Z as in Zebra

In September, I started a cupcake adventure. If you haven’t read about it yet, you can do so here.

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I absolutely love to host parties. One of my favorite parts of entertaining is the food (surprised?) and how it is displayed.

A couple weeks ago, I was rifling through my scrapbook paper stash when I was struck with an idea…why not wrap cardboard circles with patterned paper and use them as platters?! Not being the kind of person who sits on an idea for too long without taking action, I grabbed a cake circle, a pair of scissors, and a roll of tape. I cut tabs and taped them down, working my way around the entire circle.

Voilà! A unique platter!

The circle I made fit perfectly on the glass pedestal cake stand I received as a wedding shower gift from two of my best friends.

Complete with lid:

Once you have a really cute place to store your cupcakes, you have to make your cupcakes! I chose Recipe #2 (Chocolate Coconut Cupcakes) from the book I’m working through (Cupcakes Galore). Here they are, fresh out of the oven:

Once they cooled completely, I cored each cupcake and added a dollop of chocolate fudge pudding.

Here’s the whole batch, cored and filled. In every dozen, there tends to be at least one REALLY crummy-looking cupcake…one that’s usually destined for the early taste-test. Can you tell which one it is in this batch?

Yup, you guessed it. Top row, third from the left. The runt of the batch, and his cupcake top crumbled in the coring process. But…it can be fixed!! Here’s a quick and easy way to give even the ugliest cupcakes a quick face-lift: whipped cream and cocoa powder!

First, to minimize mess, place a cookie sheet (preferably one with a lip) underneath your cooling rack. The cookie sheet will catch any cocoa powder that falls over the edges of the cupcakes.

Next, give each cupcake a squirt of whipped cream. Next time, I’m going to try a dollop of Cool Whip, rather than the aerosol stuff.

Pour a bit of cocoa powder into a sifter or strainer (shown three photos up), and tap it lightly over each cupcake to give them a nice dusting of cocoa.

YUM.

Next, take some tantalizing photos of your cupcake creation.

Then reunite him with his friends and display the group on the fancy cupcake platter you made earlier:

Warning: These cupcakes taste as rich as they look. You’ll be hard pressed to find a friend who can indulge in more than one. Then again, maybe that’s a good thing.

To understand the #87 in today’s post title, refer to this blog from a few weeks ago.

As I work my way through all 113 recipes in the book Cupcakes Galore, I am skipping around a bit to keep things interesting. There is a chapter in the back of the book called “Cupcakes Plus.” To quote the author, “So I have decided to stick with my original idea of the cupcake [...]. My two basic criteria were (1) the cupcakes all need to be made with some sort of cake batter (to be defined); and (2) they could be made in a cupcake tin–either with or without a paper, mini, regular, or jumbo. I have added an extra section entitled “Cupcakes Plus” for those “cupcakes” that may or may not specifically fit those criteria but that can be made in a cupcake tin and/or served in a cupcake paper and that could pass for a cupcake with a little imagination.”

To that end, I began this section of the book by trying my hand at making a half-batch of the Dessert Rose cupcakes. You start with melted dark chocolate (combined with butter) and a prepared muffin tin:

After the chocolate and butter are melted together, you add powdered sugar to create a “cocoa coating”. Then, you add cornflakes or the cereal of your choice. I used cornflakes since I had some on hand from when I made chicken leg cupcakes. You stir everything together and plop into muffin papers.

After the Dessert Roses have had a chance to chill in the fridge, it’s time to EAT them!! If you’ve ever made “Puppy Chow” from Chex cereal, these have a similar taste, sans the peanut butter (which you could add to this recipe if you wanted to). These can also be made with any type of chocolate: dark, milk, or white. YUM!

These are a great little snack to whip up for those days when you’re craving something chocolatey. My husband loved them and made me promise not to give them all away!

Two weeks ago, I started a cupcake adventure. If you haven’t read about it yet, you can do so here.

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Since bananas are a weekly grocery list item at our house, it comes as no surprise that we’d have a couple extra ripe ones available. So…I turned them into cupcakes! Following the recipe exactly, the batter was not unlike that of banana bread…same texture, same smell, same deliciously golden result once baked:

The recipe then asked me to hollow out the center of each cupcake and fill it with strawberry jelly. Personally, I wasn’t sure what this had to do with actual Banana Splits, but I guess some people do put fruit topping on their sundaes (I prefer caramel sauce–YUMMY!) Since I don’t have an apple corer (what a silly utensil anyway), I very carefully removed the center of each cupcake using a paring knife. I filled the hole with about a teaspoon of jelly and replaced the plug:

Once filled, the cupcakes were covered with this sinfully delicious chocolate glaze and a maraschino cherry. The icing crusted slightly on the outside as it cooled, but the inside stayed warm and gooey.

Love this picture…very Pop Art-ish:

Overall, the cupcakes were amazing. Two of my Twitter followers volunteered to take most of them off my hands for me: @ScrapsOfMe and @Lofolulu. ScrapsOfMe wanted just 3 cupcakes (well, actually, her husband wanted them and tweeted under her name! ha!) and reported: “Cupcakes were awesome. Not too much of anything.” and Lofolulu took 10 and said: “Oh dear @abbiz , please burden me & kids w/ your excess incredible homemade cupcakes again. TY! They were GREAT! ; ).” I was also told by my own husband: “Do NOT give all of these away!” haha!

The cupcakes were reminiscent of Grandma’s banana bread, with a sweet jelly center and just enough chocolatey goodness to please anyone. They even look neat with a bite taken out of them!

I also have been working on a way to display the cupcakes. I’ve been a print designer for the last 9 years, and old habits die hard! I’ve been thinking up ways to combine the passion I have for cooking with my love of all things paper. This week, I made some little toothpick flags with my trademark zebra stripes. Each flag features the name of the cupcake…

…as well as the address to this website. That way, anyone who receives a Z as in Zebra cupcake will be able to visit this blog and see what other things I’ve been whipping up in the kitchen.

As always, if you do not follow me on Twitter, you are welcome to do so at any point. On the days that I bake for the sake of baking, I will post tweets in search of cupcake eaters. I’ve decided to charge $1.50 per cupcake (you can get any quantity you want) to offset my costs. I’ve noticed that bakeries and coffee shops around town charge more than $3 per cupcake, and I am confident that my cupcakes are just as good…and fresher since they don’t sit in a bakery case all day!

Let me know if you’d like to be a recipient of my gourmet cupcakes. You can see the list of all the flavors here.