boston cream pie!

I read several baking blogs and one, Cupcake Takes the Cake, mentioned some Boston Cream Pie cupcakes the other day and reading about them made me decide that I NEEDED to make some that are gluten free! I've always loved boston cream pie and it's been years since I've had a slice.

Obviously going gluten free has made eating baked goods from restaurants or bakeries practically impossible since there aren't any dedicated gluten free ones around me...There used to be one in my neighborhood, but it closed down a couple weeks ago.

I've always assumed it was really hard to make so it just stayed in the very back of my mind laying dormant until the time came that I was prepared to tackle such a "complicated" desert.



I used the quotes around the word complicated because this is one of the easiest desert that I could make. It's not hard at all! Who knew?!?!

I used the new Betty Crocker GF Yellow Cake mix for my cupcakes and some bavarian cream filling that I bought from my local cake decorating shop. I piped it right in thru the top of the cupcakes and then covered with a delicious chocolate ganache topping made from 1 cup semi-sweet mini chocolate chips and 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream heated to melting and whisked until thick and completely mixed.

MMM!

Vegan cupcakes

For today's festivities (going to a friends house for swimming and fireworks-watching) I decided to bring cupcakes. Big surprise, right?



I used the Vegan recipe I found online a while back and modified it for Gluten Free.

This is the recipe I used:
1 1/2 cup Bob's Red Mill All Purpose GF Baking Flour (same amt of regular flour if not GF)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon Xanthan Gum (omit if not GF)
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup oil
1 cup ice cold water (must be ice cold for proper reactions to take place)
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 tablespoons lemon juice (does not taste lemon-y, but gives proper acidity for baking soda to react with)

Preheat oven to 375 F.

Sift flour, sugar, soda, salt and Xanthan Gum together in a bowl until very light and airy..about 3 times.

In a separate container combine oil, cold water and vanilla.

Add wet to dry (except lemon juice) and stir until well mixed.

Then add the lemon juice and stir quickly pour into prepared pan (or muffin cups)

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until cake tests done with toothpick (or 14-17 for cupcakes).

It rises extremely well and is light, fluffy, moist and rich at the same time.

Makes 12-14 cupcakes and they are really really good.

Then I filled them with Chocolate Bavarian Cream and topped them with just a little simple buttercream frosting...just white as I didn't have enough to do red, white & blue.

Test 2: Betty Crocker GF Brownies

The directions on the box call for 1/2 stick butter (1/4 cup) and 2 eggs.

The butter should be soft, but not melted. I mixed all the ingredients and stirred until all the mix was wet and all the butter/eggs incorporated. The batter was really thick (and tasty). :)

The box doesn't show times for making muffins or mini muffins, but I was out of town this weekend with 16 other people and knew that a regular pan of brownies wouldn't be enough, so I made 2 boxes of the mix into mini-muffins.

I placed mini liners into the pans, spooned tablespoon sized dollops into them and baked them at 350 for 15 minutes. They turned out delicious. The very centers were really gooey and the edges chewy and yum! I suppose I could have baked then 1 more minute, but they were good as they were.



I spooned a little Cream Cheese Frosting on the tops of them because I think brownies are always good with cream cheese frosting. I wanted to drizzle melted caramel over the tops too but I didn't have any caramels to melt. Anyway, they were still delicious and I left some without frosting for the brownie purists out there.



Betty Crocker definitely has GF figured out. These brownies were really good. And the next day, they are still really good.

In a few weeks/months I'll try test out the cake...right now I'm really baked out.

chocolate and peanut butter!

What two things go together better than chocolate and peanut butter? I cannot think of anything. They are perfect together.

what better for a chocolate cupcake than to be filled with peanut butter?


mmmmm, mmmm.

This recipe should make 8 regular cupcakes or 6 large ones...or just cram all the batter into 6 regular cupcake tins and let them rise and fall over the top. It's still good.

1 cup Pamela's Baking Mix
1/3 cup Powdered Sugar
3 Tbspn cocoa powder
(sift together till well mixed)
2 Tbspn vegetable oil
3 Tbspn cold water
1 egg
1/3 cup honey
1 Tbspn Vanilla extract

sift dry ingredients together to mix. add all wet ingredients and stir well (mixer if desired, but I just hand mixed)

pour batter into cupcake liners or directly into greased cupcake pan.

Bake at 350 for 18-22 minutes.

now, here's the fun part, After the cupcakes have cooled just a bit, using a pastry bag with a #21 star tip, fill with peanut butter. Stab that tip right into the very center top of the cupcakes about half an inch down and squeeze out about a tablespoon of peanut butter right into the cupcake...slowly pulling the tip towards the surface of the cupcake (still filling). Then top the cupcake with chocolate frosting. I imagine some chocolate or peanut butter pieces/sprinkles would be adorable right on top of that, but I didn't have any.

It's delicious!

60 cupcakes!

Cupcakes!!!

Who doesn't love cupcakes? Little cup sized cakes. So cute! Isn't everything that comes in a miniature cuter than it's larger counterpart?

Anyway, today's post is NOT gluten free, but these adorable cupcakes aren't for me. I accepted a gig baking and decorating cupcakes for someone's 30th birthday party. Which meant I needed to make a bunch of cupcakes and decorate them. 60 cupcakes to be exact.

12 Vegan cupcakes
24 chocolate cupcakes
24 vanilla cupcakes

The birthday girl told me she wanted them frosted with pink frosting and that she wanted to be able to tell the Vegan ones apart from the regular easily. And she said she wanted purple involved in the decorations. Other than that, she didn't care how I decorated them. The vegan ones have those adorable little white flowers on top and the rest have cute little purple flowers on top.

I'm excited to have a decorating gig already. Shh, don't tell her she is my first.