Turtle Cupcakes

This all started because of these amazing folks. Snooks Candies in Folsom, CA is one cool place. I'm all for candy stores and chocolate shops, but a place where the candies are created on site...just magical. And family-owned to boot - plus, the people at Snooks are truly lovely, although they don't know me from Adam. I happen to be friends with Snooks on Facebook, and while this probably means little to them, a couple of weeks ago they posted a photo of their pecan caramel turtles going through the milk chocolate enrobing process (and while we're on the subject, how marvelous is the idea of a chocolate enrober? Beats a paltry "chocolate fountain" any day).

I remember my introduction to the candies known as turtles - I was about twelve years old. We had a secret Santa game going at my Catholic school, and I freely admit I was probably the third-least-popular kid in the class (as for the other two, one was certifiably insane and the other didn't bathe) - so when I got a box of "turtles" I was suspicious, to say the least. In my defense, I knew the giver already and she'd bragged about going on vacation to Panama in the summer (she'd meant this place, which I'd never heard of), and I knew that couldn't be right. Turns out turtles are a wonderful chewy combination of toasted pecans and caramel, blanketed in chocolate (usually milk), and they are delightful. That may have been the only time I've ever eaten a turtle.

Still, this picture got me thinking...what if you turned that into a cupcake? I've done it with Heavenly Hash, Twix, Snickers, M&M's, and Almond Joy - so why not another candy? And this really did turn into more candy than cake. That's not to its detriment at all - this is one good cupcake. It's rich and heavy as all get out. And let me tell you it didn't turn out at all as I expected.

~ Says Julia Child, "“You should never apologize at the table. People will think, ‘Yes, it’s really not so good.’" ~

I'm not apologizing! This just isn't how I expected these cupcakes to turn out. I was leaping from crisis to crisis and changing the plan with every step! Plus, this took forever. I actually stretched the process over days, I was getting so frustrated. So believe me when I say that although this cupcake it totally worth it, you'd better commit yourself. To the cupcake, I mean.

~ Retailiates Ms. Child, ""The only real stumbling block is fear of failure. In cooking you’ve got to have a ‘What the hell?’ attitude." ~

Well, okay, then. What the hell? (Sorry, Mom! I'm not exactly swearing...I'm quoting!)

 
~ Chocolate Pecan Crust ~

• 2 cups pecan pieces (ground up in food processor)
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup melted butter
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Combine all ingredients together in a small bowl. Press about a tablespoon's worth of the crust mixture into the bottom of each cupcake liner, pressing down to make an even layer. Bake at 350 for about ten minutes (be aware of the smell - if you smell toasted nuts, the crust is ready. If you smell burning nuts, you'd better start over). Set aside to cool while preparing the cupcake batter.

~ For Cupcakes ~

• 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
• 1/2 milk chocolate chips
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup plain yogurt

Melt the chocolates together; you can do this either in a double boiler or in the microwave in 30-second intervals. Set aside to cool a bit.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter with sugar until fluffy; beat in eggs, 1 at a time. Beat in vanilla and melted chocolate.

In separate bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt; stir into butter mixture. Add in the yogurt and mix until combined, but don't overmix. Spoon into your prepared muffin cups, about 2/3 full.

Bake for about 15 to 17 minutes or until a tester inserted into the cupcake comes out clean. Transfer the cupcakes to a wire rack; let cool.

~ Soft Caramel Filling ~

• 2 cups sugar
• 2 tablespoons light corn syrup
• 8 tablespoons water
•  1/2 cup heavy cream, hot
• 1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

In a medium saucepan, stir together the sugar, corn syrup, and water. Heat, stirring constantly, until sugar is dissolved.
Stop stirring and let the syrup boil until it reaches a deep amber color (about 300 degrees, for you precise people). Remove the caramel from the heat, and carefully pour in the hot cream. Stir with a spatula or wooden spoon.
Return the pan to very low heat, and continue stirring until mixture is uniform in color, 1 minute. Remove the caramel from the heat, and stir in the butter. Let it cool for about five minutes, and stir in the vanilla and salt. Let it sit, undisturbed, until you can touch it (wait about 20 minutes before you try. I will not be held responsible for your fingers). Gently stir in the vanilla, and allow the caramel to cool until no longer hot to the touch, stirring gently three or four times.

Don't touch it!

Color change starting. You'll also start to smell cooking sugar. Don't touch it!

Okay, so I skipped some steps. I was making caramel, people! I'm not a photographer!

After cupcakes have cooled, cut a cone-shaped piece out of the middle of each one, trimming the bottom of the cut bit so it forms a lid. Using teaspoon, scoop in a bit of the caramel filling into the cupcake's cavity and then top with the lid. Repeat with the remaining cupcakes.

(You can take a break now. You want to top the cupcakes with the pecans and the ganache as the last step, together. It's almost over. The hard stuff is definitely behind you.)

Actually, I don't even want to talk about these cupcakes right now. I want to talk about this guy.

h

"Conan the Barbarian" was our family movie when I was growing up. No lie. Otherwise, we watched PBS. I have seen this movie so many times...it's full of awesome images (green soup with heads and other body parts in it!), the music is so dramatic that it comes in second in my book ONLY to Star Wars (I wish I could host some awards ceremony and only play music from Conan and Star Wars...but no one would come), and it's chock full of quotes that really, you ought to throw into your conversation tomorrow morning at work.

Mongol General: This is good, but what is best in life?
Mongol : The open steppe, fleet horse, falcons at your wrist, and the wind in your hair.
Mongol General: Wrong! Conan! What is best in life?
Conan: To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.

Conan: Crom, I have never prayed to you before. I have no tongue for it. No one, not even you, will remember if we were good men or bad. Why we fought, or why we died. All that matters is that two stood against many. That's what's important! Valor pleases you, Crom... so grant me one request. Grant me revenge! And if you do not listen, then to HELL with you!  

That's right, Crom. Stick it where the sun don't shine!

My Conan is not this Conan.

Not that the new movie is bad, because it isn't, especially when you don't look at it as a remake, but as its own entity. I'm not saying it's good, but I wasn't angry about it either. But, of course, the villain wasn't this guy...

You know you love this guy.

And Thulsa Doom, though he says many marvelous things, has my favorite quote in the whole movie: Contemplate this on the tree of woe. 

Too bad he gets his head lopped off.

Okay. I feel strengthened now, and can carry on. Let's move forward with the cupcakes.


~ Candied Pecans ~

• 1/3 cup dark brown sugar
• 1/2 cup white granulated sugar
• 1 tablespoon kosher salt
• 2 cups pecan halves
• 1 egg white
• 1 tablespoon water
• 2 tablespoons melted butter

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Mix sugars and salt, making sure there are no lumps; set aside. Beat egg white and water in a medium bowl until frothy but not stiff; add in melted butter. Add pecans, and stir to coat evenly. Sprinkle nuts with sugar mixture, and toss until evenly coated. Spread sugared nuts in a single layer on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper (NOT foil). Bake for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from oven, and separate the nuts as they cool.

~ For ganache ~

• 1 cup heavy cream
• 8 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter

On the stovetop, bring cream to a simmer in a medium saucepan. Off the heat, stir in chocolate and butter and mix well until fully incorporated and the ganache is shiny. Let cool for about 5 minutes before using, but you still want the ganache to be fairly warm and pourable.

~ Final assembly ~

On top of each filled cupcake, scatter some candied pecans. Using a large spoon, pour a bit of ganache over the top of the pecans until the top of the cupcake is mostly covered. This doesn't have to be perfect. Chocolate turtles aren't exactly pretty and these cupcakes aren't either; they don't have to be. Which is good, because I bet you're pretty tired of looking at the damned things.

(Yes, Mama, I swore there. I earned it.)

Keep these in the fridge, or they'll melt everywhere, but I promise, these really benefit from coming to room temperature before serving. And do remember to serve them with a napkin.

Are you contemplating??? ARE YOU????? Dooooooommmmmmmm!

Oatmeal cookie cupcakes with cinnamon-cream cheese filling and brown sugar frosting

First of all, I put it to you - did you know that you can make your own brown sugar?

No kidding! You can! And it's so easy - all you do is mix in a tablespoon of molasses for every cup of white sugar and stir it all in (I used my fingers, because I'm traditional that way...sort of sugary paleo, if you will), and there...brown sugar. You can make it as dark as you like depending on how much molasses you add in. Keep it in an airtight container and there..now you have no excuse not to bake because you don't have any brown sugar.

The original MO-lasses

Brown sugar! Homemade! Well, home...stirred...

So this isn't a summery cupcake. This is an "I am climbing the walls and have to bake something but need to use what I've got kind of cupcake." I keep receiving oatmeal. I don't know why. I don't really eat it. It's not that I dislike it, but I don't really eat breakfast anyway and most of the time I'm not willing to bother to make regular oatmeal, and I think that instant oatmeal is weird. If I'm going to have a hot grain for breakfast, it's going to be grits.

(I have those, too, but I hadn't really considered a grits cupcake until just this minute...anyway...)

So I have oatmeal, and I made brown sugar, and I have half a package of cream cheese left from the plum cupcakes, and, as you do, I think, "I can make oatmeal cookie cupcakes! With a cookie on the bottom! And a cream cheese (I don't have that much cream cheese)...filling! Right! And (ok the cream cheese is going in the filling and now I have a whole lot of brown sugar because I made four cups' worth)...brown sugar frosting! Brilliant!

And this is a cupcake, although it looks a bit like a muffin ("I am not a muffin!" declares the cupcake. I don't know why my cupcake sounds like Richard Nixon). It's not very sweet, which is a mercy, because holy mackerel, the frosting sure is! Do you like brown sugar fudge? If you do, this frosting is the ticket for you. For me, it's tooth-achingly sweet. I mean, it's good...I promise it's good. But I ate half a cupcake and I feel like a tightly-wound spring.

'Course, I'm not a sweets person. I'm a salty/cheesy person (as friends and family will attest). Once I stepped back from this cupcake for awhile, though, I had to admit that it's a good one. I like the crunchy bottom and the dense cake with the creamy filling, and yes, I do like the frosting. In moderation.

So get yourself an unsweetened beverage and pull up a chair, because I present...a very brown cupcake.

Brown on brown! Filled with brown! With a brown bottom!

~ Oatmeal Cookie Cupcakes ~

Preheat oven to 375 F. Line 2 muffin tins with cupcake liners.

~ Oatmeal Cookie Crust ~

• 1/2 cup butter, melted
• 1/4 cup flour
• 1 cup regular oats
• 1/4 cup brown sugar

Combine melted butter, flour, oats,and brown sugar in a small bowl. Put about a tablespoon of the oatmeal mixture into each lined muffin tin. Press down with your fingers to make an even crust on the bottom of each one. Bake for about 10 minutes until starting to brown. Let cool before filling with cupcake batter.

Before baking

After baking

~ for cupcakes ~

• 2 cups regular oats
• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
• pinch of freshly-ground nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup butter, room temperature
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup plain yogurt
• 1/2 cup milk

Combine oatmeal, flour, baking powder, baking soda, spices and salt in a food processor and run until the oatmeal has pretty much ground up, but you can still see some texture (about 30 seconds or so).
Cream the butter and sugars in a stand mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy. Add eggs, vanilla, yogurt and milk and beat until fully incorporated.
Add in the oat/flour mixture and beat until all is just combined. This is going to be a thick, well-textured batter. Don't be scared.
Fill cupcake liners about 2/3 full. Bake for 15 minutes or until a tester inserted comes out clean. Don't be concerned if the tops crack a little bit.
This will make between 21 and 24 cupcakes.

Sorta looks like oatmeal, doesn't it? The kind you'd get at a breakfast buffet...

~ Cinnamon - Cream Cheese Filling ~

• 1/4 cup butter, room temperature
• 4 ounces (1/2 package) cream cheese, room temperature
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups powdered sugar
• Milk, if needed for consistency

Cream together butter and cream cheese in the bowl of an electric mixer until smooth. Add in salt, cinnamon, and vanilla and beat well. Add in powdered sugar and beat on low until well-combined, scraping down the sides of the bowl if necessary. Add in milk if you want to thin out the mixture a bit - you want it to be thick, but not stiff (think of what you'd like to encounter in the middle of a cupcake).

After cupcakes have cooled, cut a cone-shaped piece out of the middle of each one, trimming the bottom of the cut bit so it forms a lid. Using teaspoon, scoop in a bit of the cinnamon filling into the cupcake's cavity and then top with the lid. Repeat with the remaining cupcakes.

Cupcakes, stuffed.

 ~ Brown Sugar Frosting Recipe ~

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter
• 1 cup brown sugar, packed
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 -4 cups sifted powdered sugar

In a saucepan, melt butter. Add the brown sugar, and bring the mixture to a boil. Lower the heat to medium low, and continue to boil for 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Add the milk and return to a boil, stirring. Remove the pan from the heat and cool to lukewarm.
In the bowl of an electric mixer, mix the salt and vanilla into the butter-brown sugar mixture. Gradually add the powdered sugar and beat until the mixture is thick enough to pipe onto the cupcakes.

Using a pastry bag fitted with a large star tip, pipe a bit of frosting onto each cupcake. There is no need to smother the cake with frosting - this frosting is SWEET. In fact, if I were making it just for myself, I would probably just spread it on. The cupcakes wouldn't be so pretty though.

As usual, store the cupcakes in the refrigerator until ready to serve, and let them come to room temperature if possible before serving.

Liam and Deirdre say, "Que Bueno!"

"I am not a muffin!"