Pumpkin Pie in a Cupcake (no fancy title, it rocks!)

Every time you bake a pumpkin pie in a cupcake a kitten gets its wings. Seriously. And the angelic meows will serenade you as you enjoy your first delicious bite and your 30th secret bite, because no one can turn down a miniature pumpkin pie in a delectable vanilla cupcake with cream cheese frosting dusted with unicorn dust - I mean cinnamon.

Start by making the miniature pumpkin pies which are just like full-size pies except you need refrigerated, rolled pie dough and a round cutting device. A cookie cutter, a biscuit cutter or a glass cup with a thin edge will all work nicely. Expertly manipulate the tiny pie crust round into a tiny muffin tin. There will be folds, it won't look the best but that's okay! It almost doesn't matter what these look like - people will love you!

Mix the pie filling according to the directions on the side of the can. Why mess with grandma's recipe is what I always say. This canned gloop above is much tastier than straight up canned pumpkin which I always forget when I dip a big spoon into a can of plain pumpkin. Blech!

The two-pack of pie crusts only made 12 tiny pies (and some of those were mashed together scraps) so I poured the rest of the pumpkin filling in  large, glass casserole dish and called it pumpkin custard.

The pies don't take as long as a full-size one so keep your eye on them. The crust needs to be firm so it doesn't get soggy in the cupcake. The same goes for the filling - it should be fully cooked and set.

Butter for the cupcakes, butter for the frosting. You'd better stock up. We made these cupcakes vanilla but any cupcake recipe should work. I personally think a carrot cake with pumpkin pie inside would be great and meet your daily need for vegetables. You can mix this while the pies are cooking or after they come out of the oven since the pies should cool down and you don't want them to burn while you're busy eating cake batter.

Fill the regular-size cupcake tins about 1/3 full or just enough so that you have a layer of batter under the tiny pie and enough room to cover said pie with more batter. Gently! Gently place the pies in the batter, making sure not to squish the batter out from under the pie too much. Then cover the pie with more cupcake batter until it just covers the top of the pie.

These cupcakes were a little too big! Definitely some muffin top going on here. Bake according to your cupcake recipe or until the top is slightly golden. I find that as soon as I can smell the cupcakes (or brownies) baking they're done. No muffin cups needed, just a good non-stick pan and some cooking spray for good measure. Tilt the cupcakes on their side as soon as possible to stop the cooking process and start the cool down.

More glorious butter shots...here's half the ingredients for cream cheese frosting. After the frosting is all mixed scoop it into a zip-top plastic bag. Taste test it. Double check for flavor quality. Close up the top of the bag and snip a tiny hole in the corner to create a angel kitten frosting machine.

Taste testing in action. Nom nom nom.

Adapted from Bake It in a Cake (they seem to have taken down the recipe, and I didn't write it down!) A good vanilla cupcake recipe can be found all over the interwebs. Here's one from Magnolia - Magnolia's Vanilla Cupcake. The same goes for cream cheese frosting - this one is The Best Cream Cheese Frosting from Slash foods and it looks just like what we made.

Sweet Potatoes with Mini Marshmallows

Frozen vegetables are amazing. You can buy a 1 pound bag of pre-cubed, frozen sweet potatoes that have no added yuckiness and steam in the bag in the microwave. Do it. They tastes just as good.

You don't have to put your sweet potatoes on top of a Thanksgiving Turkey Cake but you won't be sorry if you do. I suppose they make a nice side dish too.

Recipe Time: Sweet Potatoes with Mini Marshmallows
adapted from Chow site

serves 8

1 pound sweet potatoes
1/4 cup skim milk
2 tablespoons unsalted butter (1/4 stick)
1 tablespoon packed light brown sugar
1 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more as needed
Pinch ground mace or nutmeg
Freshly ground black pepper

1. Cook sweet potatoes according to directions on package.
2. Place sweet potatoes in an oven-safe dish and puree with a masher or a strong fork.
3. While still hot add the butter, then the milk, followed by spices - mix well.
4. Top with mini marshmallows.
5. Place under broiler (remember to use an oven safe dish) for 1 to 2 minutes and watch carefully so the marshmallows don't catch on fire.

Casaba Melon Granita

For the sake of consistency I am still posting recipes months behind. Now that we've had our first snow I think this cool summer treat will be perfect. You can make granita with any squishable fruit, really anything sweet that liquefies. Okay, the recipe is sweet + water + flavor = granita, got it? Good.

I made my granita at the end of melon season after a new summer romance with hami and casaba melons. This particular melon had a great flavor but the texture was too soft for my taste (perfect for squishing!). I used a little bit of local honey for the sweet, but the melon really was sweet enough. My true love casaba also provided the liquid and the flavor. So easy. May I suggest using pomegranate or cranberry juice for a holiday granita? Yay! This recipe isn't out of date I swear.

Did I mention why I like granita? It is kind of creamy, kind of crunchy, a little sweet, a little icy. I've tasted tomato and basil granitas that made me weep tears of joy.

Scoop out the seeds and toss, scoop out the melon and place in a freezer safe dish (with a lid if possible), mash up the melon - a fork worked for me, stir in enough honey for your tastes, cover and freeze. The hard part is taking it out of the freezer every hour and scraping into fluffy ice pillows. You don't want a solid block of ice. I forgot one hour and it was tough! I pulled through.

 

ps. Make sure the container fits in your freezer before you put your mix in it. Mine just fit as you can see.

Recipe Time: Casaba Melon Granita
adapted from the many blogs I was reading at the time (probably Smitten Kitchen and Pioneer Woman)
serves 6

1 Casaba melon
1 Tbs honey

1. Cut the melon in half.
2. Scoop out and toss the seeds.
3. Scoop out the melon and place in a freezer safe dish (one with a lid if possible) .
4. Mash up the melon - a fork worked for me .
5. Stir in enough honey for your tastes.
6. Cover and freeze.
7. Every hour take the granita out of the freezer and scrape it with a fork, make sure to mix the sides and middle together. You don't want a solid block of ice.
8. When it's reached snow cone consistancy it's ready to eat!

Jasmine Sticky Rice

Jasmine sticky rice goes well with many types of dishes or all alone at the fridge late at night. Warm or cold. Hard to resist. The sweet counteracts spicy food like this Sri Lankan anchovy dish and the rice pairs well with bright, fruity notes (mango hell yeah!). There are a few easy steps and some waiting around, but this is very easy to make.

Soak. Rinse. Steam.

Heat. Stir. Pour. Rest. MMMmmmm I can almost smell it. So hungry now.

 
Recipe Time: Jasmine Sticky Rice (steam method)
adapted from the Thaitable.com site
serves 4ish

2 Tbs Sugar    
1 Cup Jasmine Rice    
2 pinches Salt    
1 Cup Coconut milk

1. Cover the rice completely with water and soak from one hour to overnight.
2. Rinse the rice thoroughly after soaking.
3. Put water in the bottom of a steamer (or if you're like me and you don't have a steamer, put water in the bottom of a large stock pot with an old, fold-out veggie steamer as a base, then add a metal colander).
4. Cover the steamer or colander contraption with cheese cloth, muslin cloth, or a plain tea towel.
5. Add the rice (make sure the towel does not touch the burner) and cover with lid.
6. Steam on medium to high heat for 20 minutes (or until rice is translucent).
7. While the rice is steaming...heat the coconut milk in a heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat.
8. Stir constantly!
9. Simmer, do not boil.
10. When the coconut milk starts to simmer add sugar and salt.
11. Remove from heat.
12. Pour 3/4 of the hot coconut milk over the hot sticky rice.
13. Let it sit for 5 minutes.
14. Drizzle the rest of the coconut milk over the rice when you serve.

Watalappan: Spiced Coconut Custard

You know how sometimes people say "we should have you over for dinner," but it never happens. This was not one of those times. Less than a week after said small-talk we were officially invited to have a homemade Sri Lankan dinner at a friend's house. Yay! and then Argh! What should we bring? I wanted to bring Pineapple Upside Down Cake. Pineapple is tropical and should go well with the Southeast Asian food, yes? But the idea was tossed around that I make an authentic Lankan dessert. I'm a good girl and I did my research. Watalappan was the answer. Many sites describe it as "the King of Custards" and how can you go wrong with that!

Watalappan recipes online are pretty much the same. The ingredient quantities differ and some people use more or less spice but generally Watalappan is a coconut/jaggery/cardamom custard. Some recipes call for creamed coconut (not the same and coconut cream) but I chose the version(s) that used coconut milk. Chao Koh brand coconut milk and coconut cream have a good flavor and consistency and are not too expensive. Lately the coconut cream has seemed a tad watery, hopefully this is not a permanent problem. I was more concerned about finding jaggery. The Cook's Thesaurus describes jaggery

Pronunciation: JAG-uh-ree, Notes: This is a tan, unrefined sugar that is common in India. It's made from the sap of palm trees or sugar cane and is much more flavorful than granulated sugar. It's often sold in solid cakes, but it should crumble when you squeeze it. Look for it in Indian markets. Substitutes: Mix 1 C dark brown sugar + 2 teaspoons molasses OR palm sugar OR piloncillo OR brown sugar OR maple sugar OR date sugar

I found palm sugar at the local international market (the small round cakes in front) and was satisfied that this was the best I would find in our small town, but no! The shop keeper pointed out a entire box of jaggery (the cone shape on the left). Woot! The recipe has so few ingredients that the difference in flavor of jaggery versus brown sugar is noticeable.

Dissolve the jaggery in water over low heat. A fork works well for crumbling. To me, the jaggery tasted like pumpkin and brown sugar, but nobody agreed with that assessment. It's good; that's all you need to know.

 

It turns out that custard requires eggs! Who knew? And a darn lot of them too! This one uses ten - I've never used ten eggs at one time. Look at them. They are sooooo yellllooowww.

After adding the coconut milk and the spices to the dissolved jaggery, mix it slowly into the beaten eggs. Make sure the sugar mix has cooled down so it doesn't cook the eggs. It's not very pretty at this point (in fact it never looks that great, but it tastes great).

At this point I was unsure how to steam the custards. Evey recipe said STEAM but I don't have a steamer. I tried two methods; one of which worked and that's the one I will describe. It's the oven method (in case you were wondering the stove top method tasted okay but the texture was way off). I buttered the ramekins, filled them not quite to the top and secured two layers of wax paper over the top with a strong rubber band. Luckily the ramekins fit snugly in the oven safe pot. I filled the pot with water until it was halfway up the side of the ramekins and then covered the pot with a lid. I put this heavywobblyliquidy bit of fun in the oven and let it steam for an hour. Ta da!

 

The large bowl on the left was the less-than-success stove top method. I know it rattled around too much on stove and I think some liquid got in under the rubber lid making it spongy and not creamy. The ramekin oven version looks odd but tastes creamy and rich, some might say royal. As it turns out, this custard is so awesome that the friends who made the dinner had made the exact same dessert!

ready to travel

Sultana raisins and coconut cream - ready to eat! 

Recipe Time: Watalappan (Spiced Coconut Custard)
serves 12

10 Eggs
2 Cups thick Coconut milk
1 lb Jaggery
½ cup water
Pinch of Cinnamon, Nutmeg & Salt
1 tsp Cardamom

butter
rubberbands
wax paper
ramekins

1. Add the jaggery to the water and boil until the jaggery has melted.
2. Lightly beat the eggs.
3. Allow the sugar mixture to cool. Add the coconut milk and the spices to the sugar mixture.
4. Add melted jaggery and coconut milk a little at a time to the eggs and continue to beat.
5. Pour about 4 oz into each greased ramekin
6. Cover with wax paper and place in a ovensafe dish with a lid.
7. Add water to the baking dish until it reaches halfway up the side of a ramekin.
8. Steam in a 350 F oven for 1 hour.
9. Sprinkly with golden raisins before serving.

1-2-3-4 Cake and Cream Cheese Frosting

This recipe can be found on the back of the Swans Down Cake Flour box. In fact, as I look at the box I realize this cake and frosting recipe is probably the one featured on the box front. Our cake does not look as pretty, but it tastes just as good; because butter and sugar have never failed to make a cake rock.*

Before you begin, you might want some kitchen items we did not have: flour sifter, icing spatula, cake stand and cover, hand or stand mixer, blah blah blah. Don't worry about it. Your cake might look nicer and it might take less effort, but without these tools you will build arm strength and learn patience. That's priceless. Did I mention the cake still tastes great?

I think buttering and flouring your pans works more effectively when baking cakes than using the spray and I'm not a spray hater in general. The bonus is getting flour all over the counters. Yay! If you have a mixer use it now! A nice alternative for butter creaming is a fork and a potato masher. Creamed butter and sugar is hard to resist sampling. I dare you to try and resist.

Mix thoroughly after each egg. (Don't eat after adding eggs but before cooking!)

A flour sifter is appropriate, but a metal colander works in a pinch. I've learned that baking is not at all like cooking, it's very strict and science-y. If you don't pay close attention you will be punished (don't pay attention to me, do read and follow the recipe though).

Always add dry to wet when baking. Or add wet to wet. Here we do both. Alternate adding the flour mix and the milk mix to the delicious butter mix.

We split the mix into three pans like the box recommended, but The Art of Baking web site has time suggestions if you want to try cupcakes or two larger pans.

Overall, the cake is buttery, moist and yummy. There was not enough frosting to cover the whole cake, but that's probably because we were not successful with the milk/flour roux the Swans box had in their cream cheese frosting recipe. Meh, what can you do?

Recipe Time: 1-2-3-4 Cake and Cream Cheese Frosting
(adapted from the Swans Down Cake Flour box and The Art of Baking web site)
serves 12

1 cup butter or margarine
2 cups sugar
3 cups sifted Swans Down Cake Flour
3 tsps baking powder
½ tsp salt
4 eggs
1 cup skim milk
1 and ½ tsp vanilla

1. Cream butter. Gradually add sugar, beating until light and fluffy.
2. Add eggs one at a time to creamed mixture, beating well after each addition.
   
3. Sift flour with baking powder and salt. 
4. Add flour mixture alternately with milk and flavorings, beating after each addition until smooth. 
5. Pour batter into 3 greased and floured 9-inch layer pans, using about 2-1/3 cups batter in each pan. 
6. Bake at 350 degrees F for 25 to 30 minutes. 
7. Cool in pans 10 minutes. Remove from pans and finish cooling on racks.

Frosting

1 stick unsalted butter
8 oz reduced fat cream cheese
1 cup confectioners' sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Combine all ingredients at room temperature.
2. Blend well.
3. Spread on cooled cake.

*The red stuff in the first photo is pureed frozen strawberries with a wee bit of confectioners' sugar. A good frosting alternative or addition.