Alice, Taste the Rainbow!

Simply put, when these cupcakes came bubbling out of the oven, frothy pink and smelling of vanilla, with wonderous neon colors peeking through the surface – yellows, greens, and blues…I thought to myself: Watson, these are nothing short of Alice in Wonderland cupcakes. Sure, I may have been a bit inspired by the Tim Burton exhibit @ the MOMA (which I saw this weekend!) and the dazzling Alice coming to theaters – this Friday!! – but, at the end when all is said and done – all pictures revealed, all details described – I challenge you to think otherwise.

What you need (recipe courtesy of FamilyFun magazine):

Raw Materials:
18.25 oz box of white cake mix (I used Betty Crocker SuperMoist Vanilla)
Food coloring in Blue, Red, Green, and Yellow ~ use gels for darker colors
1.25 cups of water
1/3 cup of vegetable oil
3 eggs
1 can of icing (Betty Crocker Cupcake Icing in Cloud White)
Tools & Bakeware
1 large bowl (and whisk, for those still without an electric or handheld mixer)
6 small bowls
16 baking cups

Prepare your favorite white cake mix. Divide the batter evenly among six small bowls. Following the list below, dye each bowl of batter a rainbow color. I ended up using regular liquid dye, and my colors were more pastel as you can see below. If you want colors to be darker and brighter, I have read many a suggestion to use gel dye instead. I liked my Easter-ish rainbow, and had no complaints!

PURPLE: 9 Red and 6 Blue Drops
BLUE: 12 Drops
GREEN: 12 Drops
YELLOW: 12 Drops
ORANGE: 12 Yellow and 4 Red Drops
RED: 18 Drops

Line 16 muffin pan wells with baking cups. Evenly distribute the purple batter among the cups, then the blue, and so on, following the order shown in the list above. I used a little less than a regular teaspoon’s (not measuring teaspoon) worth of each color and the cup was a bit too full, hence the muffin tops on some of these cupcakes – making them even more adorable!

As you go, gently spread each layer of batter with the back of a spoon to cover the color underneath. This is a lot harder than it looks, because the chances that the two colors will start to mix is high, especially when covering a darker color (green) with a lighter one (yellow). Slow and steady wins the race here, but keep your masseur (spouse, roommate, pet??) near by – chances are you’ll need a full-body shiatsu by the time you’re through spreading 6 colors in 16 baking cups.

Bake the cupcakes according to your recipe directions found on the packaging from your cake mix. I baked mine for about 20 minutes, and this was the lovely result!

Before serving, top each cupcake with icing. And voila! Now, aren’t they worthy of their very own role in Alice?

Bon Appetit!

Going Bananas!

It may well be that you can identify with this more than you would like to, but I’ve been thinking that life as of late has slowly but surely descended into a state of madness. There are PhD program interviews, crazy schedules, even crazier superiors, hypothetical futures, hypothetical alternatives to hypothetical futures – all in all, such a constant influx of extreme bad and good, it has one quite literally going “bananas.” And so, with peace (and control!) to be found only in the kitchen, I thought – why not make something delicious out of all that crazy. Once again, Matt and Renato, our fave partners in baking crime from my previous pumpkin post and authors of Baked, came to the rescue with their amazing collection of recipes. Presenting: Banana Cupcakes with Vanilla Pastry Cream.  Here’s what you need to get back to your happy place:

Raw Materials:
Cupcakes
2.75 cups of all-purpose flour
1.25 tsps of baking powder
1 tsp of baking soda
.5 tsp of salt
.5 cup (1 stick) of unsalted butter ( stick in the microwave for 20 sec to soften)
.25 cup of vegetable shortening
1.75 cups of sugar
2 tsps of pure vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1.5 cups of mashed bananas
.5 cup of buttermilk
Vanilla Pastry Cream
3 cups of half-and-half
6 egg yolks
.5 cup of sugar
3 tbsps of cornstarch
.25 tsp of salt
1 tsp of pure vanilla extract
Tools & Bakeware
2 12-cup cupcake pans
paper liners for pans
sifter/sieve
2 large bowls & whisk
2 medium bowls
medium saucepan
pastry bag (if available) 

What I did and what you should do given what I did:
Truth be told, I don’t think I really have enough people on a random Sunday night to whom I can give away 24 cupcakes, so I halfed the recipe above and made only 12 – in other words only 18. More on this a bit further down. Let’s get started.

What to do: Preheat your oven to 325 F and line the cupcake pans with paper liners. Into a large bowl, sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In a second large bowl, beat together the softened butter and shortening until you achieve a creamy consistency. Once again, a mixer would be a godsend, but until then – manual labor it is. Add the sugar and vanilla, and whisk together until fluffy. Add the eggs and whisk together until combined. After adding the egg yolks, mix in the mashed bananas. Now, we combine the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. The authors recommend adding the flour mixture in 3 additions, with half of the flour mixture first, then the buttermilk, followed by the second half of the dry ingredients. Mix together until combined. The mixture is now ready to fill those cupcake liners, 3/4 full! For some reason, although I used half of the above recipe, which should technically make 12 cupcakes, there was enough there for 18! Be prepared with extra cupcake liners and pans if you’re going to half the recipe.  Put the filled pans in the oven to bake for 20-25 minutes.  While the cupcakes are getting ready, you need to get started on the vanilla pastry cream. Further insight here: I may have had enough mixture for 18 cupcakes, but the rule does not apply to the pastry cream. I’d stick to the original recipe proportions just to have some extra  - the cream was done and done by the 12th cupcake, no questions asked!

So, what do you need to do? Pour the half-and-half into the saucepan and bring it to a simmer; keep it warm. In a medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, sugar, cornstarch, and salt until you arrive at a pale yellow mixture. A word on egg yolk/white separation. It may be surprising, but my boyfriend Jay was the first one to teach me how to do it. If you’re a newbie (like me!) and haven’t mastered this skill yet, watch the video below – oh trusty youtube! – for a quick demonstration:

Back to the recipe: Pour in half of the steamy half-and-half into the yellow mixture and whisk. When mixed, pour the contents into the remaining half-and-half in the saucepan. Cook over medium heat until the mixture thickens, whisking the whole time. It takes several minutes, but the transformation is quick. Turn off the heat and whisk in the vanilla. Using yet another medium bowl with a fine-mesh sieve placed over the top, strain the cream and use a plastic wrap to cover the surface. This prevents a skin from forming. Chill for 1 hour in the refrigerator. You can also ice the cupcakes right away  and stick them in the refrigerator until serving. The logic behind this, according to Matt and Renato, is that pastry cream cannot remain at room temperature for too long. I found that to be unquestionably true, as it starts to develop a jello-y consistency, too bouncy for a cream. My only departure from the above directions was the sieve part, since I didn’t have one at the time. The cream was still wonderful, but I did find it difficult to spread it on the cupcakes without a pastry bag. Still, I made do with an ice-cream scoop and gave the frosting some texture. I topped them off with a fresh slice of banana on top:

And one more =]

Whew! I’m all banana-ed out, but do I need to say it? For those who love bananas – the cupcake does the trick, and the vanilla cream is the perfect pairing. They are light, airy, and once out of the oven, one could observe a certain amateur baker scarfing down the mini-cakes left without frosting. Logical, right? In either case, now that I’m finito – what do you think? =]

Bon Appetit!