The Bitchin' Kitchin' (2024)

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I know I'm a little late on this post. Memorial Day BBQ's are prime places to debut such delicious treats as Belgian White Beer Cupcakes. But that's OK. Why don't we think of this post as a great treat that you can use to ease into the rest of summer.

When your friends least expect it, you can show up at a BBQ, bearing gifts of the beer and cupcake kind. You can say "Oh, these little things? I just felt like whipping these up for today. No big deal."

You get the idea.

I had a lot of success a few years ago with my Blue Moon Cupcakes, so I decided to make a variation of that. I really wanted to make these with Sam Adams' Summer Ale, but alas, I couldn't find any in my local stores. I opted to improvise instead of continuing the search, and I ended up using a Shocktop Belgian White Beer. Delicious stuff!

So here's me raising my beer (cupcake) to you. Enjoy!

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Green Velvet Cupcakes. As in Red Velvet Cupcakes with green food coloring instead of red food coloring. This isn't rocket science, but let's face it: I'm a sucker for pretty food. I'm also really into vibrant green colors right now so this was perfect for me.

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Ferrero Rocher Cupcakes.

Wow, right? Yeah, that's what I think too. If you're not familiar with Ferrero Rocher, you could simply search the candy aisle for the only spherical, gold-foil-covered candy you can find. Once you unwrap the foil, you're left with a ball of chocolate hazelnut goodness. You just want to hug everybody in sight when you eat it. It's that good.

So once I stumbled across a Ferrero Rocher cupcake recipe from Cupcake Project, I knew that I needed to make these.

Do you need my justification spelled out? OK, here's why:

1. I have a love affair with chocolate.

2. I adore a good chocolate hazelnut combination.(Think Nutella. Come on!)

3. These cupcakes have a filled center. 'Nuff said.

3. I am entranced by pretty shiny things. Ferrero Rocher chocolates pretty much have that market covered.

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OK, I'm over it.

Hungry? Keep on reading...

Somewhere in my distant past I had tried a red velvet cupcake and was turned off by it. So although I hadn't tried one in years I knew I didn't like it. And you can verify with any member of my family that I'm a stubborn one. If you try to get my to like something repeatedly, I'll put my foot down and claim instant dislike.

I was able to fend off my client for the past year or two. I finally caved in when my client and my manager teamed up to bombard me with red velvet cupcake requests.

FINE!

Red Velvet Cupcakes with White Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

cupcake slightly adapted from the Cupcakes blog recipe

• 3 3/4 cups cake flour
• 1 1/2 heaping teaspoons baking powder
• 3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1/2 oz. red food coloring (half of a bottle) plus 1/2 - 1 teaspoon no-taste-red icing color gel (the original recipe states that you can use two bottles of red food coloring, but I was worried that it would give the cupcakes a funny taste)
• 3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 2 1/4 cups sugar
• 3 eggs, at room temperature
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups buttermilk, at room temperature
• 1 1/2 teaspoons white vinegar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

4) Spread or pipe onto cooled cupcakes. (If you choose to pipe the frosting, you may need to double the recipe.)

I snagged this frosting recipe from one of my coworkers. She had used it to frost a red velvet cake and it was so delicious I knew I needed to "borrow" it for my red velvet cupcakes. The frosting that I made came out pretty much the same as hers, thank goodness. It was light and fluffy with an extra oomph of sweetness and flavor from the white chocolate. Most people couldn't figure out the identity of this secret ingredient but the chocolate really made the frosting outstanding. And combined with the red velvet cake, I have to say that I may now be a red velvet cake/cupcake believer. The cake had the cocoa flavor that is distinctive to any red velvet cake. I also found that the texture of the cake was pretty light and airy, which matched well with the frosting.

OK, so maybe the red velvet cupcake is beginning to warm my stone cold heart. Who knew? I didn't take these cupcakes to my client or my manager because I ended up over-baking them by a few minutes. I think our oven is having technical difficulties.... But I will make sure that my work family will get their red velvet cupcake fix very soon!

I picked up a bottle of the "good stuff" several weeks ago. What, pray tell, is the "good stuff"? Spekuloos. It's a gingerbread spread that I picked up from the Wafels & Dinges food truck earlier this summer. It was a warm, gooey and spicy topping for a crispy, sweet waffle, so of course I devoured the whole thing. Then my friend Katie and I each took a jar of the "good stuff" home.

I'm a little ashamed to admit that I didn't envision a cupcake right away. Then I happened to be checking out one of my favorite blogs, Cupcake Project. Stef had made peanut butter cookie dough that was safe to eat. I thought that was pretty interesting, but I didn't get inspired by the recipe until I saw her next post: peanut butter cookie dough frosting.

I'm not particularly interested in making cookies. They're not my dessert of choice, though I rarely turn one down. But this frosting business sounded pretty tasty. I whipped out my jar of spekuloos in anticipation.

I got down to business using the spekuloos in a batch of frosting. I smeared this frosting over a batch of white cupcakes that I whipped up. How was it? The frosting ended up not being for me because I think it was a little too heavy for the white cake. If I could somehow lighten up the frosting a bit then I think I would like it more. But in terms of flavors, I definitely got the sweet gingerbread taste that I was after.

Spekuloos Cupcakes

• 1 cup 2% milk
• 4 large egg whites, room temperature
• 2 1/4 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 3 cups cake flour
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, cut into tablespoons, room temperature
• 3/4 cup heavy cream

: I used the same cupcake recipe for my Salted Caramel Cupcakes. I had issues at the time with the wrappers peeling away from the cake. This time I used a mixture of paper and foil cupcake liners and didn't have an issue with either one. I think I had the problem before because it was humid outside.

Spekuloos Cookie Dough Frosting
adapted from Cupcake Project's Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Frosting
yields ~4 cups

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• pinch of salt
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 cup spekuloos spread
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/4 - 1/2 teaspoons each of cinnamon, cloves, allspice, and nutmeg (I would go easy on the spices and add more later if you need too.)
• 6-7 teaspoons milk

1) Mix all ingredients together in a big mixing bowl, with the exception of the milk.

2) Add the milk slowly. Add more milk for a creamier frosting or less milk for a thicker frosting.

3) Spread frosting on cooled cupcakes.

I've had really poor "cupcake mojo" lately. As in really, really poor mojo. To give you a synopsis, these cupcakes were the result of 3 weekends of baking attempts. I even made two batches of cupcakes last weekend, but nothing was working. My cupcakes ended up either overflowing from the liners or deflating in the oven. Then there was that one time I accidentally added an extra cup of sugar to the batter, but we won't talk about that. Finally, after weeks of sucking at making cupcakes, I managed to pull out a dozen successful baked goods.

I'm not getting carried away just yet, though. I was actually trying to make 2 dozen cupcakes and only 12 made it out of the oven unscathed. It's a start.

Now we can get to the good stuff: my Bonnaroo cupcakes. They are fabulous. And they were inspired by a Ben & Jerry's ice cream flavor. Bonus.

A few weeks ago, I was on my way home from my dance studio and I realized that I was hungry. Of course I figured a pint of ice cream would be the perfect solution to this problem so I stopped at a local convenience store to check out the options. And what did they happen to have? Ben & Jerry's Bonnaroo ice cream.

Bonnaroo. What is it? In a nutshell, it's an annual music festival held in Manchester, Tennessee. Somehow Ben and Jerry have figured out how to capture the essence of the festival and everything Tennessee stands for in an ice cream flavor: "Coffee and Malt Ice Cream with Whiskey Caramel Swirl & English Toffee Pieces." This already sounds like a cupcake flavor, right? So I just made sure it became one...

Bonnaroo Cupcakes (aka Chocolate Cupcakes with Espresso Malted Whiskey Frosting)

Malted Whiskey Frosting

• 6 tablespoons whiskey (such as Jameson)
• 1 teaspoon espresso powder
• 1 teaspoon malted milk powder
• 4 - 5 cups confections sugar
• 2 sticks (1 cup or 8 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• ~24 miniature Heath bars (or ~6 regular-sized Heath bars)

3) Slowly add the powdered sugar, a few tablespoons at a time.

4) When the frosting is thick, drizzle in the whiskey mixture. Whip until combined. If the frosting is too thin at this point, add another spoonful or two of powdered sugar. If the frosting is still too thick, add more whiskey!

5) Pipe or spread on the cupcakes.

6) Sprinkle Heath bar pieces on top of the frosting.

I had excellent intentions of also adding a drizzle of caramel on top of the cupcakes, but in all honesty I totally forgot. But you should get your caramel on. Totally do it.

I held back on the whiskey because I was taking these cupcakes to work, but if I was making them for friends I would have added another tablespoon or two. I don't normally consume whiskey, but I've discovered that I love it in my desserts because it turns into a sweet, oak-y flavor when mixed into the frosting. Add that to the espresso and malt flavors, along with the chocolate cake and the crunchy toffee and you have a pretty bangin' cupcake there.

Determined not to give up, we next thought that I could make a fruity daiquiri cupcake (think strawberry daiquiri). I confess that I don't really like fresh fruit. I think the fruit knows this because each time I try to incorporate it into a cupcake, things don't turn out exactly as planned. You know how some people have a "black thumb" instead of a "green thumb" when it comes to gardening? Well, I have a "black thumb" when it comes to fruity cupcakes. I can't seem to make them both look AND taste great. If I'm lucky, I'll get them to look OR taste great. But that's as far as I've gotten. So after a few more days of thought, I nixed the daiquiri cupcake idea.

I looked at a few more recipes, but in the end this month's cupcake flavor was determined by several key factors: 1) my lack of free time to make cupcakes; 2) trying to adapt to the lack of time by using ingredients I already had on hand; 3) my constant desire to make almond cupcakes. Note how my desire to make these cupcakes comes after the convenience of making these cupcakes. Don't get me wrong. I actually have been wanting to make almond cupcakes for a really long time, but I kept getting caught up in more elaborate cupcake ideas. There's something to be said about making a simple(ish) cupcake.

So almond cupcakes it was. And of course, what would a TBK cupcake be if it didn't have alcohol in the frosting? As I stated above, my roommate and I seem to have a large supply of alcohol that we never drink. We get these odd liquors and liqueurs at one of the two parties we have each year. These beverages tend to just hang around until the next party, when someone may finish a bottle or two. But that doesn't matter because by the end of the night, more bottles of alcohol that we won't drink will show up. It's a vicious, never-ending cycle.

The cake turned out light and slightly crumbly, but still moist. The frosting was a smooth mix of the almond and Bailey's flavors. I don't think I really needed the Godiva in there, but the flavor wasn't prominent at all. If I were to make the frosting again, I would just leave out the Godiva. I made the frosting a bright Tiffany blue because I liked the color, but also because the un-tinted frosting was an unattractive tan color. Obviously you can make the frosting whichever color you like. Overall, this was a cupcake success!

So. What does this very very long story have to do with Sea Salted Caramel Cupcakes?

One of the frosting options at Butter Lane was a Sea Salted Chocolate frosting. Kat and I both chose this frosting on a plain vanilla cupcake (it is possible that 2 other cupcakes were also involved in our purchase, but we need not speak of them). The cupcake was completely delicious. However, it felt a little heavy. (In all fairness to Butter Lane, I had already eaten a Luke's Lobster combo and a Butter Lane Espresso-frosted cupcake before I got to the Sea Salted Chocolate cupcake.) I began wondering how the frosting would turn out if it wasn't chocolate. My client has also been raving lately about the sea salt/caramel flavor combination, so I got to thinking that perhaps I should try making similar cupcakes with a caramel spin on the frosting.

Sea Salted Caramel Cupcakes
cake slightly adapted from A Sweet Spoonful's Salted Caramel Cupcakes
frosting slightly adapted from Sprinkle Bakes Triple Salted Caramel Cupcakes
yields ~24 cupcakes

Print Recipe

• 1 cup 2% milk
• 4 large egg whites, room temperature
• 2 1/4 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 3 cups cake flour*
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, cut into tablespoons, room temperature
• 3/4 cup heavy cream

Salted Caramel Buttercream Frosting

• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 4 tablespoons water
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 sticks salted butter
• 2 sticks unsalted butter
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 4 cups powdered sugar

2) Bring to a boil over medium high heat. Cook without stirring until mixture turns a honey color.

4) Meanwhile, in a mixer, beat butter and salt together until light and fluffy.

5) Reduce speed to low and add the powdered sugar very slowly. Mix until thoroughly combined.

7) Spread or pipe the cupcakes with the frosting. Drizzle extra caramel on top of the frosting and dust with a little extra sea salt. (I cheated on this step and used store-bought caramel here.)

The final verdict? These were some amazing cupcakes. And I don't say that because I made them and I'm biased. I'm pretty much neutral about my cupcakes because by the time the cupcakes are done, my taste buds are totally confused. I'm a thorough quality control analyst and I make sure to taste test the cupcake batter, the frosting, the finished cupcakes (without frosting), and then finally the cupcakes with frosting. I can tell if the cupcakes are inedible, but it's hard for me to tell if the cupcakes are only "good" or if they're "great". So I just wait until someone (usually my roommate) comes along and lets me know. I took these babies to work the next day and everyone loved them. The cupcake was light and airy, and the frosting's sweet, salty and caramel flavors were a perfect balance to round out the entire experience.

I was having a few drinks with my coworkers the other day and of course this led me to talk about boozy cupcakes. Because who doesn't love a boozy cupcake, and why wouldn't I want to talk about it? Since I haven't seen my coworkers in so long, they didn't know that I have a food blog or that I have a slight obsessions with making alcohol-laced cupcakes. This then led to the inevitable question of "When are we getting cupcakes?". I tried to think of which cupcake recipe I wanted to tackle next. I had a few recipes that I was planning on making soon, but within a matter of hours, two things happened:

• 4 3/4 cups powdered sugar
• 1 1/2 cup butter, room temperature
• 3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 5 1/2 tablespoons champagne, room temperature

I realize that I've been lax in making cupcakes lately. What started out as the heart and soul of this blog has been passed over recently in favor of other dessert recipes and savory dishes. I also realize that Cinco de Mayo is right around the corner. Granted, it's not an actual celebration of Mexico's Independence Day (that's September 16th), but it's still a celebration of Mexican heritage. And when I think of Mexico, I think of tequila. There are other things I can think of as well, mostly having to do with food, but tequila is obviously the most important.

Margarita Cupcakes
recipe from Annie's Eats
makes ~24 cupcakes

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 2 cups sugar
• 4 large eggs, room temperature
• 3 limes, zested and juiced
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup buttermilk

10) Let cool for 5-10 minutes before removing from the cupcake tins.

Note: I doubled the recipe for this frosting because it only frosts ~12 cupcakes. The doubled recipe is below:

• 1/2 cup butter, room temperature
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 - 3 tablespoons lime juice
• 1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon tequila
• ~5 cups powdered sugar

1) In a mixer, beat the butter until light and fluffy, ~5 minutes.

2) Pour in the vanilla extract, lime juice and tequila.

3) Add the confectioners sugar, slowly, until the frosting is sweet enough and/or has the desired consistency.

I liked these cupcakes, but I wasn't 100% sold on them. Ultimately, I felt that the lime flavor shone through quite well, but the taste of the tequila was not very prominent.

Let's tackle the cake and the frosting separately. The cake was amazing. Very lime-y and soft and fluffy (even though the cake did sink slightly in the middle). And this could have been the best batter that I've ever eaten. I called my roommate into the kitchen to sample it, it was that good. And then I may have proceeded to eat the leftover batter with a spoon. Maybe.

The frosting was a bit too sweet. I understand that this was my fault because I added too much sugar, but I kept trying to "infuse" as much tequila and lime as possible in the frosting. The flavors kept getting lost, so naturally I kept adding more tequila and lime and then, consequently, more sugar! It's a downward spiral.

I think if I make these again, I would opt to brush some tequila over the cooled cupcakes to help infuse the margarita (read: tequila) flavor better. This was a suggestion from Annie's Eats, but somehow I missed that when executing the cupcake recipe.

All together, I still think the entire cupcake was pretty good. I just wish the tequila was a bit more pronounced and the frosting was stiffer (aka easier to pipe onto the cupcakes). Otherwise, this is still a cupcake I can get behind. Because why would I ever turn away a margarita in cupcake form?