IronCupcake_009: "Drink Cheerwine" Cupcakes

Iron Cupcake:Earth_009
Theme: Soda Pop
My entry: "Drink Cheerwine" Cupcakes
Voting begins: Tuesday, April 28 @ http://www.ironcupcakemilwaukee.com/ and will be open through Monday, May 4 at 12 noon Central.

As soon as I saw that this month's theme for Iron Cupcake:Earth was soda, I knew immediately what drink I was going to use! Since I was born, we've been going to my Grandma's house in North Carolina for every major holiday. While we're there, it's always a treat to get a bottle of Cheerwine. Until recently, Cheerwine was hard to find oustide of NC. Thankfully, now you can get it at most grocery stores in the South. For my Iron Cupcake entry, I went in the direction of red velvet. I wanted to emphasize the color of the soda, and I also needed a recipe that called for water. (Substituting water in recipes that call for milk can result in gummy cupcakes.) I adapted a recipe called "Wacky Cake" from the 1983 book, The Southern Heritage Cakes Cookbook. Instead of using cold water, I used cold Cheerwine. I also added a tablespoon of red gel food coloring. The flavor of Cheerwine wasn't really detectable in the cake, so I knew I had to bring it in the frosting! I made a 7-minute frosting, again subbing Cheerwine for the water. I also added a tiny bit of cherry and almond flavorings. Finally, some Cheerwine flavor! These cupcakes are 100% delicious. The cake part is moist and tender, and the frosting is so light and airy! I am very pleased with these "Drink Cheerwine" Cupcakes as my Iron Cupcake entry for this month!

Ingredients... I promise that's not a jar of blood! I'm thinking the original cake was called "Wacky Cake" because of the strange order the ingredients are mixed.
Finally, it looks like batter! Ready for the oven...
Making the frosting...
I'm pretty proud of these cuppies! ;)

Cheerwine Cupcakes
Makes 12-14 cupcakes

1 cup sugar
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
Pinch of salt
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla
1 tablespoon white vinegar
1 tablespoon red gel food coloring
1 ½ sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup cold Cheerwine soft drink

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a muffin pan with paper liners.
Combine first 5 ingredients in a large bowl. Add vanilla, vinegar, food coloring, and butter; beat well. Slowly stir in water; beat well.
Divide batter evenly among muffin cups. Bake for 15-17 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pans for 10 minutes. Finish cooling on wire racks.

Cheerwine Frosting
1 ½ cups sugar
2 egg whites
¾ cup Cheerwine soft drink
¼ teaspoon cherry flavoring (or 1 drop cherry candy flavoring)
¼ teaspoon almond flavoring

Combine sugar and egg whites in top of a double boiler; add water, and beat on low speed of electric mixer for 30 seconds or just until blended.
Place over boiling water; beat constantly on high speed of electric mixer about 7 minutes or until stiff peaks form. Remove from heat. Add flavorings, and beat 2 additional minutes or until frosting is thick enough to spread.


Overall rating on a scale of 1-5
Moistness: 5
Tenderness: 5
Frosting: 5

Prizes provided by Etsy artists:
A creation by FRUITFLYPIE
A pair of cupcake earrings from LOTS OF SPRINKLES
Also, CAKESPY, who is now going to be doing a piece for our winner each month until further notice!
SWEET CUPPIN CAKES CUPCAKERY will be tossing in sweet surprise.
Corporate prize providers:
HEAD CHEFS by FIESTA PRODUCTS
HELLO CUPCAKE by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson
JESSIE STEELE APRONS
CUPCAKE COURIER
TASTE OF HOME books
UPWITHCUPCAKES.COM
Iron Cupcake:Earth is sponsored in part by 1-800-Flowers

Rocky Road Cupcakes

It’s Cupcake Hero time again. This month’s theme was marshmallow. Thanks to everyone who voted in the poll. The winner by like 25 votes was Rocky Road. These cupcakes are fantastic! The devil’s food cake is p-e-r-f-e-c-t, yes I said it. The cake recipe is definitely a keeper. And the frosting…. Ooohhhhh the frosting…. It’s so sticky and ooey gooey, and with all the stuff mixed in it’s like eating a candy bar on top of a cupcake. I used the recipe for Sticky Fudge Frosting from Cupcakes! by Elinor Klivans, and I just added traditional Rocky Road stuff to it. It is so indulgent! Make these right now!

Devil's Food Cupcake ingredientssmooth yummy batter

using my favorite kitchen tool, the ice cream scoop, to fill the cups

ready!

I get bored waiting, so I scooped some leftover batter into a pan.

Get it? Pan-cake? Yeah.

Well, duh it didn't work.

Devil's Food cuppies cooling

Rocky Road Frosting ingredients

melting everything over a double boiler (glass bowl over saucepan)

It's all smooth and ready to be whipped up!

Mmmm... doesn't this look tasty???

TADA! The Rocky Road Cupcake!

Devil’s Food Cupcakes (doubled from Cupcakes by Shelly Kaldunski)
Makes 24 cupcakes

2 cup all-purpose flour
½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 ½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
8 tbsp (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 large eggs, at room temperature
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup lukewarm water
1/2 cup buttermilk

Position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 350°F. Line two standard 12-cup muffin pans with paper or foil liners.

Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt into a bowl. In another bowl, with an electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat the granulated sugar, brown sugar, and butter together until light and fluffy, 2-3 minutes. Add the egg and vanilla and beat until combined. Add the flour mixture in 3 additions, alternating with the water and buttermilk, beating on low speed until just combined; scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed. Beat on medium-high speed just until no traces of flour remain, about 30 seconds; do not overbeat.

Divide the batter evenly among the prepared muffin cups, filling each about 2/3 to 3/4 full. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out clean, 16-18 minutes. Let the cupcakes cool in the pan on a wire rack for 5 minutes. Transfer the cupcakes to the wire rack and let cool completely, about 1 hour.

Rocky Road Frosting (adapted from Sticky Fudge Frosting in Cupcakes! by Elinor Klivans)
Makes enough to frost 24 cupcakes

2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
¾ cup mini marshmallows
½ cup chocolate covered or plain almonds, coarsely chopped
½ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Put the chocolate, butter, condensed milk, and salt in a heatproof bowl or the top of a double boiler and place it over, but not touch­ing, a saucepan of barely simmering water (or the bottom of the double boiler). Cook, stirring constantly, until the chocolate and butter have melted and the frosting is smooth and thick, about 5 minutes. Remove from the water and stir in the vanilla.
Scrape the chocolate mixture into a large bowl and beat with an electric mixer at medium speed until the frosting thickens further and cools to lukewarm (so it won’t melt the marshmallows), about 3 minutes. When thickened, the beaters should form lines in the frosting. Fold in marshmallows, almonds, and chocolate chips. Allow the frosting to thicken until it’s a spreadable consistency that won’t run down the sides of the cupcakes. (Just play around with it, you’ll know when it’s ready.) Let the cup­cakes sit uncovered until the frosting firms up, about 1 hour.
These cupcakes are best stored in a covered container to protect the frosting; store for up to 3 days at room temperature.

White Velvet Cupcakes with Marshmallow Frosting

When I wrote last week's poll, I really wanted the Yeti Cupcakes to win. Sadly they did not, but I got many messages and comments from people asking me to make them anyway because they sounded interesting. Well, as you can see, the title of this post is not "Yeti Cupcakes." That's because Sunday when I made these, I don't know where my brain was. This is going to be a long story. Let's start from the top. (Oh yeah, Rocky Road cupcakes will be made and posted soon. DON'T WORRY!)

The Yeti Cupcakes were supposed to have coconut in and around the frosting. Josh (my boyfriend) was helping me bake, and he really wanted to get a fresh coconut. He saw on Survivorman how to crack open a coconut, and he wanted to prove his manliness by doing it too. We drove all the way to Kroger to get one, because the grocery stores near my house didn't have them. We got home and the internet wasn't working so we were both clueless about how to begin. I remembered last week on Good Eats, Alton Brown drilled two of the eyes out to drain the coconut water, so we did that. Actually Josh drank it out with a straw. Should've gotten a picture of that! Then Josh decided to go outside and put the Survivorman technique to the test. I wish I couldn've watched him put all his brut strength into opening that coconut, but I was in the kitchen effing up the cupcake batter. Anyway, after 2 tries he came back in with a coconut perfectly cracked into 2 pieces. What a man! :) He got to work peeling and shredding the coconut (by hand, because our food processer is from the Stone Age and the shredding blade was dull).

Meanwhile, I wanted to dye the "white velvet" cupcakes green for St. Patrick's Day, but I forgot to do so. Then marshmallows were supposed to get folded into the batter at the last minute. Of course, I forgot that too. I didn't realize it until all the cupcake liners were full and ready for the oven. I tried to salvage half by pressing 4 mini marshmallows into each cup and covering them up with batter using a toothpick. Wait until you see how that monstrosity turned out!

The next eff up was when I made the "Snow Frosting." I guess I skipped the instruction to "delicately fold in the coconut by hand." I ended up with soup because I'm a genius and used the hand mixer.

After all was said and done, I ended up with White Velvet Cupcakes with Marshmallow Frosting... no marshmallows in the batter... no coconut in sight... not even green for St. Pat's Day... definitely not Yeti Cupcakes... but they really are tasty. ENJOY!

ingredients egg whites ready to be folded
folding in the egg whites

egg whites are blended, batter is smooth... but where are the marshmallows?

This is also when I should've tinted the batter green for St. Pat's Day... not green is it?

They're just chillin' on the counter while the cups are being filled 2/3 full...

16 cupcakes cooling

I added 4 marshmallows each to the cupcake batter in one of the pans. Not so pretty...

Don't use a mixer to incorporate coconut into 7-minute frosting... You'll get 7-minute soup.

I trashed the soup and made Marshmallow frosting. I decorated one...

...Threw some sprinkles on it

And Josh did the rest. Ladies, that's the kind of man you need in the kitchen!

He works diligently while I stuff my face.

Mmmm the frosting is so soft, and the cake is a perfect vanilla cake!

Good flavor and texture. I know I'll use the recipe again.

Josh put some fresh coconut on the one he ate.

After all, he did spend about an hour with that coconut from start to finish.

The recipe for Yeti Cupcakes is from Cupcakes Galore by Gail Wagman.
The recipe for Marshmallow Frosting is from Cupcakes by Shelly Kaldunski.

MY NOTES: I got 16 cupcakes. Duh, I forgot the marshmallows, so my result will be different from yours if you have an elephant's memory. The Snow Frosting worked until I added the coconut, so don't be afraid of the recipe. It flopped because of my mistakes. In the Marshmallow Frosting, it took closed to 4 minutes for the marshmallows to melt completely.

Yeti Cupcakes
MAKES ABOUT 18 CUPCAKES

WHITE VELVET CUPCAKES
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking power
1 teaspoon salt, plus a pinch for the egg whites
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 ¼ cups sugar
2/3 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (you can replace with another flavoring if you prefer: lemon, almond extract, etc.)
3 egg whites
1 cup mini-marshmallows

SNOW FROSTING
2 egg whites
¾ cup sugar
¼ cup light corn syrup
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup sweetened shredded coconut (optional)
Sweetened shredded coconut for decoration

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Mix flour, baking powder, and salt together and set aside.
3. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Alternately add flour mixture and milk, ending with milk, and beat until batter is smooth. Add flavoring.
4. Beat egg whites with a pinch of salt until stiff but not dry. Gently fold into batter. Fold in mini-marshmallows.
5. Spoon batter into cupcake papers, filling cups about 2/3 full. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove from oven and cool.
6. To make the frosting: in a large bowl, preferably the top of a double boiler, mix egg whites, sugar, corn syrup, and salt until combined. Place the bowl over simmering water and whisk until the sugar dissolves and the mixture is hot. This will take about 3 minutes. Remove from heat and beat for 5-7 minutes until frosting is cool and stiff peaks form. Beat in vanilla and delicately fold in the coconut by hand, if desired. The frosting will be ready to spread. Decorate frosted cupcakes to your taste.

Marshmallow Frosting
MAKES 5 CUPS

2 large egg whites
1 cup sugar
6 tbsp water
1 tbsp light corn syrup
½ tsp cream of tartar
Pinch of salt
1 cup miniature marshmallows
1 tsp vanilla extract

In a large, clean heatproof bowl, combine the egg whites, sugar, water, corn syrup, cream of tartar, and salt. Set the bowl over (but not touching) simmering water in a saucepan and heat the mixture, whisking constantly, until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture is very warm to the touch (about 160°F on an instant-read thermometer), about 3 minutes. Remove the bowl from the saucepan. Using an electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat the mixture until it is very warm and soft (but not dry) peaks form, about 2 minutes. Reduce the mixer to low and add the marshmallows and vanilla. Continue beating until the marshmallows are melted and the frosting is completely smooth, about 2 minutes more. Use right away.

Tiramisu Cupcakes turned into Kahlua Cupcakes with 7-Minute Frosting

Crap... CRAP CRAP CRAP! To make a long story short: I voted for Black Forest. Tiramisú won. The Tiramisú Cream thing didn't turn out well at all. I ended up turning them into Kahlúa Cupcakes with 7-Minute Frosting. Here's the long version...

ingredients for Kahlúa Cupcakes (the base for Tiramisú Cupcakes) beating egg whites...
...to soft peaks
folding egg whites into the batter
the finished smooth batter
1/2 full and ready for the oven

The cupcakes came out great...

Here's where it got irritating... The original Tiramisú Cupcake called for making Tiramisú Cream using raw egg yolks and whites along with mascarpone cheese. I didn't really want to use raw eggs, so I decided to make a whipped cream/mascarpone topping instead. As you can see, it didn't look very appetizing, and it was too thin to put on the cupcakes.

So... I decided to use the original Tiramisú Cream recipe even though it meant using raw eggs. I wanted to at least give it a try. (The recipe is at the bottom of the post if anyone else wants to attempt this.)

I whipped egg whites to stiff peaks.

I whipped egg yolks and sugar until fluffy, then added 8 ounces of cream cheese.
I folded the whites into the cheese mixture.
...ONCE AGAIN... SOUP!!

Then I just said eff it and made an adapted version of the 7-Minute Frosting from the "White Mountain Chocolate Cupcakes" recipe in Cupcakes! by Elinor Klivans.

Here are the cupcakes in the cupcake carrier I got for my birthday. It's from the ABC Catalog.After 2 failed frosting attempts, my boyfriend came over and cheered me up by telling me how good the 7-Minute Frosting was! Then I went in my room and found my cat sleeping and looking cuter than ever!

Cupcake recipe can be found in the post for Kahlúa and Cream Cupcakes.

Tiramisú Cream

recipe from Crazy About Cupcakes by Krystina Castella.

3 large eggs, separated
4 tablespoons granulated sugar
8 ounces mascarpone cheese or cream cheese
2 tablespoons Kahlúa or amaretto

1. With an electric mixer on medium-high speed beat the egg yolks with sugar until fluffy. Add the cheese and beat until smooth. Stir in the liqueur.

2. In a separate bowl with clean beaters mix the egg whites until shiny stiff peaks form.

3. Fold the egg whites into the cheese mixture until well blended.

7-Minute Frosting

recipe adapted from Cupcakes! by Elinor Klivans.

1 1/4 cups granulated sugar

1/3 cup water

3 large egg whites

1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

1 tablespoon Kahlúa

1. Put the sugar, water, egg whites, and cream of tartar in a heatproof bowl or the top of a double boiler with at least a 2-quart capacity and beat with a handheld electric mixer on high speed until opaque, white, and foamy, about 1 minute.

2. Put the bowl over, but not touching, a saucepan of barely simmering water. The top container should sit firmly over the pan of hot water.

3. Beat on high speed until the frosting forms a soft peak that stands straight up when the beaters are lifted, about 7 minutes.

4. Remove the bowl from the water, add the Kahlúa, and continue beating for 2 minutes to further thicken the frosting.