Port Wine and Cherry Chocolate Cupcakes

It was my birthday several weeks ago which I decided to use as an excuse to throw a party and get all my friends together.  The theme of the party was to be Portuguese/Spanish because I was in Lisbon on my birthday last year (on a trip while studying abroad in Spain) and I wanted to replicate the awesomeness of that birthday.  The theme was twofold also because of my inability to find many Portuguese foods.  So some of the things I offered were Spanish.  The menu for the party had 3 sections, tapas, drinks, and desserts.  The tapas consisted of toasted baguette slices, Spanish cheese triangles, stuffed olives, and Spanish bar nut mix.  The drinks were varied but stayed mostly within the theme only varying with regards to the homemade limoncello (which my coworker gave me).  Other than that it was all port wine, Portuguese vinho verde, and Spanish wine.  The desserts strayed from the theme entirely, however.  They consisted of flourless chocolate cake with ganache frosting (which my parents ordered me for my birthday), Ferrer Roche chocolates in 3 flavors (which my aunt had given me as a birthday gift), fresh strawberries, fresh blackberries, and these Port Wine and Cherry Chocolate Cupcakes with Mascarpone Frosting.

After seeing these on Ming Makes Cupcakes (aka the link that ruined my life for a week because of my desire to make these Chocolate Chambord Cupcakes instead of doing work) I knew that I had to make them at some point.   However, I wasn't quite ready to randomly splurge on the specialty ingredients required such as, port wine, cherries, and mascarpone.  Then my birthday rolled around and I decided to ignore costs (for the most part) and make these cupcakes.  The response to them was well worth it. Though I made around 22 cupcakes (and there were not that many people at my party), I still ended up with just a few cupcakes leftover and tons of compliments.

As good as these were, it took a bit of tweaking the original recipe to produce the exact cupcakes I wanted. Instead of making chocolate cupcakes with chunks of cherries inside (I didn't like the idea of having chunky cupcakes) I decided to make plain chocolate cupcakes and soak them in cherry port wine sauce before frosting them. Next time, I also think I'll add more cream to the frosting recipe and double it because I ran out, and I hate skimping on frosting!

Chocolate Cupcakes (adapted from Nosh With Me)
Yield: About 30 cupcakes (but I ended up with just 22 because I made enormous cupcakes)

Ingredients: 
2 cups sugar
1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
¾ cup cocoa powder
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
 ½ cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water

Directions: 
1) Line muffin cups (2-1/2 inches in diameter) with paper bake cups. Heat oven to 350 F.
2) Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl.
3) Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of mixer 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin).
4) Fill muffin tins about 2/3 full with batter. Bake 22-25 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean.
5) Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely.

Cherry and Port Wine Reduction Sauce (adapted from Ming Makes Cupcakes)
Ingredients:
1 cup port wine
¾ cup jarred Morello cherries (I couldn't find these so I just used jarred bing cherries)
Directions:
1) While the cupcakes are baking, simmer port and drained cherries in a saucepan for 5 to 10 minutes.
2) Using a toothpick, poke holes into each cupcake before carefully spooning port wine liquid over top.  3) Reserve cherries to use as decoration after frosting with Mascarpone Frosting.

Mascarpone Frosting (adapted from Ming Makes Cupcakes)
Ingredients:
8 oz. mascarpone cheese, at room temperature
½ - ¾ cup heavy cream
½ cup confectioners sugar
Directions:
1) Beat ingredients together at high speed for 2-3 minutes or until soft peaks form.
2) Spread on cupcakes and top with port wine soaked cherries.

Almond Lovers Chocolate Chip Cookies

Another of the cookies that my sister and I made on our marathon day of cookie making were these Almond Lovers Chocolate Chip Cookies.  I had wanted to try them for some time and even tried to make them for my co-op but unfortunately, we couldn't get any almond paste.  My guess is they don't sell it in bulk.  Fortunately, my sister found it at the grocery store and were able to make these tasty cookies, plus a batch of them for her to freeze.  In any case, I wanted to try them because I love almond flavored things, especially marzipan, which is essentially what the almond paste tastes like.  Tearing the almond paste into chunks, we added it to these cookies. They were very good, but perhaps not as almondy as I had hoped.  But, that doesn't mean you shouldn't try them.  I would still make them again, just with a few alterations to make them have a stronger almond flavor.  However, if you're alright with a very subtle almond flavor, make them as is without my following corrections.  Maybe next time I'll add more almond paste, or almond extract instead of vanilla extract.  I will also probably get some raw almonds and cut them into chunks to add to the cookies instead of the almond slices we had.

Almond Lovers Chocolate Chip Cookies (lightly adapted from Picky Palate) 

Yield: 3 dozen cookies

Ingredients 
2 sticks softened butter
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
3 oz Odense Pure Almond Paste (package is 6 oz, can just be cut in half)
2 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
12 oz bag chocolate chips
3/4 cup roughly chopped almonds

Directions
1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2) In a stand or electric mixer, beat the butter and sugars until well combined, light and fluffy. Add the almond paste in pieces until well combined. Add in eggs and vanilla until well combined.
3) In a large bowl combine the flour, baking soda and salt. Slowly add to wet ingredients along with the chocolate chips. Mix until just combined.
4) Drop by rounded tablespoon onto a silpat or parchment lined baking sheet. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until just golden crisp on the outside. Let cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.

Olive Oil Chocolate Chip Cookies

One of the days I was visiting my sister in Georgia for Spring Break, we had a marathon cookie day. We made two different kinds of cookies and contemplated a third. The reason we decided to make so many was so my sister could freeze some dough for later. She's nine months pregnant now and due any day so likely, after her baby is born, she won't have much time for cookie making. But, with the frozen dough we made, she can just unfreeze and bake. In fact, cookie dough for just about any type of cookie (except madelines) can be frozen for between three to six months. What we ended up doing was separating the dough into equal portions, then we flattened it and wrapped it once in wax paper (so it wouldn't stick) and then wrapped it twice in plastic wrap. We then labeled the cookies with the name, date made, date good until, and baking instructions to make it super easy to just pull out a disk and bake up some cookies.

I thought her idea to do this was a pretty good one and I had some cookies in mind which I had been dying to bake. First on the list were Olive Oil Chocolate Chip cookies. While searching through food blogs some time ago, I somehow ran across this recipe and was really curious to try it. I was especially interested in these because they replace butter with olive oil, sounds healthier to me. As curious as I was though, I admit I was a bit wary about how these cookies would taste, especially when I was tasting the dough before baking. It had a slightly grassy flavor like the olive oil which my sister enjoys so much. At that point I sort of wished we had just used some plainer olive oil, like that “light in flavor” olive oil that I don't know why anyone would buy. However, I was pleasantly surprised when these cookies came out of the oven tasting nothing like olive oil. They were just like regular chocolate chip cookies, maybe even better. They were slightly puffy yet crunchy on the outside and pleasantly chewy on the inside. Perfect. I'll definitely be making these again. I say try them, besides, they're healthy for you!

Olive Oil Chocolate Chip Cookies (Lightly adapted from Culinary Couture)

Ingredients:
2 1/4 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 eggs
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup chocolate chips

Directions:
1) Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2) In a medium bowl, mix flour, salt and baking soda.
3) In a larger mixing bowl, beat eggs. Add olive oil and beat until completely mixed with eggs.
4) Add sugars, vanilla and mix until combined. Beat in dry ingredients slowly. Fold in chocolate chips, if using.
5) Drop by rounded teaspoon onto ungreased baking sheets using a tablespoon. Bake for 9 to 11 minutes until bottom of cookies are golden brown and the tops are pale blonde. Let stand for 2 minutes, then place on wire racks to cool.