What's Baking: Bake Your Favorite Cocktail

July was my month to host the What's Baking challenge for my monthly blogging group.
I chose Bake Your Favorite Cocktail because who doesn't love a nice cold cocktail in the summer? I asked the group to transform their favorite drink into a baked treat.
They came up with some great ideas, so have a look and enjoy! 

Eva from Eva Bakes made White Russian Cupcakes

Nicole from Seven Ate Nine made Guinness Cupcakes

Kate from Kate's Recipe Box made Rum & Coke Cookies

Amanda from Our Italian Kitchen made Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes 

Catherine from Pursuing Domestic Goddess-ness made St Germaine Cookies

Steph from Brownies and Blondies made Creamsicle Bundt Cake

And I made Strawberry Colada Cupcakes

Strawberry Colada Cupcakes

This month, I'm the host of our What's Baking challenge, and I chose Bake Your Favorite Cocktail. I am a wine and beer girl, but I do enjoy a cocktail now and again—especially on a hot summer day when I'm floating in the pool. My drink of choice is coconut rum mixed with cranberry juice with a splash of pineapple juice. I decided to use coconut rum and pineapple rum in the cupcakes, and I subbed strawberry for the cranberry in the icing to come up with a strawberry colada cupcake. They were a frozen drink in cake form!

Strawberry Colada Cupcakes
1 box white cake mix (I used Duncan Hines.)
3 egg whites
3/4 cup water 
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 tablespoons coconut rum
2 tablespoons pineapple rum
1/2 teaspoon coconut extract
1/2 cup shredded coconut

Preheat oven to 325 degrees and line four mini cupcake tins with 48 mini cupcake liners.
Mix together all ingredients except shredded coconut on medium speed for about 2 minutes.
Fold in shredded coconut.
Fill cupcake liners about 3/4 full and bake about 10–12 minutes.
Cool cupcakes on a wire rack.

Strawberry Whipped Frosting
1 container vanilla Cool Whip Frosting
3–4 tablespoons seedless strawberry jam
1/2 cup shredded coconut

Stir together frosting and strawberry jam until just combined. 
Spread frosting on cupcakes and then dip tops in shredded coconut.
Store cupcakes in the refrigerator until ready to serve.

"Fried" Ice Cream

When I was a teenager, I used to work at a Mexican restaurant named Chi-Chi's. You might remember the restaurant being in the news for an unfortunate Hepatitus A outbreak a couple of years ago. It was linked to green onions, sickened hundreds of patrons, and spelled the demise of the company. Well way before any of this happened, I worked as a waitress at a local Chi Chi's. And I loved it. While there, I was introduced to all kinds of glorious Mexican foods from enchiladas to burritos to the chimichanga. It was there that my love affair with sour cream blossomed. I also fell in love with another dish: fried ice cream. I probably sold at least one of these to every table that I waited on. People loved fried ice cream and could not get enough. I remembered the recipe from work: corn flakes, ice cream, cinnamon sugar, whipped cream, and honey. Here's a secret: We rarely ever dipped the ice cream into the fryer because it left an oily mess on the plate—so it wasn't truly fried ice cream. I decided to employ this technique. I also decided to use Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal since it was all I had on hand and didn't feel like making a trip to the store for corn flakes. This dessert brought me back to my days at Chi-Chi's.

"Fried" Ice Cream
adapted from Chi-Chi's

1/2 gallon french vanilla ice cream (or any other flavor)
3 cups Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal (or corn flakes mixed with 2 tablespoons cinnamon-sugar mixture)
whipped cream
honey (or chocolate or caramel or strawberry sauce)
sprinkles

Crush cereal into crumbs.
Form ice cream into 1/2 cup–3/4 cup balls and roll in crushed cereal.
Place on waxed paper and freeze until solid (about an hour or so).
Top with honey (or any other topping), whipped cream, and sprinkles.

Mancakes (Chocolate Stout Cupcakes with Salty Peanut Butter Frosting and Beer-Candied Bacon)

Bacon and beer seem to be all the rage right now. These ingredients are popping up in tons of recipes from main dishes to sweet desserts.Who loves bacon and beer? Men, and no one more than my husband. So I made these chocolate stout cupcakes topped with salty peanut butter frosting and beer-candied bacon for him and dubbed them Mancakes. How did they taste? Sweet, salty, decadent, and sinful. My husband declared them one of the best things he ever ate. And they fit this month's What's Baking theme: Sweet and Salty.

Chocolate Stout Cupcakes

adapted from Martha Stewart Cupcakes

1 and 1/2 cups cake flour
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup cocoa (unsweetened)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 tablespoon white vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 and 1/4 cups stout beer (I used a bitter chocolate stout.)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line a cupcake tin with 12 paper cupcake liners. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, and salt and set aside. In another bowl, beat together oil, vinegar, vanilla, and beer with a hand mixer on medium-high speed. Add flour mixture and beat until smooth on low speed, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Fill cupcake liners about 3/4 full and bake about 20–25 minutes.

Salty Peanut Butter Frosting

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/2 stick butter (room temperature)
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 to 3 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 to 3 tablespoons milk

Beat together peanut butter, butter, salt, and vanilla until smooth. Add powdered sugar one cup at a time and milk one tablespoon at a time until desired consistency is reached. Beat until smooth and fluffy. 

Beer Candied Bacon

Source: Tide and Thyme

1 pound bacon 

1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons beer (I used Saranac Caramel Porter.)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and line a rimmed baking sheet with aluminum foil. Place a wire cooling rack on top and drape the slices of bacon over the rack, overlapping if necessary. Place in oven and bake for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, whisk together brown sugar and beer in a small bowl. After 10 minutes, carefully remove the bacon from the oven and brush one side with the beer syrup. Flip each slice of bacon and brush the other side with the syrup. Return to oven and bake for more 10 minutes. Repeat process two more times until bacon is crispy. Cool on wire rack for at least 1 hour.

Yellow Cupcakes (Cross Cupcake Cake)

My godchild was confirmed earlier this month, and I made her a cross cupcake cake for her party afterward. She is very plain (which is what I love about her) and only likes vanilla cupcakes with vanilla buttercream (which just so happens to be my favorite as well). I also made Hershey's perfectly chocolate cupcakes, too, to mix things up a bit. I decided to cast aside my go-to vanilla cupcake recipe for a new one. While there is nothing wrong with the recipe I typically use, it does sometimes turn out a little dry. I decided to try Cook's Illustrated's yellow cupcake recipe (I didn't try the white cake recipe mostly because I didn't know what to do with the leftover egg yokes). While the cupcakes looked a little muffin-y and were a tiny bit dense, the flavor was quite good! They got rave reviews. I'm still on the hunt for a lighter vanilla cupcake recipe, so I think I'll be trying CI's white cupcake recipe soon.

Yellow Cupcakes
Source: Cook's Illustrated via Can You Stay for Dinner?

1 and 1/2 cups flour
3/4 cup white sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 stick butter (room temperature)
1/2 cup sour cream
2 large eggs (room temperature)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, and line a cupcake tin with 12 paper cupcake liners.

Sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt into the bowl of an electric stand mixer.

Add butter, sour cream, eggs, and vanilla. Beat everything at medium speed for about 30 seconds until the batter becomes smooth and satiny. 

Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula and mix by hand until all ingredients are incorporated and the batter is smooth. The batter will be slightly thick.

Fill cupcake liners about 3/4 full and bake about 20 - 22 minutes, until cupcakes are golden. 

Cool cupcakes completely on a wire rack before icing.

Random Cupcakes

I have been busy the last two months with a few cupcakes orders for various events. Though I've made these recipes before, I wanted to share some new pics. I hope you enjoy! 

Chocolate cupcakes with Irish Cream Buttercream

Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes
for my friend Becca's birthday

Red Velvet Cupcakes
for my cousin Ky's confirmation

Finding Nemo Cupcakes

I was asked to make cupcakes for a Finding Nemo-themed baby shower. The host asked me to incorporate blue and green for the baby boy and the design was left up to me. I scoped out a few images on the Internet but nothing caught my eye. I didn't want to decorate each cupcake to look like Nemo or the other characters from the movie, but I did want them to look pretty. In the end, I decided to decorate the cupcakes with a pretty swirl of icing and top each of them with a cheddar Goldfish cracker to represent Nemo. The cupcakes were vanilla and chocolate topped with vanilla buttercream.