Recently I participated in Dessert First, a fundraising event organized by Altrusa International, Inc. of Downtown Dallas.  It was all about chocolate, so I was asked to make chocolate cupcakes.  Just chocolate cupcakes?  Plain chocolate cupcakes are good, but I decided to jazz them up a little.  I thought something with almond and mocha flavors would be great.  I went through 8 different recipes for chocolate almond mocha cupcakes!  Needless to say, my taste testers at work were a little tired of eating chocolate cupcakes 2-3 times a week.

Even though I had a hard time deciding which cake recipe to use, deciding on the icing was easy.  Dipping cupcakes into icing is always easier and faster than spreading icing on with a knife.  And what goes better with chocolate than more chocolate?  Using chocolate ganache was the obvious choice and the cupcakes turned out great!

Here’s an easy recipe for ganache:

• 2 parts chocolate (small pieces like chocolate chips)
• 1 part heavy cream

Scald the heavy cream and pour it over the chocolate.  Let it sit for 2 minutes then slowly wisk the chocolate and cream together.  When the ganache is warm, you can dip cupcakes into the icing.  If you allow the ganache to cool, it will become thick enough to spread with a knife.  For a variation, you can add different flavorings into the warm ganache.  I added coffee to mine, but you can also add any extracts you may have like almond, rum, or orange extracts.

Happy baking!  And remember… Life is uncertain.  Eat dessert first!

Not long after I started pastry school, my best friend had wonderful news that she was engaged!  She asked me to make her wedding cake, and, of course, I agreed.  It would be the first wedding cake I ever made, but there was a twist.  Since she and many members of her family have Celiac disease, all of the food at the wedding had to be gluten free…including the wedding cakes.  This didn’t come as a great surprise to me, but it meant I had a lot of learning to do!

How do you make a cake without using wheat flour?  Luckily, I came across a gluten free flour blend that worked well when making desserts – Bette’s Gourmet Featherlight Flour Blend.  It’s made of a mixture of rice flour, tapioca flour, cornstarch, and potato flour.  In addition to replacing the flour, I also had to add xanthan gum, which acted as a substitute for gluten.  The gum would bind the ingredients together so the cake had structure when it baked.  I really didn’t know how the flavor and texture would be different, but it was very close to regular cake.  It was delicious!

Of course, there were a few failures before I got the recipe to work.  The biggest problem was that the cake kept sinking in the middle while it was cooling.  When a cake starts out being 2” tall and it sinks to 1”, there’s a problem.  Usually when a cake sinks, it’s because there’s too much leavening.  To solve the problem, I cut back on the amount of baking powder in the recipe and it turned out much better!  Remember, recipes aren’t always correct, even if they’re published.  So adjust your recipes accordingly and tweak them to suit your tastes. 

Since it was my first wedding cake, I was a little nervous about transporting it.  I tried to avoid every bump in the road, but it wasn’t always possible.  Fortunately, the cakes arrived without any damage! 

Here are some pictures.  The bride’s cake was an orange-almond cake with orange filling and cream cheese icing.  The groom’s cake was a German chocolate cake.  They both tasted great!!!

Welcome to Dessert Junky!!