Bake Therapy

Okay, so you know those people who-when they're really having a cruddy day and nothing is going right-turn straight to chocolate or ice cream or both. I'm not one of those people. Don't get me wrong, I'm definitely an emotional eater. Happy, sad, angry. I have an emotion & I find a food. But if I want to relieve stress, I bake. Cooking is for everyday, but baking is therapy to me. Not bread or biscuits kind of baking either. I'm talking cakes, pastries, holiday foods, not-the-kind-of-food-you-eat-every-day-unless-you-want-to-weigh-400lbs kind of baking. Today I made cake. I needed to test a yellow cake recipe for the wedding coming up, so I decided to whip up a 1/2 batch of smitten kitchen's recipe. (Which, by the by, isn't bad. It's not fantasmically stupendous, but it is-after all-just yellow cake & that's not really my thing.) I filled my mini muffin tin & popped it in the oven to bake & looked at the remaining batter about .2 seconds before I decided to play around with it a little. I divided it up & made a batch of pumpkin pie cupcakes w/ fluffy cream cheese icing & pineapple right-side-up cakes with whipped caramel pecan icing. The variations are both pretty good. I like the pineapple upside-down bites better I think, but maybe that's because I'm in the mood for coconut. I think the pumpkin one might be a little bland, but I did eat it right after the pineapple variation which is really sweet, so I'll try it again later. The chocolate icing recipe of smitten kitchen's is pretty good & super easy too. It works with milk/white chocolate too if you want to try that. The boys are down for a nap so I thought, what the heck, why not blog it. So if you want the recipes here they are...
Here's a link to smitten kitchen's yellow cake recipe which I used as a base. Like I said. It's good-for a yellow cake.

http://smittenkitchen.com/2009/07/best-birthday-cake/

You can use it or just use a boxed yellow cake mix. I find that when I'm doing mini cupcakes/muffins the easiest way to do it without making a mess is to put the batter in a ziplock & cut off the corner & use it like a pastry bag to fill the cupcake liners. Less drippage.

pumkin pie cupcakes (makes 24ish mini cupcakes)
1 1/2 c yellow cake batter
1/2 c pumpkin puree
3/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice (or a rounded 1/8 tsp each of cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice & cloves)

Mix it all together & fill muffin tins nearly to the top (this doesn't rise much).They bake at 350 for 18 minutes and (presumably as I have not tested it) 30-35 min for a regular cake

Fluffy cream cheese icing-Makes plenty to ice 24 mini cupcakes & give to your in-house quality control agent(s)
I just made my plain cream cheese icing & added 1/4 tsp of pumpkin pie spice then folded in 1 cup of whipped cream. That was the plan anyway, but I was out of whipped cream. Oh well, I'll try it another time. It would be quite good I think.  I think this is pretty close to mine off the top of my head, but if you have one you like just use it.

Cream cheese Icing
8	oz	soft cream cheese
1/4	c	soft butter
1	t	flavoring
	1 c	powdered sugar (measured & then sifted)
	Beat the cream cheese & butter until completely smooth. Add the remaining ingredients & beat again until completely smooth.

pineapple right-side-up cakes (makes 24 mini cupcakes)
1 1/2 c yellow cake batter
1/2 tsp coconut extract
rounded 1/3 c crushed pineapple
12 marachino cherries, cut in half

Mix batter, extract & pineapple together & fill tins about 3/4. Put 1/2 a cherry on top of each one. & bake at 350 for 18 min.

Whipped Caramel Pecan Icing- makes enough to ice 24 mini cupcakes
5 T butter
5 T brown sugar (okay, I lie. I was out of brown sugar so I used 5T granulated sugar & added 1/4 tsp molasses, but it's practically the same thing.)
2 T water
2-3 T chopped pecans
1 T cream cheese

Melt butter in a small saucepan, add sugar. Bring it to a boil & give it a quick stir (not too much or you'll ruin it) & then add the water. Stand back because the water creates a lot of steam & you don't want to get burned. Cook it almost to soft ball stage. About 225 degrees. Take it off the heat & let it cool completely. Whip it with a whisk attachment on you hand/stand mixer until it turns a light color. Then fold in the pecans....at least that was my plan. Then I got distracted & let it cook to 250 degrees & promptly took it off the heat & stuck my hand mixer with the whisk attachment right into the boiling caramel & let 'er rip. (Be careful if you choose to be crazy like me please.) I whipped it about 2 min & noticed there was a little separation going on so I drained off the excess butter. (At this point I tasted it & it was a little grainy which had me worried, but no fear, it gets smooth.) I added 1 T of cream cheese straight from the fridge & beat it another 2 min then folded in the pecans. I actually like it. It's super sweet, so you just need a little dab on each cupcake. Little pineapple upside-down bites. I'm not sure how it would have turned out had I followed my original plan (which did not include cream cheese) but I really like how this turned out. It's perfect with the cupcakes! The cupcakes really are good all on their own, but this really channels the old-fashioned variety.

Happy eating!