Article first published as Chocolate Coffee & Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes on Technorati.

Let me pose to you a question.

Why is it that people are so willing to pay $3 for an overly sweet and dense cupcake at Magnolia yet balk at Bank of America’s new $5 surcharge on dedit cards?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a BoFa customer and I don’t like it one bit. That’s why I don’t plan on using their debit card (you only get charged if you use it). However, I completely understand their rationale. They recently got slapped with ridiculous regulation that caps fees they can derive from merchants. If you’re not happy about the fee, then I suggest you change banks (but pretty soon most banks will have some sort of similar fee) or you can stash your cash underneath your mattress. They’re not charging you money on your own money; they’re charging you for the convenience of not carrying around cash. You can also write a letter to Messieur Durbin telling him what an idiot he is.

Why am I telling you this? Because I think it’s ridiculous to pay $3 for a cupcake. It’s overpriced and most times, it’s not even that good (don’t get me wrong, sometimes there ARE some pretty darn good cupcakes that are $2.50 and under!) So, I choose to make my own.

A couple of weeks back, I came home to a package on my porch. When I opened it, I got super excited since it had the GODIVA script plastered on the bag. Then, I reached in. It was coffee. I LOVEEEE COFFEE!

Long story short, I wanted to incorporate the Pumpkin Spice flavor into cupcakes! I decided to do this two fold- in the cake part itself (to enhance the chocolate flavor) and then in the frosting.

But first, about the Pumpkin Spice coffee from Godiva…
Honestly, I’m not a big fan. It’s decent but not spectacular. I’m not a big fan of the scent either. However, it actually worked quite well in the recipe.

What I AM a fan of is their Caramel Pecan Bark coffee (a limited edition flavor). I could actually get high off of smelling that. And the taste? It’s delectably caramel-y and sweet. It’s enough to make Mark not want sugar in his coffee. He typically hates coffee because of its bitterness, but didn’t mind this one at all. Overall, this is a great weekend coffee to brew, but it’s not strong enough for my weekday caffeine needs.

Now onto the cupcakes-

I ended up turning the original buttercream frosting into a cream-cheese buttercream frosting simply because I can never get the damn recipe down correctly! It always ends up either too buttery or the consistency is off.  However, I love the consistency that the cream-cheese gives and makes the frosting thick enough to pipe out those gorgeous swirls.

As for the cake itself, make sure you do not omit the sour cream. In my first batch, I had none so I substituted with 1/4 cup of milk. The cupcakes came out decent but where a bit on the dry and dense side. In my second batch, I made sure to get some sour cream and it made all the difference in the world.

Chocolate coffee & pumpkin spice cupcakes
Adapted from Paula Deen
(Makes about 24 cupcakes)

Ingredients:

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cups sugar
• 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 tablespoon pumpkin spice
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 1 cup strong brewed coffee, cooled
• 3 large eggs
• 1 (8-ounce) container sour cream
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• Coffee Cream Filling, recipe follows
• Coffee Buttercream, recipe follows
• Chocolate covered coffee beans, for garnish, optional

Recipe:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line cupcakes pans with paper liners and set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk flour, sugar, pumpkin spice cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Add oil, coffee, and eggs and beat at medium speed with an electric mixer until smooth. Then, miix in the sour cream and vanilla.

Spoon the batter evenly into prepared cupcakes cups, filling each 2/3 full. Bake until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, for 16 to 18 minutes. Let them cool in pans on wire rack.

Coffee butter cream-cream cheese frosting

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 2 cups confectioners’ sugar
• 1/4 cup strong brewed coffee
• 8 oz cream cheese (1 package)
• Pumpkin spice for sprinkling

Recipe:

Make sure your butter and cream cheese are at room temperature and softened before you start. In a large bowl, beat the butter at medium speed with an electric mixer until creamy. Then beat in the cream cheese. Gradually add the confectioners’ sugar, beating until smooth, then beat in the coffee.

After piping/frosting, sprinkle with additional pumpkin spice

This post is part of a Foodbuzz Tastemaker program with Godiva Coffee.

You should also check out:

• Five minute salty & nutty dark chocolate bark
• O clementine olive oil ice cream
• Blueberry + strawberry muffins (with crumble topping!)
• ICE CREAM!!! (and cupcakes!)
• Strawberry sorbet

Here are some common reactions to the salted butter caramel ice cream I’ve made for fellow friends:

Angela: Holy crap. What is this?

Jenny: It’s soo good!

Neha: Whoa!!

Me: Holy mackerols

Suki: Mmm…

Stick: This is actually good!

So now that we’ve gotten the ice cream out of the way, it’s time to translate that flavor into a…

C u p c a k e !!!

My Secret Santa had surprised me with a Williams Sonoma Cupcakes book! I was so excited. There were some ridiculous sounding cupcakes in this book like

• Tres Leches
• Tiramisu
• Tangerine
• PB&J
• Mexican Chocolate

And since I got myself that cupcake maker, I figured I’d be able to put the book to good use. But it wasn’t until many weeks later that I finally whipped out the mixer and fired up the machine.

Of course, with my luck this January, these cupcakes didn’t turn out right. It would figure that following two car accidents and a cracked window, some divine force would prevent these cupcakes from coming out right. Yes, my bathroom window cracked as I was lying in bed. I thought someone was coming to burglarize me. I mean seriously, look at my luck. AND THEN, I failed an exam. There world, I announced it- I failed.

Man, I feel better now. Whoo-sa.

Of course, all it takes is a piping bag and some deeelicious salted caramel frosting to amend things.

(Disclaimer: The following three paragraphs below were written in error. Refer to the recipe for more details.)

But to my defense, it wasn’t my fault. The recipe, listed on page 85 of Cupcakes by Shelly Kaldunski, forgot to list the milk in the recipe! I usually always prep everything by leaving all the ingredients on the kitchen counter. The page listed milk in the ingredients list. As I’m whipping out the batter, I clean up along the way, putting things back into the fridge. The batter finishes mixing and lo and behold.

Why is there a gallon of milk on my counter?!

They forgot to include the damn milk in the recipe!!!!

Anyway, I reckon that they meant to add it with the eggs. So these cupcakes, while delicious, didn’t last very well into the next day.

Then, to make it worse, their buttercream frosting totally didn’t come out right! This however, I think was my fault. So I went back to my fail-proof buttercream recipe I got from Magnolia. And viola! Beautifully piped cupcakes! What I like to do is sprinkle some Fleur de Sel onto the finished product. YUM!

Salted Caramel Cupcakes

Adapted from Cupcakes by Shelly Kaldunski

(the amount of sugar listed in the original recipe is obscene)

• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter (room temp)
• 2 large eggs (room temp)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup whole milk
• Sea salt (preferably Fleur de Sel!)

Recipe:

Preheat your oven to 350F. Line a standard 12 cup cupcake pan with liners.

In a bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. In another bowl, beat the sugars and butter using an electric mixer. You want them to be light and fluffy, which should take approximately 3 minutes if the mixer is on medium-high speed. Then, add in the eggs  and vanilla until combined. Add in the flour mixture. Wait.

Edit-

Crap, I just realized-  they DID include the milk. I must have skipped it whilst I was en route to my batter making. My bad.

Anyway, add in the flour mixture in 3 batches, alternating with the milk in 2 additions. Beat on low speed until just combined and scrape down the sides of the bowl. Fill the prepared cupcake cups and bake for 20 or so minutes until you can insert a toothpick and it comes out clean.

Salted Caramel Buttercream

Ingredients:

• 1 stick butter
• 3-4 cups confectioner’s sugar
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• Pinch of sea salt

Recipe:

In a heavy bottomed saucepan, cook the granulated sugar over medium high heat until it begins to melt. That’s right, you’re going to make CARAMEL! Making caramel is a fine art because while you want it to turn into an amber brown, you don’t want it to burn. However, you DO want a hint of that smokey flavor. In other words, burn a bit, but not too much.

Carefully pour the cream in, in a steady stream. The whole thing will bubble and sputter but no fear. Just keep stirring until completely smooth. Set aside to cool a bit.

Now onto the frosting part…

Using a mixer, cream the butter until fluffy and smooth. Add the confectioner’s sugar half a cup at a time. You may not need all 4 cups. The sugar just helps the consistency of the buttercream. Then, when the consistency is the way you want it, add the pinch of sea salt and take a spoonful of the caramel (should be cool by now) and add it into the frosting in dallops. Gently swirl. Fill into piping back. For that swirly effect, just fold the caramel into the frosting once with a rubber spatula and then pipe. The piping tip will take care of the rest.  Garnish with sea salt.

The caramel can be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 1 week. Bring to room temperature before using.

You should also check out:

• Five minute salty & nutty dark chocolate bark
• O clementine olive oil ice cream
• Chocolate coffee & pumpkin spice cupcakes
• Blueberry + strawberry muffins (with crumble topping!)
• ICE CREAM!!! (and cupcakes!)

1) Bake the graham cracker crust only to drop the whole springboard pan when transferring from one table to another. A bigger no is dropping it all over your fleece and in your slippers.

2) Overbeat the cream cheese. When it’s smooth, it’s done. Stop watching the pretty ribbons form.

3) Attempt a water bath by pouring the water from a boiling pot of water. Note to self, boil the water in a kettle and then pour out the water from the nozzle. If you do the former, you’ll end up doing what we did- pouring the boiling hot water onto the cheesecake.

4) Don’t attempt to spoon the boiling water out of the cheesecake. Just slide it back into the oven, take off your gloves, and lay your palms flat against each other pointing upwards. Then proceed to pray that the water evaporates (it does).

5) Pray that the cheesecake doesn’t crack because that’s what happened to us. Cracking is an understatement; it looked like the parting of the Red Sea in five different areas.

6) Check the temperature at which the cheesecake is suppose to bake at. Don’t assume its at the same temperature that you bake the graham cracker crust at because you’ll overshoot by 50 degrees and end up with burnt edges on the surface of the cheesecake.

The cheesecake was supposed to look like this:

via notsohumblepie.com

Instead, it looked like this…

At least it still tasted good…

Raspberry Swirl Cheesecake
Serves 8-10
From Not So Humble Pie
Adapted from Martha Stewart’s Cupcakes

Ingredients:

Graham Cracker Crust

• 1 cup (5oz) finely ground graham crackers
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Topping for Swirl

• 6 ounces (1 1/2 cups) raspberries
• 2 tablespoons sugar

Cheesecake Filling

• 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 4 packages (32 ounces total) cream cheese, room temperature
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• pinch salt
• 4 large eggs, room temperature
• Triple Sec liquor (optional)

Recipe:

Preheat the oven to 350° F.

Using a food processor, grind up the graham crackers until they’re powdery-fine. You could also use your hands although this might take awhile. Another option is to seal the crackers up in a zip lock bag and pound them with a mallet. Then, melt butter in the microwave and drizzle over the graham crackers. Mix it with a fork until it clumps up and then spread evenly on the springboard pan. Bake the crust until set, roughly 10 minutes and then allow it to cool on a wire rack.

Reduce your oven’s temperature to 325°F.

Purée the raspberries in a blender and add 2 tablespoons of sugar. You can choose to keep the seeds or strain them. Then, pour into a small sauce pan and bring the mixture to a bare simmer over medium low heat. Let it thicken a bit for 1-2 minutes and set aside to cool.

In a giant bowl, beat the cream cheese on medium speed with an electric mixture until smooth and fluffy (roughly 5 minutes). Reduce the mixer’s speed to low and add the 1 1/2 cups of sugar in a slow steady stream. Beat in the salt and vanilla and then on low speed, beat in the eggs, one at at time. Adding the next after the first has been incorporated. Take care not to over mix as the eggs can trap air in the batter and this leads to all sorts of cheesecake trouble. At this point, we tasted the batter and thought that it could use a bit of some orange liquor, aka Triple Sec.

Once you’ve mixed in the last egg, pour the batter into your prepared crust. Dot the top of the batter with drops of the raspberry sauce and with a knife or wooden skewer, swirl the surface of the batter to create the marbled effect. We used a chopstick which was a bad idea in retrospect because it thinned out all that raspberry. We’ll probably use a knife next time.

Bake in the oven for approximately 60-65 minutes or until the middle stops jiggling. Set on a wire rack to cool for a couple of hours. Then chill in the fridge over night.

You should also check out:

• Five minute salty & nutty dark chocolate bark
• O clementine olive oil ice cream
• Chocolate coffee & pumpkin spice cupcakes
• Blueberry + strawberry muffins (with crumble topping!)
• ICE CREAM!!! (and cupcakes!)

Considering how this a popular favorite at the Cheesecake factory, there isn’t much to say about this cheesecake. My words probably wouldn’t do it justice anyway. So instead, I’ll just tell you about the greatest $16 investment I ever made and that is an…

ELECTRIC HANDMIXER!

I’ve made cheesecake twice before. Each time, it’d literally take over an hour because my fingers would be clasped between two way-too-short forks, attempting to beat the leaving daylights out of the cream cheese. The mixer took me literally five minutes.

Sabrina, this is for you. Remember how we were talking about how much our time is worth? Assuming that you work 50 hours a week for 48 weeks, adjusting for taxes, your hourly worth would be roughly $20.42.

Now, now, I know that we can’t all have the same hourly worth as Sabrina, but if Sabrina were me, she’d recoup the cost of the electric handmixer with one cheesecake.

Lesson of the day? I should have gotten a handmixer a long time ago.

Surprisingly, this recipe isn’t as unhealthy as you’d think it’d be. Only 3 packets of cream-cheese (yeah only!), 1 cup of sugar (which I reduced down to 3/4th cup), and 3 eggs! I adapted the recipe by adding a few more spices and omitted the sugar from the graham cracker crust. Honestly, you don’t even miss the sugar.  I also made it two layered, an attempted to make it look pretty. See the orange to the white to the brown? Yep!

The Cheesecake Factory Pumpkin Cheesecake
(Adapted to be less sweet)

Ingredients (Crust):

• 1 1/2 cups graham crumbs
• 5 Tbsp. butter, melted

(Filling):

• 3- 8oz.pkgs. cream cheese, softened
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 cup canned pumpkin
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp. pumpkin spice
• Whipped Cream

Recipe:

Mix crust ingredients together, just till coated and crumbly. Press onto the bottom and 2/3 up the sides of an 8″ springform pan. Bake for 5 min. at 350. Set aside. (If you don’t bake it, the crust will come out a bit more “mushy.” It’s still actually quite delicious, it just depends on what you prefer- a crumbly graham cracker crust or a softer one)

Combine cheese, sugar and vanilla in large bowl, mix until smooth with an electric mixer. Set aside 1/4th of the batter. Add pumpkin, eggs, nutmeg, cinnamon, and pumpkin spice. Beat until smooth and creamy.

Then, take that original cheesecake batter and pour it into the pan first. Make sure it coats the crust in an even layer. Then pour the second layer, also making sure that it evenly coats the first layer. If you want to make swirling effects, save a bit of the white batter and pour in little droplets onto the surface of the pumpkin batter.  Then take a toothpick and swirl.

To ensure that the cheesecake does not crack, I’d suggest baking it in a water bath. Fit the cheesecake into a larger tray and fill that tray with hot, boiling water. In other words, its as if the cheesecake is taking a “bath.” The water should NOT leak into the cheesecake pan.

Bake for 60-70 min or until the top turns a bit darker. Remove from oven and allow to come to room temperature, then refrigerate. After it has thoroughly chilled, remove the pan sides and cut.  Serve with whipped cream.

You should also check out:

• Five minute salty & nutty dark chocolate bark
• O clementine olive oil ice cream
• Chocolate coffee & pumpkin spice cupcakes
• Blueberry + strawberry muffins (with crumble topping!)
• ICE CREAM!!! (and cupcakes!)

FAIL, FAIL, FAIL! ON ALL ACCOUNTS POSSIBLE!

I like how Fred came up to me at work and said, “Jessie, this has gotten out of hand. I can’t believe I have to bake a cake next week for the meeting. Maybe I’ll just bring in my leftover Halloween candy!”

No fear coworkers, I’d do no such thing (mainly because I don’t have any leftover candy).

So tonight, I baked cupcakes. I thought to myself, there’s that jar of applesauce that I’ve only opened once. Maybe I should use it again. So, I chose Martha Stewart’s Applesauce Spiced Cupcakes.

I cream the butter and sugar. I mix the flour, the spices, and the salt. Then I peek into my fridge.

Applesauce! What?! What is that greenish-white thing floating on top! The story of my life.

So instead, I thought to myself, what tastes like applesauce and works in cake batter?

Why milk of course! (well not really but…)

So I substituted the same proportion of milk for the applesauce. I bake them and oh boy did it smell delicious. I make the frosting, pipe it all out, and dang did it look gorgeous. I take pictures upload them and start blogging. That’s when I realized…

I FORGOT TO INCLUDE EGGS!!!!

FAIL, FAIL, FAIL!!!

On the bright side, they were still delicious! That tells you something. Eggs are not vital to the well-being of a cupcake!

So below is my adapted version, if you so dare to try it… I couldn’t call them Applesauce Spice Cupcakes, them not having applesauce and all.

Autumn Spiced Cupcakes
adapted from Martha Stewart’s Cupcakes
original recipe found at Susi’s Kochen Und Backen

You should also check out:

• Five minute salty & nutty dark chocolate bark
• O clementine olive oil ice cream
• Chocolate coffee & pumpkin spice cupcakes
• Blueberry + strawberry muffins (with crumble topping!)
• ICE CREAM!!! (and cupcakes!)