Candy Bar Cupcakes

I think I’ve started a tradition, and I think it’s a good one. You see, every year my spinning instructor starts dropping hints about his birthday a couple of weeks before it arrives. Last year, I took the hints and decided to bring some cupcakes to class on his big day. Having cupcakes in the spinning room was so wrong, so antithetical, so naughty, and so great. One year later, I had to do it again, and this time, I looked to Demolition Desserts for a completely decadent cupcake. The candy bar cupcake is intended to taste like a Snickers bar. It’s a brown sugar cake with caramel filling, a rich chocolate and peanut butter frosting with roasted peanuts on top, and a sprinkling of sea salt. A woman at the front of the room, near the tray of cupcakes, said: I love smelling chocolate while on a spinning bike. It is very good motivation.

The cakes themselves are made with dark brown sugar and were tender and nicely flavored by themselves. As they baked and cooled, the caramel sauce was made from water, cream of tartar, sugar, and light corn syrup. After that mixture came up to temperature, butter and cream were added, and then it was simmered briefly. I chilled the caramel in the refrigerator before piping it into the cupcakes. The technique is a simple one. You push a one-quarter inch tip on a bag filled with the sauce into the top of a cupcake and squeeze in the caramel until the top of the cake just begins to rise a bit. A little caramel dribbles out on top, and that’s fine. The frosting was next, and that was made with milk chocolate, bittersweet chocolate, heavy cream, peanut butter, and buttercream frosting. I thought it was a little strange that one of the ingredients in the frosting was a half cup of buttercream frosting from another page in the book. Instead, this recipe could have just called for enough butter, confectioners’ sugar, milk, and vanilla to make up one half cup. At any rate, I mixed a little buttercream separately and added it to the chocolate peanut butter frosting, and the finished product was delicious. That was swirled onto the cupcakes and topped with roasted peanuts and sea salt.

These were definitely adequately decadent. Using a natural peanut butter with no added sugar, the bittersweet chocolate, and a touch of sea salt kept them from being too sweet. And, the chocolate, peanut, and caramel mix was reminiscent of a Snickers bar in the best way. Now, I just need to find a way to propel a tray of cupcakes in front of me when I’m out running.

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White Mountain Chocolate Cupcakes

It just seemed so wrong. It was time for spinning class, I was at the gym, but I was carrying a box full of cupcakes. This was an oxymoron in action, and I wasn’t sure the greeters at the front counter would let me enter the facility toting that quantity of simple carbs. I had to do it though because it was my instructor’s birthday. I’ve been attending his spinning classes for almost three years, and he always reminds the class when his birthday is drawing near. And, well, I’ll use any excuse to bake. These fluffy treats are from Cupcakes by Elinor Klivans which is a delightful, little book. I’ve made her cinnamon sugar puff cupcakes which are like doughnut muffins and her caramel-covered tea cakes, and both were fantastic. The book includes cupcakes with all sorts of different toppings and fillings for all sorts of occasions. The white mountain chocolate cupcake is made with chocolate sour cream cupcake batter and seven-minute frosting.

The batter is made rich and delicious with the addition of sour cream, but the important thing here is the frosting. If you have never made a seven-minute frosting, or if it has been awhile as it had been for me, go now to start separating some egg whites. I don’t know how I let so much time pass since I’d last made this kind of frosting, but it is a simply wonderful thing. Egg whites are beaten in a bowl with water, sugar, and cream of tartar. The bowl is set over a pot of barely simmering water, and you continue to beat for seven minutes. A glossy, thick, luscious frosting develops before your eyes. After seven minutes, the bowl is removed from the pan of simmering water, vanilla is added, and you mix for another couple of minutes. What you get is the best possible incarnation of marshmallow fluff.

Next, you get to apply this fluffery to the cupcakes, and that is almost as much fun as eating it. You swoop and swirl and let the frosting take whatever crazy shape it can. Because of the lightness of the frosting, this is one that is best applied liberally. My spinning instructor was surprised and delighted by the cupcakes, and he offered to share with everyone—after class of course. Luckily, everyone felt like they deserved a cupcake or two after that class.

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