Vanilla Cupcakes with a Lime Alternative

This weekend I checked out The Cupcake Diaries from the library. It's written by the owners of Georgetown Cupcake in Washington, DC. I was not a fan of the cupcakes in the store - I was more of a Baked and Wired girl - but they had a chocolate cupcake recipe that I've always liked making (just the cake, not the frosting), so I was curious about some of their other cupcakes.

I tried the basic vanilla.
2 1/2 cups of flour (I went a little shy on the flour, it was more like 2 1/3 cup)
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
8T unsalted butter at room temp
1 3/4 cups sugar (also went a little shy on this)
2 eggs at room temperature
2 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
seeds for 1 vanilla bean (I had half on hand so I used it, and then added an extra 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla)
1 3/4 c milk (the recipe called for whole, but I used 2%) at room temperature

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
2. Sift together the dry ingredients and set aside in bowl or on wax/parchment paper.
3. In another bowl, cream together the butter and sugar. (I beat the sugar on it's own for a minute or two before adding in the sugar). When it's light and fluffy, add the eggs in one at a time.
4. Add the vanilla extract and vanilla bean seeds to the milk.
5. Add a third of the dry ingredients into the wet sugar/butter/egg mixture. Wait until it's incorporated,  then add in a third of the milk mixture until it is incorporated. Repeat 2 more times.

6. Scoop the batter into a lined cupcake tray. You can use an ice cream scoop for consistency, but I aimed for 2/3 full.
7. Bake for 16-18 minutes. Every one's oven is different, mine took the full 18, almost 19 mins. But start checking at 15 mins. It's ready when a toothpick comes out cleanly.

8. Let the cupcakes cool on wire racks.  I was able to make 18 cupcakes from this batter.

I decided to go with the Vanilla Cream-Cheese Frosting. 

4 T unsalted butter, room temperature

4 cups confectioner's sugar. (not surprisingly I went shy on that because I don't like overly sweet frosting. It was more like 3 2/3 to 3 3/4 cup).

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

6 oz. room temp cream cheese

Put all the ingredients in a mixing bowl and, using a stand mixer or hand held mixer, mix away until it is to the consistency of your liking. I went long and it got it really nice and smooth.

I did split the frosting. Half I kept vanilla, but with the other half I added in the zest and juice of 1 lime. (If i had and extra half lying around I would have added that) to make a lime cream cheese frosting. I did add a little extra powdered sugar here to  to help absorb some of the juice.

The vanilla cupcakes I decorated with sugar sprinkles and the lime I kept plain, but you could see the zest of the lime in the frosting, which I think was quite nice.

All in all, it was a good cupcake. 

Best Valentines Ever...

You have to have lived in DC to get some of these valentines, but some of these are really funny!

Chocolate Molten Cake

I had a chocolate craving and found a quick, easy recipe for Chocolate Molten Cake. It's a Chuck Hughes recipe. I picked it mainly because it was fast and didn't require too many ingredients. You start with melting 6 ounces of dark chocolate (I used a mix of semisweet and milk chocolate because it was what I had on hand) and a stick of butter (1/2 cup). While it's melting, mix 3 room temperature eggs with a 1/3 cup of sugar.  You want it to thicken up and get a nice pale yellow color. Once that happens you want to mix the chocolate mixture into the eggs. Temper the eggs by putting in a little bit of the chocolate mixture into the eggs and sugar and stir. The chocolate mixture will be warm and you don't want the eggs to scramble at all.  Then mix in all of the chocolate into the eggs.  Butter 4 ramakins or molds. Divide the mixture into the ramakins and put into a preheated 400F oven for 9-12 mins. It should still be gooey in the center. Let it set and then eat!

Learning How to Make Bulgogi and Kimchi

During my recent trip to Seoul, I signed up to take a beginning Korean cooking class at O'ngo . They offer classes in English, as well as other languages. The day I was there, there was a class in English and one in Japanese.

It was fun. I've been given Korean cookbooks by my Mom in the past, but never really opened. I'm not as good of a cook as my parents. I always get good food when I go home.

Bulgogi is fairly easily. But kimchi is harder. Or at least, I always thought. I have memories from when I was a young kid of my grandmother and parents making large batches of it.




My Dad said he could teach me how to make kimchi. I would like to know how they made it. It would be nice to know my grandmother's kimchi recipe.

I did not taste the kimchi that I made. We ate the instructors. It needed to sit for a day. I left Seoul the day after I took the class. But my Mom and my Aunt Youngmee's family had it. They said it was good - but they are family, they'd kind of have to.

After the class, the guy that helps run the place took us on a food tour of a local market. That was a lot of fun.

Apparently, a lot of restaurants frequent this market. They have all the necessities, including large tubs of red pepper paste. My favorite was the home-made tofu. They were stamped with Korean words. It was very different looking from tofu that comes out of a box.

I had visited another market. It was an outdoor market that had food stalls running up the middle. I grabbed lunch there. It was very crowded, with people huddled around certain stalls. Lining the sides were various restaurants or stalls selling spices, meats, fish, vegetables - you get the picture.  It was very different from the supermarkets, where there are ribbons on the fruit that is sold.

Still, at least these markets were something I could wrap my head around. There's one other way of shopping in Seoul. It's a spin of ordering on the web and having it delivered. You didn't need to go online, per se. In one of the subway stations there were photographs of store shelves - everything from detergent to toilet paper and vegetables to milk. While you're waiting, and you realize you need something, you can scan it with your smart phone. From there it will be delivered to your home. (You do need an account I imagine.). It was a hoot!

Turkey Chili

I decided to cook today. It was cold and I wanted comfort food. The easiest comfort food for me to make, with the ingredients I had on hand was....chili! If you read my running blog, you know that I was a NYChiliFest 2012 last weekend. I ate a lot of chili. Still, I got out the ingredients and cooked.

You can watch here.


All in all, it was good. I topped it off with some jack cheese. And the good news is I have lunch for the week!

Cupcakes in Seoul

One of the things I enjoy about Seoul are the food courts located in the department stores. Think more Harrods than the food court in a mall. Anyway, I needed a break and there were some cupcake stands so I decided to try a couple.

One was a chocolate mint cupcake, the other was banana.

One thing I've noticed right off the bat is that the sweets in Seoul are not as sweet as in the states. I think that's typical, but the cupcakes were not overly sweet.

The chocolate mint was okay. I wanted to like it more than I did. The cake was a little dry, but not too sweet. I really did like the frosting. It was smooth.

The best thing, though, about this cupcake was the name!

It gives a girl ideas. If nothing else, I knew it was my cupcake. I had wanted to ask for some stickers, but I didn't. Besides, my Korean probably wouldn't have been good enough for it.

Anyway, the banana cupcake was more moist, which was welcome after the mint chocolate cupcake. Again, nice job on the frosting. Not too sweet, smooth, and good banana flavor.

I didn't understand why it had mini-marshmellows on top, though. I understand the need for garnish, but it should have something to do with the flavor, right?

The Filling Station Doesn't Fall Short

As most people who know me or have read this or the running blog, I love burgers. I would go out of my way for a great burger place. And I did over the holidays - not much, but it was a drive.

My cousin, BC, had mentioned that he'd found this great burger place by his house called The Filing Station. So, when I was home over the holidays, I thought I'd try it out. I can see why this would be a great place in the summer. It's really about outdoor seating, since it's like an old curbside shack you would have found in the 1950s. For the winter, they did provide "indoor seating" but it was basically a nice, wooden tent over the shack. It was cute.

Anyway, I ordered a burger and a side of fries. What I really enjoyed about this place was they offered dipping sauces - truffle aioli, spicy ketchup, ancho chile mayo, tartar sauce, blue cheese dip and spicy honey mustard. The chef/order taker recommended the truffle aioli, so I got that.

Out came the burger, fries and dipping sauce. The fries were good, but the dipping sauce made them great! It was so flavorful and tasty. And you didn't need a lot of it. I had dipping sauce left over. As for the burger. It was also really good. It was the meat - I think it had a lot of flavor to it. The burger was also cooked to order. So I asked for medium and it came out medium. All in all, it was worth the drive to Palisades.

I went back with BC, CC and TK, on New Year's Day. I got one of the names burgers - the Texaco. It was good, but not as spicy as I would have thought. I also got the ancho chili mayo this time around. Also, quite yummy, although not as rich as the truffle aioli. But I think the Fill'r up burger will be my standard when I go back. And yes, I will go back! If only to get a beer with my burger next time around. They had a nice selection of New York State microbrews.

Making Sugar Cookies

As usual, I went on a holiday cookie binge this past December. I made peanut butter blossoms. I branched out into a couple of bar cookies - m&m bars. And, of course, I made sugar cookies. After years of trying out different recipes, I think I've found the one I like. It's based off of Alton Brown's Sugar Cookie recipe.

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 tablespoon milk - (go a little shy on this (you'll see why at the in a bit)
• Powdered sugar, for rolling out dough
• 1/2-1 teaspoon of vanilla (this is my addition to the recipe

It's your typical cookie recipe: sift together the dry ingredients, cream sugar and butter, mix wet ingredients, gradually add dry ingredients into the wet ones. Put the dough into 2 equal disks and refrigerate. (I do this overnight, but you should do this at least for a couple of hours.)

Roll out the dough to 1/4 inch thick and use your cookie cutters. Bake at 375 for 7-10 mins (depending on size and thickness).

Then you decorate!

I used a royal icing:

• 3 T of Meringue Powder
• 4 cups of confestioners' sugar
• warm water - at least 6 T, but really have more on hand

Mix the dry ingredients and then gradually add the warm water. Stir it in completely, stopping to check consistency as  you go along.   Once you get it to the consistency you want, divide the icing and add color gels to get different colored icing.

As you can see, I went a little overboard on colors and decorations this year.

I found that if it was smooth enough, you could do this lovely design that reminded my of venitian paper. Basically, you choose a a color as the base of the cookie, put another color frosting as stripes on top, and then, with a toothpick go back and forth. The icing has to be runny or it won't work well. The cookie gloves are a really good example. 

In the past,  I have invited friends over to help decorate. With the move, I wasn't really able to do that, but next year I hope to. It's more fun that way and decorating 2 dozen cookies can be taxing after awhile. Still, I want to get better. That means actually piping borders and using tips to decorate rather than a butter knife.

We'll see how spring sugar cookies come out.

Doughnut Plant Conclusion

After running around Seoul - figuratively, not literally - I did not find a Doughnut Plant. I found  alot of other U.S. chains from Burger King to Jamba Juice. But alas, no Doughnut Plant.