Dessert

Dessert / Recipe / Restaurant — View Comments
4
Jan 10

Magnolia Bakery :: Cream Cheese Icing

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Rating: 2.0/5 (7 votes cast)

Cupcakes

As I mentioned in my Red Velvet Cupcake post, one of the few things I truly miss about living in New York City is Magnolia Bakery’s red velvet cupcakes. And it wouldn’t be a red velvet cupcake if it didn’t have delicious cream cheese icing on top! So I will be sharing the recipe for the cream cheese icing in this post. You can also use this cream cheese frosting for other types of cakes, such as chocolate. In the picture above, I used this cream cheese icing to top chocolate cupcakes baked from a Duncan Hines mix, and it worked out really well and gives the cupcake that extra something. You can quite easily find the Magnolia Bakery Red Velvet Cake recipe, with the frosting, online and in their cookbook.

Summary

Preparation Time: 15 min
Cook Time: None
Servings: Enough to ice 36 cupcakes
Meal type: Dessert
Grocery Cost: $ 3.72 ($0.10 per cupcake)

Recipe Rating: ★★★★☆ 

Ingredients

  • ½ pound (one 8-ounce packages) cream cheese, softened and cut into small pieces ~ $2.49
  • 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened and cut into small pieces ~ $0.25
  • ¾ teaspoon vanilla extract ~ $0.15
  • 2 ½ cups sifted confectioners’ sugar ~ $0.83

Instructions

1. In a large bowl, on the medium speed of an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese and butter until smooth, about 3 minutes.
2. Add the vanilla and beat well.
3. Gradually add the sugar, 1 cup at a time, beating continuously until smooth and creamy.

Step 3

4. Add food colouring as needed (optional).
5. Cover and refrigerate icing for 2 to 3 hours, but no longer, to thicken before using.

Quick Notes

The cream cheese icing is very creamy, but more runny than normal sugar icing. To thicken it for decorating, you can add more icing sugar, but the more icing sugar you add, the sweeter and less like cream cheese it tastes.
When mixing the sugar and butter, make sure the butter is softened, but not melted. Melted butter will be too runny, but hard butter will make mixing it really hard. It’s best to have the butter softened at room temperature. Also make sure the cream cheese is at room temperature as well before mixing it.

Variations

You can play around with this base recipe, with adding more icing sugar, if you want it stiffer for decorating, as this icing is runnier than sugar icing. You can also choose to add different food colouring to make it different colours. Since this icing is white, it takes to other colours quite easily. Also, you can choose to add other flavouring as well. Think of what tastes good in a cheese cake and you can probably try to apply it here as well, since the basic ingredients are the same as a cheese cake – cream cheese and sugar.

Results

Red Velvet Cupcakes

The cream cheese icing always turns out well – how could you go wrong with cream cheese and sugar? Feel free to get creative with different colours and variations and you’ve got a great cream cheese icing base recipe. Enjoy!
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Rating: 2.0/5 (7 votes cast)

Cookbook / Dessert / Recipe / Restaurant — View Comments
4
Jan 10

Magnolia Bakery :: Red Velvet Cupcakes

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Magnolia Bakery
One of the few things I truly miss about living in New York City is Magnolia Bakery’s red velvet cupcakes and cheesecakes. I discovered this beautiful dessert in New York and now I can’t live without it! Unfortunately, there is no Magnolia Bakery in Toronto, so I have to make do with baking it myself now. Red velvet is a light cocoa cake, made red by red food colouring, topped with cream cheese frosting. This cupcake looks gorgeous, red with white icing on top and is perfect for giving to friends as holiday treats. You can quite easily find the Magnolia Bakery Red Velvet Cake recipe online and in their cookbook. Make sure you ice the red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting! See my other post for the cream cheese icing.

Summary

Preparation Time: 30 min
Cook Time: 10 min for each batch of cupcakes
Servings: 36 cupcakes
Meal type: Dessert
Grocery Cost: $ 6.00 ($0.20 per cupcake)

Recipe Rating: ★★★★☆ 

Ingredients

  • 3 ⅓ cups cake flour (not self-rising)
  • ¾ cup (1 ½ sticks) unsalted butter, softened ~ $2.00
  • 2 ¼ cups sugar
  • 3 large eggs, at room temperature ~ $0.62
  • 6 tablespoons (2-28mL bottles) red food coloring ~ $4.38
  • 3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa ~ $0.15
  • 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract ~ $0.15
  • 1 ½ teaspoons salt
  • 1 ½ cups buttermilk ~ $0.75
  • 1 ½ teaspoons cider vinegar $0.10
  • 1 ½ teaspoons baking soda

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Place cupcake papers in the tins.
3. In a small bowl, sift the cake flour and set aside. In a large bowl, on the medium speed of an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar until very light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Step 3
4. In a small bowl, whisk together the red food coloring, cocoa, and vanilla. Add to the batter and beat well.
5. In a measuring cup, stir the salt into the buttermilk. Add to the batter in three parts, alternating with the flour. With each addition, beat until the ingredients are incorporated, but do not overheat.
6. In a small bowl, stir together the cider vinegar and baking soda. Add to the batter and mix well. Using a rubber spatula, scrape down the batter in the bowl, making sure the ingredients are well blended and the batter is smooth.
Step 6
7. Divide the batter among the prepared cupcake liners.
Step 7
8. Bake each tray of cupcakes for 10 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cupcake comes out clean. Let the cupcakes cool in the pans for 1 hour.
Step
9. Ice each cupcake with cream cheese frosting.

Quick Notes

I’ve noticed that this cupcake batter comes out a bit thicker when compared to cooking with box cake mixes, such as Duncan Hines or Betty Crocker, so don’t worry if the consistency seems a bit thick. Sometimes I half this recipe because I find 36 cupcakes too much, but this recipe seems to turn out better if I make the full batch instead of a half batch. If you do need to half the recipe, and need 1.5 eggs instead of 3, try cracking an egg into a bowl, mixing it, and using only half of the mixed egg.

Another tip that I always use is to bring out the butter, eggs and buttermilk beforehand to get it to room temperature before using it. This is a baker’s trick that works well.

Variations

I don’t really deviate too much from this recipe. I will use normal flour instead of cake flour, but I do sift it to make sure it’s fine.

Results

Red Velvet Cupcakes
As usual, the red velvet cupcake is a crowd pleaser. How could you go wrong with chocolate cupcake and cream cheese icing, especially when it looks this pretty? I used red sparkles to decorate the tops of the cupcakes to make it look more festive. Get creative with the decorating – it adds a lot to the cupcake!

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Dessert / Recipe — View Comments
16
Dec 09

Pear Ginger Biscotti

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A good biscotti and a latte are the perfect start to my weekend. Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen too often… Most of the biscotti that I buy don’t have enough flavour in them or they don’t survive hot drinks too well. I like a good crunch in my biscotti and it stands up well to a hot cappuccino or latte. And what could be better than something you made yourself?

This year, I decided to make Pear Ginger Biscotti for the holiday season as a token of my appreciation to my many great clients. Here is my recipe, courtesy of Elaine’s Cake Boutique . Enjoy and Happy Holidays!

Summary

Preparation Time: 30 min
Cook Time: 1 hour 10 min
Yield: 28-40 biscotti, depending on the size
Meal type: Dessert
Grocery Cost: $12 ($0.30-$0.43/cookie)

Recipe Rating: ★★★★★ 

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Ingredients

  • 4 large eggs ~ $0.80
  • 1 1/3 cup (270 g) Granulated White Sugar
  • 2 tsp Pure Vanilla Extract
  • 3.5 cups (490 g) All-Purpose Flour
  • 2 tsp Baking Powder
  • 1/4 tsp Salt
  • 1/4 tsp Ground Cinnamon
  • 150 g Dried Pears, diced ~ $4
  • 350 g Candied Ginger, diced ~ $6

Instructions for Pear Ginger Biscotti

1. Preheat your oven to 350oF and place oven rack in the centre of your oven. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper. At first, I lined only one, but realized that I was quickly running out of space when baking the sliced biscotti for the second time.
2. In a mixer bowl, beat together sugar, eggs and vanilla on medium-high until it is thick, pale and fluffy (5 minutes).
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When you raise the beater, the batter should fall back into your bowl in slow ribbons.
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3. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. Add to your egg mixture and pulse on low until combined. It will slowly come together and resemble a wet cookie dough.
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4. Add your dried fruit and candied ginger and fold into the dough.
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5. Transfer the dough to a baking sheet and form into logs. For me, I made my biscotti quite long, so I made 2 logs with my dough. If you prefer shorter ones, you may need to make 4 logs, or even 6 if you want mini biscotti. You will need to flour your hands as the dough is quite sticky. Make sure each log is a few inches apart as the dough will expand. Each log should be about half an inch in height.
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6. Bake for 25 minutes or until firm to the touch. Remove from your oven and let cool on a wire rack for about 10 minutes. The logs need to firm up a bit before you can handle them.
7. Reduce your oven temperature to 325oF.
8. Transfer your logs to a cutting board and cut into 1/2” to 3/4″ slices with a serrated knife.
9. Place biscotti, cut side down, on your baking sheets. Bake about 10 minutes, then turn them over and bake for another 10 minutes. The biscotti should be just a touch golden.
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10. Remove your cookies from the oven and let cool completely. Store in an airtight container for up to two weeks, or freeze them for up to two months.

Quick Notes

You can vary this recipe to create many different flavours:

Cranberry Pistachio Biscotti – Replace the pear and ginger with 1 cup of cranberries and 1 cup of hulled, unsalted pistachios. Omit the cinnamon.

Pina Colada Biscotti – Replace the pear and ginger with 1 cup dried pineapple and 1 cup coconut flakes. Replace the vanilla extract with some Amaretto flavouring.

Be creative and share any other variations you may have!

Result

The result is a beautiful, crispy twice-baked Italian cookie. I enjoy my biscotti crispy, which is why there is no oil or butter in my ingredients list. The pear and ginger combination is sophisticated and festive. Just package them in clear bags and tie them up with some ribbon, and they are perfect for holiday hostess gifts!

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