and blue berries that made this happen. When I tried that recipe with these cakes, it did not work out. They baked and kinda looked like cheesecakes but they weren’t. Then I pulled them out of the over and they shrunk. I mean just shrunk right on up to about half their size. They were super dense and moist so they were just really weird.
SOOOO since I was not happy with those I had to try again. This time I just used the original recipe from the blog I found the neapolitan cupcakes on (see my last entry).
Kristina had drug me out of the house Friday night so I was a teeny weeny bit hung over from staying up so late and getting up so early (storm, thunder, noisy windows, whining dog) so I wasn’t quite convinced I was going to make cupcakes. Plus, my internet is out so I didn’t have a way to access the recipe. (Mad props to my friend who texted me the ingredients).
I finally pulled myself off the couch (waiting for the Colin Firth Pride & Prejudice to end first) and went down to the store to get my stuffs. Ok, side note…why does butter take so long to get to room temp. It’s such a pain waiting for that stuff to soften when I wanna make cupcakes NOOOOOW!
Anyways, I whipped up the cupcakes according to the recipe and popped them in the oven. I did NOT use the recipe for frosting included with the cupcake recipe, because I just really like the frostin I use. I added a couple spoons of strawberry jam and one drop of pink food color to get the ice cream color in the frosting.
So there’s the final product. They turned out quite well. I think this recipe produces slightly dry cakes, but when eaten with the frosting it balances out. I like the neapolitan cupcakes because they look like they too some serious effort to make with the side by side color, but they were easy. I’ll make these again, but I think I’ll find a better chocolate recipe.
So there you go! Neapolitan Cupcakes. I’ll be taking a little hiatus from cupcaking because it’s about time for SXSW to get started. Once THAT’S all over I’ll be working on Boston Cream Pie cupcakes for my mom. Stay tuned!
