Pumpkin Cupcakes

In a recent trip to northern Portugal to pick grapes at the farm house of some friends parents we were given, in reward for our work, a number of things.

Sandwich Cookies for Christmas

Warning: If you make these cookies you’ll probably end up making them every year for the rest of your life.

Double Layer Stout Cake with Chocolate Buttercream

Apparently, November 26th, is National Cake Day. Who knew?

I have no clue why and I am especially unsure why they would put this holiday anywhere near Thanksgiving, but that’s no excuse for not participating. And if you do, make this cake.

Red Velvet Cake Balls

I learned a lot of things over this winter break.   One of them is that baby showers are a lot of work to do well.  Making cake balls added a bit to that difficulty.  It was my third, maybe fourth time making cake balls and I had never made them from scratch before.  That is to say, I had never made a cake with the intention of crumbling it to pieces to make cake balls.  But, I had told my sister I would do such a crazy thing and decorate them in either blue or pink, dependent on the sex of her baby.  As luck would have it, blue became the color to decorate in.  So I, in a moment of brilliance, decided that the cake inside the cake balls should also be blue. Blue velvet cake as a matter of fact, since I already had a recipe for red velvet cake.

And so I learned my second lesson of break, there are reasons why people make red velvet cake and not blue velvet cake. First off, they don't sell huge bottles of blue dye at the grocery store. They sell red, they sell green, they sell yellow in the large 2 oz bottles you need for red velvet cake. And finally, they sell black.  Not blue.  Black.   Ridiculous.  Who dyes frosting or cakes black? That's just unappetizing. So I had to settle for buying a second set of red, yellow, green, and blue dyes in .25 oz containers.  In all, I had maybe .5 oz to dye a large cake blue.  It was in this way that I learned why you don't really see many blue velvet cakes around.  As it would happen, chocolate wants to turn red, not blue.  It seems obvious, but really, I thought it would be easier to make blue velvet cake than it was.  I eventually got blue velvet cake by adding highly concentrated gel dye, but it was a darker blue than I was envisioning.

Oh well, you live, you learn and because they're delicious, people still eat your funny looking blue velvet cake balls.

*Red Velvet Cake (lightly adapted from eatfirst)
Ingredients
1/2 C unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 C granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 C buttermilk
1 oz red food coloring (I recommend sticking to just red!)
1 t vanilla extract
1 1/2 t baking soda
1 T distilled white vinegar
2 C all purpose flour
1/3 C unsweetened cocoa powder
1 t salt

Directions
1) Preheat oven to 350F.  Grease an 11 x 7 inch pan.
2) In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar with electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add eggs, buttermilk, food coloring and vanilla. Stir in baking soda and vinegar.
3) Combine flour, cocoa powder, and salt. Stir into batter until just blended.  Spread evenly in pan.
4) Bake for 25-30 minutes.

*Even though I would highly recommend this red velvet cake for making cake balls, I'm not sure I'd make it to eat on its own, every time I've made it, it's taken forever to bake on the inside and almost burns on the outside. It's fine for cake balls though!

Cream Cheese Frosting (also from eatfirst)
Ingredients
16 oz cream cheese at room temperature
1/2 C (1 stick) butter at room temperature
1 t vanilla extract
2 C sifted confectioners’ sugar

Directions
1) In a large bowl using an electric mixer, beat the cheese and butter until soft and smooth.
2) On low speed, beat in the vanilla and sugar, then beat on high speed for a few minutes until smooth.

Red Velvet Cake Balls (adapted from Bakerella)
Yield: 80 small or 60 large cake balls

Ingredients
One 11 x 7 inch red velvet cake (see above cake recipe)
16 oz of cream cheese frosting (see above frosting recipe)
24 oz of chocolate, separated (milk, white, or dark chocolate)
Parchment paper
Directions
1. Cool cake completely and crumble into a large bowl.
2. Add 16 oz of cream cheese frosting, or less if you want a more cake-like texture to the cake balls, and mix with the cake. You'll need to end up mixing it with your hands. Even though it's messy, it ensures the
3. Roll mixture into 1 inch balls, as though you're making meatballs, and place on cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.
4. Chill for several hours in the refrigerator. Do not put them in the freezer or they will be too hard and may get frost on them, which is not good when it unthaws inside it's chocolate shell.
5. Using a double boiler, melt enough chocolate to dip 1/3 of the balls in chocolate, about a cup. Then, melt more chocolate for the rest of the chocolate balls. (I like to melt it in a few batches because the chocolate firms up pretty quickly and then it's difficult to work with)
6. With a spoon, roll balls of cake in melted chocolate and lay on cookie tray with parchment paper until firm.
7. Store in a plastic container and refrigerate up to a week.

Chocolate Shortbread Sandwich Cookies with Vanilla Frosting

My friend, Micah, concluded the other day that if I ever have a significant other and fight with him, our fights will go something like this "No, insert name, you're not frosting those cookies right". I didn't dispute his claim then and I certainly can't dispute his claim now because that's exactly what happened to Micah when I was making these cookies. Poor Micah, he was just trying to help. But I, as always, wanted my cookies made exactly according the the recipe, down to the round cookies which are shown in the picture. The idea of making round cookies with few kitchen supplies brought up yet another kitchen gadget I need to invest in. Cookie cutters. Oh well, I got by anyway using the round top of my newly purchased vanilla bean paste and a knife to cut circles around it. To my shock and pleasure the cookies came out pretty well, nice and round. And I filled them with frosting just the way I wanted them. And I must say, it looks a little better to have piped the frosting into the middle of these cookies than to have spread it. Plus it was more fun. For me at least. Sorry Micah.

A note on the frosting, though it calls for just a small amount of butter and if the butter is not completely melted, this will not turn into frosting. Just chunks of butter and confectioners sugar. Normally, I would have added a bit of milk to it to make it work but having no milk in the house I had to add some extra melted butter.  (I know I know, more butter, not good) But, after that, it turned out just fine.  Also, aside from using the top of the vanilla paste I recently bought, is used it to make this frosting amazingly delicious and vanilla-y.  It also lent flecks of vanilla to the frosting which are hard to make out in the picture but looked really nice, and gives the impression that you used a real vanilla bean.  I highly recommend it.

I also want to add that the perks of working for a winery just never end, I found this recipe on the website of another winery which I wouldn't have know about otherwise. On their website they have all kinds of delicious looking gourmet recipes with beautiful pictures and selections for wine pairings, though you should really try to pair your creations with our Kingston Family Vineyards wines! (Shameless plug)

Chocolate Shortbread Sandwich Cookies with Vanilla Frosting (adapted from Robert Sinskey)

Ingredients:
1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup powdered sugar, sifted
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/3 cup Dutch processed or natural cocoa powder, sifted (I think we may have just used Hershey's)
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
2. In a stand mixer, fitted with a paddle attachment, or just using a regular hand mixer, ream the butter until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the powdered sugar and beat until fluffy again. Add the vanilla extract to the mixture and then the cocoa powder. Beat until combined.
3. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the flour and salt and mix gently until incorporated. The dough will be very soft and slightly sticky. Knead the dough two or three times on a lightly floured board to incorporate all the ingredients. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and chill for 40 minutes or until no longer soft. 
4. Remove the dough from the refrigerator.  Place the dough on a floured surface and roll 1/8 thick.  (Though this may seem extremely thin, it's important because the cookies will puff up and if you make them too thick you'll end up with super fat sandwich cookies instead of the thin, delicate ones pictured here)  Using a round cookie cutter, punch out shapes.  Transfer to a parchment lined sheet pan.
5. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes . Remove the cookies from the baking sheet and cool on a rack.
6. Make sure the shortbread is thoroughly cool before filling. To fill, put the vanilla cream filling into a pastry bag with a number 6 plain tip or a plastic bag with the tip of a corner cut off so that the opening is 1/2-inch wide.
6. Line up 16 cookies so that the side that was baked against the pan is facing up. Starting with one cookie, pipe a thick ring about 1/8 of an inch from the edge of the cookie. Fill in the center of the ring with a dot of filling and place another cookie on top of the filling. Press lightly until the filling oozes almost to the edge of the cookie. Repeat with the remaining cookies.

Vanilla Cream Filling
Ingredients:
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract (I used some vanilla paste)
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons powdered sugar

Directions:
1. Place all the ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment.
2. Start on slow speed to combine the ingredients, and then increase the speed to high and beat until the filling is very white and fluffy, 3 to 4 minutes.
3. Place the filling in a piping bag or plastic zip lock bag with the corner cut off to pipe into cookies. The leftover filling may be chilled and reused again. Wrap very tightly and store in the refrigerator. To reuse, bring to room temperature and then whip until fluffy again.