Bailey's Cupcake with Italian Meringue Buttercream

I know I am a bit behind here but I really wanted to get another post up near St. Patricks day. I am trying the old fashion recipe format. It would be great to hear from some readers as to which you like better; picture and explanation format or the old fashion recipe and directions. The recipe below was also posted on Tasty Kitchen. The directions are lengthy because I tend to take baby steps for those who may not do alot of baking. It is also crystal clear to me that if I do not write too much I will leave out something very important. So  my next post  will be Napoleon. I will not be making the puff pastry because my directions for that would read like a engineering manual :) Hope you enjoy this bit of St. Paddy's day.



FOR THE CUPCAKES:

3  cups Cake Flour
1-½ teaspoon Baking Powder
½ teaspoons Baking Soda
3 Tablespoons Cocoa Powder
½ teaspoons Salt
½ cups Sour Cream
½ cups Heavy Cream
½ cups Bailey's Irish Creme
2 teaspoons Vanilla Extract
1 cup Sweet Cream Butter, Softened
1-½ cup Granulated Sugar
3 whole Large Eggs
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FOR THE BUTTERCREAM:
1 cup Sugar
¾ cups Strong Brewed Coffee ( Such As Espresso)
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
½ cups Egg Whites
1 pinch Creme Of Tartar
1 cup Sweet Cream Butter the Cupcakes:

1- Sift together cake flour, baking powder and soda, cocoa powder and salt, set aside

2-Combine sour cream, heavy cream, Bailey’s and vanilla in a measuring cup and set aside.

3-Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

4-Add eggs and beat well after each addition.

5- Add 1/3 cake flour and 1/3 Bailey’s mixture to the creamed mixture and blend. Continue in this sequence until all ingredients are added.

6- Line standard muffin pan with paper liners and scoop 2/3 full with batter. Bake at 325F for 16-20 minutes. When done, they will spring back when touched. Then remove from the oven and allow to cool. 

7- For the buttercream, start by making a coffee simple syrup: Combine sugar and coffee in a sauce pan and bring up to a simmer and allow the liquid to heat until it pulls a thread when lifted from the pan with a spoon (approximately 135-145 degrees F). Then remove from heat and add vanilla extract to the coffee syrup.

8-Place egg whites and creme of tartar in the mixing bowl of a stand mixer (a clean bowl and hand mixer works too!) and whip until volume increases by 75%.

9- Begin mixing egg whites again on meduim high and slowly stream hot sugar/coffee liquid into the egg whites to form meringue. Continue mixing until all syrup is added and the egg whites form stiff peaks. 

10- Allow the meringue to cool to room temperature (important; if the meringue doesn’t cool it will break more easily when you add your butter to the mixture)

11- Begin mixing meringue again on medium high and add pieces of soft sweet cream butter. The mixture will lose some volume at first but as you continue to add the butter it will increase again. Once all butter is added and the meringue is stiff you are ready to top the cooled cupcakes!

AFTER YOU ENJOY THIS BE SURE TO COME BACK AND POST A COMMENT!


The Essential New York Times Cookbook: Classic Recipes for a New Century

A week to remember where I came from; the Van Patten's

Today is the 15th of March 2011. This is the 94th year after the birth of Isaac Toll Van Patten III.
That was my Daddy. Well, still is my Daddy in my heart. This week was always a big family week in our house. It is also the week my big brother Rocky and my big sister Heidi were born, on the same day 8 years a part. I think it was 8 years. I was one of the babies. I know my attention to the blog has waned a bit but my enthusiasm has not. I owe you readers a Bailey's cupcake and tomorrow is the day. First I need to unload the thoughts that are on my mind. This time last year I was spending my days at my Mother's bedside. I had my big sisters, my little sister, my blessing sister (she married Rocky) and my big brother. We spent this week saying our good byes and remember our lives as the children of I.T. and Lee Van Patten. So to remember them and to love my family here I go remembering birthdays and life in our home.

I will always remember the way we celebrated birthdays; it was your favorite meal, your favorite cake and dinner in the dinning room. We would eat the fun stuff for birthdays. Mom would always make fondue or crazy Italian dishes  or scrumptious Mexican. (Mexican before it was available off the grocers shelf!) For really big birthdays like 13 or 16 we would get dressed up and have dinner at the Princess Anne Country Club on a Sunday evening before the birthday. There was not a "friend" birthday every year were there are too many kids and too many presents. Just good food and family. As we got older these dinners were the norm when we would come home from college or just to for visit. We would gather at home and sit around the dinning room table and enjoy fondue,  or peel shrimp and pick crabs. We would discuss politics. We would hash out my latest misbehavior. There would be planning for graduations, weddings and the holidays.

Mom worked hard at making us remember birthdays by bringing us together for these celebrations even after we had moved out of the house. For me this meant I got to bring a new roommate or boyfriend and try him on the family. Jon stuck! He loved those boisterous meals at the Van Patten's were he was first initiated over peeling shrimp and picking crabs. He grew up in a family were the table was fairly quiet..never at the Van Patten's. There was always an extended family member around our table and in our home.

Mom was always gathering a stray family or friend. She once met a woman and her girls at the grocery store and became fast friends with her. They joined us for these meals. I find myself having a hard time saying I am sorry you can't stay for dinner to this very day. I was raised in an enviroment were everyone was welcome. Sometimes I feel like Strega Nona with her magic pasta pot. It is the enviroment that my mom created and Daddy watched over that was unique. They never appeared to be flustered. Not even when I was 23 and had Elvis from Hell play for a keg party  in the back yard.

I did live at home for a brief time in my twenty-somethings. I know for sure that it must have tried my parents patience. It just never appeared that way to me. I was always eager to be welcoming to friends at any hour. Jon remembers fondly one of the first times he brought me home to my parents house with my buddies Koggie and Susan. I tempted him in the house with the promise of an omelet. The free show from Koggie was a bonus!! I was in the kitchen banging around with pots and pans when Daddy saunters in the adjoining den right next to Jon and says; Ma-r-g ar-eeet I th-i-nk it i-s time for your fr-i-en-ds to go home now. Now I have hyphenated the text here to exemplify how daddy would talk with his slow sweet southern draw. If you ever heard it you would never forget it. Just as Susan or was Koggie and I will never forgot the time we thought we had out smarted him. We had come home at the "curfew" time and snuck back out the window for more fun! I was legal at 21.  Yet when we returned some hours later he had locked the window and had called the police to complain of a disturbance in his driveway. There was no way out but through the front door and the doorbell.

It was always an understanding of the right and wrong that Mom and Dad both allowed me to push. Many times while at home I was not their favorite child. I loved our home, the place were Mom and Dad lived. The love that surrounded you and the hospitality to all that grace the front stoop. The education they gave me around the dinning room table; about life and love. I enjoyed it so much. This is the week that our Mother chose to go and be with Daddy. It had been five long years on this earth with out him. Some of that time pretty mad he had left here first. In my heart I think she left here on this particular week in March to share another family celebration with Daddy. She did not choose to go on his birthday. As she then could not bare to leave on a landmark birthday for Rocky and Heidi . So she stuck it out a few more hours and let the birthdays  pass. This week she is with Daddy and we are here celebrating in our own familial ways with love they taught us to share without making a big deal out of your birthday.

S'mores Cookies- a youthful grown up dessert



When I was growing up my family didn't camp. Until I was 29 years old I had never slept outdoors in a tent.

Along with the lack of camping or being a girl scout I had never had s'mores until I had children of my own that had become boy scouts. Recently I was asked by a friend in the restaurant business if I would help design a new dessert menu for the restaurant. I did a little research and the newest trend in sweets was NOT cupcakes but retro snack food. The description of this all around the country from all the hot pastry chef's are those sweets we loved in our lunch boxes like whoopee pies, hoho's and for me it was s'mores. My approach for this Sweet is a deconstructed graham cupcake. I filled it with gooey melted marshmallow and yummy milk chocolate bars or scrumptious Reese's peanut butter cups. The texture of this warm cookie is soft and easy to eat like a sandwich or with a fork. The best part about this recipe is it is Super easy and different. Give it a try and leave me a comment.

Here is a Retro dessert cookie for the little kid in all of us. Serve warm and gooey and it takes you back to your days around the camp fire.

The cast of ingredients that make this soft chewy cookie amazing.

Place the butter and sugar in your mixing bowl and beat until it is light and fluffy.
The butter actually becomes a lighter shade when the butter and sugar is properly mixed.

Add eggs to the butter mixture and blend until incorporated.

Measure dry ingredients into a bowl and stir together.

Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture and stir into dough. Chill the dough for 15 minutes.

Portion the chilled dough into 1 ounce balls. Flatten them onto a baking sheet sprayed with pan spray.
Sprinkle the tops with sugar. Bake in a preheated 325 oven for 16.

Allow to cool while you gather s'mores filling ingredients; large marshmallows, milk chocolate bars,or Reese's cups.

Place 2 marshmallows on top of the cookie and microwave from 10-15 seconds.

Place the chocolates onto the melted marshmallows and place another cookie on top.

Melt chocolate chips in microwave and garnish the tops of the s'mores.  Serve warm.

Ingredients:
Graham Cookie Dough
1 cup soft butter
1 1/2 cups Sugar
2 t vanilla extract
3 eggs
3 cups AP flour
3/4 cups Graham crumbs
1 1/2 t Baking Powder
1/4 t Baking soda
1/2 t fine sea salt

S'mores filling:

48 Large marshmallows
12 Reese's cups
12 Milk Chocolate bars