Cupcakes: A Buttercream's Best Friend

Last week I showed you how to make the perfect buttercream.  This week, I thought I’d show you a fabulous conveyance for said frosting.  Even as good as the buttercream is, you still can’t just eat it with a spoon.  Not if there are other people present, anyway.  These cupcakes are soft and tender and I’d say they fall into the category of a sponge cake. 

Here’s what you’ll need:

• 1 cup flour
• ¾ cup sugar
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 3 eggs
• ¼ cup oil
• ¼ cup buttermilk
• 2 Tablespoons water
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

Start by preheating your oven to 350° and lining/spraying your muffin pan.  Next up, measure all of your dry ingredients into a large-ish mixing bowl. 

Whisk those together and set it aside.  Next, you need to separate the eggs.  (Seeley has the perfect tip for that here.)  If you measure all the rest of your wet ingredients first, you can just drop the yolks in with them and save dirtying an extra dish.  

Beat the egg whites until you get stiff peaks.  <giggle>  Sorry, I just can’t help myself.  But if you don’t laugh at the term ‘stiff peaks’, then you’ve never read a really bad romance novel.  Some of the descriptive phrases that people come up with are simply amazing.  I have yet to actually come across stiff peaks (HA!), but I guarantee it’s out there somewhere.  Oops, I got sidetracked.  Where was I?  Oh yes, egg whites. 

Set those aside and whisk together the other wet ingredients and pour them over the dry stuff. 

Stir until it just comes together. 

Add about ⅓ of the egg whites. 

Fold that in until it’s mostly incorporated before adding the next third. 

Stirring will deflate the egg whites, so make sure you’re gently folding them in.  Cut through the middle with your spatula.

Then scrape along the bottom of the bowl and up over the top. 

Continue that with the remaining egg whites until they’re all incorporated.  Spoon the batter into the muffin cups, filling each one about ⅔ full.  I always put my muffin tins on a sheet pan.  It makes them easier to move around, and it’s also insurance in case I’ve filled them too full.   

Now, just before you put the cupcakes into the oven turn the temperature up to 425°.  Bake them at that temperature for 5 minutes, then turn it back down to 350°.  Bake them for an additional 10 – 12 minutes. (That’s a total of 15 – 17 minutes.)  They’ll be just starting to brown around the edges and a toothpick inserted in the middle of one should come out clean.  Allow them to cool in the pan for only 2 or 3 minutes before relocating them to a cooling rack. 

When they’ve cooled completely, top each one with a generous amount of delicious buttercream. 

The interior of these cupcakes is fabulous.  They’re light, fluffy, and moist without feeling oily. 

What perfectly innocent phrase makes you crack up?  Come on, we all have our sophomoric moments. 

There's pizza in there!

Up here in the frozen north, we have something called a "pizza pop." And despite the ridiculous cold and perpetual snow, a pizza pop is not a pepperoni flavoured ice cream treat.

Why they're called pops we'll probably never know, since they're really more of a calzone. But they are a staple junk food on this side of the 49th and unbelievably easy to replicate.

Home Made (is best) Pizza Pops

• 1 batch of biscuit dough
• 1/2 tin of plain tomato sauce
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp marjoram
• 1/2 tsp oregano
• pepperoni
• mozza
• other stuff you like on pizza
• an egg and a bit of water

A note on the cheese: while a soft squishy mozza is nice, it doesn't work well in these. It liquifies too much, and escapes out of the pop to make a lovely cheesey mess all over the baking sheet. I strongly recommend a firmer, drier mozza for these.

I used the garlic salt in the biscuit dough (in place of the regular salt, which is in the picture, but which I didn't use), and then I found the garlic powder (not pictured) in the cupboard and so used it instead of the fresh garlic. And there's no egg. Or biscuit dough. This picture is all kinds of fail.

So, first thing you have to do is make your biscuit dough. I know, I know, it's not pizza dough and calzones are usually made with pizza dough. I don't care. Biscuits are fast, easy, and do not contain yeast. I am really not good with yeast. I seem to kill the poor things with my bare hands. I swear I can feel them dying as I knead.

So, I used biscuit dough, and frankly, it's more like the pop dough anyway. And I'm making pizza pops here.

The pizza sauce is probably the toughest part of this... Put it all in a bowl. Stir. Holy hell, I'm exhausted and I need to sit down for a few minutes.

So, you can either roll out the dough into one big blob and cut circles out of it, or you can roll small blobs of dough into circles. I've done it both ways, and I find that the big blob works best for smaller ones and small blobs work best for larger ones.

Since I was at Recipe Guy's house and making insta-lunches to stock his freezer with, I opted for small blobs to make big pops.

Roll the dough to no more than 3 mm thick (metric, Canadian, plus, looks better than 7/64 inches) and spread it with pizza sauce, leaving about a 1/4 inch (about 6 mm if you're playing along at home) edge all the way around.

Lay on the pepperoni. I only used one layer in this batch, but I think two would be okay. Make a small pile of cheese on one half. Add whatever other toppings you like, and then another small drizzle of sauce.

Fold the non cheese side over the cheese side and proceed with some form of joining of the edges.

Me, I like to roll it by folding the bottom layer up over the top layer. If you prefer to press, (edges of pizza pops are pressed with a fork-like indentation) I suggest you use some kind of fastener, like water, or a bit of egg wash. You're going to have to make the egg wash (beat the egg with the bit of water) anyway, and it makes a pretty decent pastry glue.

Brush them with egg wash and poke the top a few times with a fork. If steam can escape this way, it won't try and bust open an edge to get out.

I baked these at 400 for about 17 minutes.

The pastry is flakey, and handles both the freezer and the microwave well, and the filling is just enough pizza for a quick lunch. You could even eat it one handed.

What else should I stuff my biscuits with?