Chocolate Chipotle Cupcakes

"What the hell were you thinking," you ask?
"Potluck at work," I say.

Theme: pepper.

Um, great. Just great.

That immediately implies to me something cooked, rather than baked. If I'm going to make something for people other than my immediate family, I roll with baking. I'm confident that I'm better at baking (what that says about this blog, my cooking, or even my baking skills, I don't know).

I hunted and scrounged for a dessert recipe utilizing peppers of any kind for a few days and got sick of the innumerable Dr. Pepper cake recipes. I Googled "pepper cupcake" which led me to Google "chipotle cupcake" which then led me to the Iron Cupcake Challenge, which finally brought me to a site beholding the most beautiful cupcake I'd ever seen: Bakerella's Fire and Ice Cupcake, winner of the Iron Cupcake Challenge. Seriously, its beautiful. Click the link and go there NOW.





I'm serious. Scroll back up and click the friggin' link.




Thankfully, Bakerella allowed for a shortcut to not-quite-as-glamorous (or time consuming) cakes. I followed that with some modifications. You'll do yourself a favor by reading my comments (or going straight to Bakerella). Trust me.


Don't mine look sorta cute? Let me tell you, they were a bigger bitch to make than I'd anticipated and don't look nearly as good as Bakerella's.

Here's what I did:

Chocolate Chipotle Cupcakes

1 c Hershey's unsweetened cocoa
3/4 c boiling water
2 1/2 c all purpose flour
1 tbsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
3 tsp chipotle powder
2 c sugar
1 c butter, room temperature
4 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1 c buttermilk
2 tbsp canned chipotles in adobe sauce, seeded and pureed

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Boil water. Transfer 3/4 cup of boiling water to bowl. Stir in cocoa until dissolved to form chocolate mixture and set aside.

With a wire whisk (or fork), mix flour, baking soda, cinnamon, salt and chipotle powder in a separate bowl and set aside.


In a large mixing bowl, mix sugar, butter and eggs until light and fluffy.
 

Add buttermilk and vanilla and mix well.
 
I was a little concerned about how the batter looked after the buttermilk and vanilla were mixed in. Fortunately, it turned out to be normal. Well, no one got sick from them (that I know of).

Add flour mixture to the wet ingredients in three additions, alternating with chocolate mixture in two additions, ending with flour mixture. Beat until combined with each addition.
 

Add pureed chipotles and beat until combined.
 

Scoop batter into prepared cupcake trays.*


Bake for 30-35 minutes and cool completely.


*Bakerella said to prepare 36 cups and divide the batter evenly. I only have one muffin/cupcake pan that holds 12. Being "wise", I thought I'd buy souffle cups (originally intended to be smaller than standard 2.5" cupcakes so there'd be more to go around and everyone would get a less than 2.5" taste) and bake them all at once. After placing as many as possible on a baking sheet (20), I poured in batter to fill each about 2/3 full. That was WAY too much, causing batter to ooze out past the cooked tops and over the sides, requiring the long baking time. The last batch of 6 cupcakes were filled to 1/2, turned out beautifully with rounded tops after only 13 minutes!


Chipotle Cream Cheese Frosting

3 oz Lindt pepper chocolate bar
8 oz. cream cheese
1 stick butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp chipotle chili powder
1 tsp cinnamon
4 c confectioner's sugar

Melt chocolate in microwave in 30 sec intervals, stirring in between until melted. Let cool.


Sift sugar and add chili powder and cinnamon. Set aside.


Cream butter and cream cheese and vanilla in a large mixing bowl on low until combined.


Add sugar in small batches until combined. Scrape down sides of bowl in between.


Set aside half of frosting for the Vanilla Chipotle Cream Cheese Buttercream.

Add melted chocolate to the other half and mix until combined for the Chocolate Chipotle Cream Cheese Buttercream.


Spread or pipe frosting onto cooled cupcakes.


If you planned ahead and didn't do your recipe hunting, shopping, prep and baking in one night after work, this probably would go a lot smoother. For me it seemed like a nightmare, probably because I didn't even start prep until after 10 p.m. Still, it only took 2.5 hours from start to finish.

Flavor was great when the cakes were still warm (I tasted the parts that oozed out and baked on the sheet plus Rodney and I split one). When they were room temperature the next day at the potluck, they were just spicy. There was no chipotle flavor, which was disappointing. Some people liked them and others did not. I pretty much expected that since they are CHIPOTLE CUPCAKES.

Cost would be more outrageous if I followed Bakerella's recipe to a T. Since I opted for low-grade chocolates (Hershey's and Lindt rather than the fancier ones specified), the price was reasonable. I, in order to make this recipe, specifically went out to buy:

• Hershey's Cocoa: ~$4
• chipotle chili in adobo sauce: ~$1.50
• buttermilk: ~$3 for a half-gallon
• Lindt pepper chocolate bar: $2.50/3oz.
• cream cheese: ~$2/8 oz

Total added (unpredicted, had no plans to get this stuff for any reason) expense: $13.


Will I make these again? That's a damn good question. On one hand, they were pretty good, so yeah, I wouldn't mind tweaking the recipe/method a bit. On the other hand, what the hell for? How many chipotle cupcakes could I possibly give away? If there is another pepper-themed potluck at work, for sure.

I giggled when one of my co-workers commented that the next potluck should be themed garlic. Bring it on! Garlic cupcakes, here I come!

Laventina's Pizza

A Laventina's pie with pepperoni, ham, mushrooms, onions, and black olives. Mmm!

It's unbelievable that I haven't posted about lovely Laventina's Big Cheese Pizza. We first heard of it from one of our neighbor friends and have been repeat customers since. Every pizza we've ever picked up from them was fantastic. The only complaint I have about about their pies is that the large is only 14". Rodney can eat half in one sitting, so there is only enough left for me to have again once. For shame!

Dinner for both of us (and lunch later for me) for $15 (plus tip) OTD.

Lasagna with Meat Sauce

Beefy, cheesy lasagna and garlic bread.

We don't have lasagna very often due to a certain someone having lactose intolerance. But sometimes I get a craving for it and after a little persuasion, Rodney caves. I usually do a recipe based on one I first started using years ago from a box of lasagna noodles that called for a jar of spaghetti sauce. Unfortunately, I don't know what brand of noodles it was so I can't give any credit. Anyway, I decided to use the sauce from the spaghetti recipe I tried awhile ago instead of something from a jar to see how it would work out.

Lasagna

meat sauce

15 oz ricotta

8 oz mozzarella cheese

1/2 c parmesan cheese

2 eggs, beaten

1 tsp basil

1 tsp oregano

10 oz frozen chopped spinach, thawed and well-drained/wrung dry

0.5 lb lasagna noodles

Prepare meat sauce.


Cook lasagna noodles according to package directions.

Mix ricotta, 1.5 cups of mozzarella, and parmesan cheese with eggs, basil and oregano in a medium bowl.

Spread 1/2-3/4 cup of sauce on bottom of 9x13 baking dish.

Layer with three noodles.

Spread 1/2 of cheese mixture over noodles.

Spread 1/2 of spinach evenly over cheese layer.

Spread 1/2-3/4 cup of sauce over cheese and layer with three noodles.


Repeat with another layer of three noodles, remaining cheese, remaining spinach and 3/4 cup of sauce. Layer 3 additional noodles and 3/4 cup of sauce.


Sprinkle remaining mozzarella cheese evenly over lasagna.


Cover with foil and bake in a 350°F oven for 30 minutes. Bake an additional 15 minutes uncovered.

The lasagna was good, though I think something was missing. The sauce seemed a little tart. Overall though, it is certainly worth doing again. It wasn't nearly as painstaking as the last lasagna I made, the Rosemary-Chicken Lasagna, though it did take a bit of time, about 2.5 hours. Maybe next time, I'll consider adding something to the sauce to reduce the acidity/tartness...I'm not quite sure what yet.

Time: about 2.5 hours.

Cost:

Hmm...a tough one to determine. I'll have to get back to this.

Chili

Shredded cheese sprinkled on a hot bowl of chili.

I don't have the patience to cook chili for hours like many insist is imperative for a good chili. And I don't care to have chili that is so friggin' hot I can't taste it because my taste-buds are paralyzed with capsaicin overload. This recipe is a regular here because it's fast and easy; even more important, it doesn't rock Rodney's world in a bad way.

You'll probably want to click the Chili link below for the original since I just use the Better Homes and Gardens recipe as a guide and typically stick with the modifications as follows. 

Chili

1.5 lbs. lean ground beef
1-2 c chopped onion (1-2 large)
1 c chopped red bell pepper (1 large), if on hand
4 cloves garlic, minced
3 15-to 16-ounce cans kidney beans, pinto beans and/or black beans, rinsed and drained
3 14 1/2-ounce can diced tomatoes
1 15-ounce can tomato sauce
1 c water
3 heaping tbsp chili powder
1 tsp dried basil, crushed
1/2 tsp black pepper

In a 4-quart Dutch oven cook ground beef, onion, sweet pepper, and garlic until meat is brown and onion is tender; drain fat.

Stir in kidney beans, undrained tomatoes, tomato sauce, water, chili powder, basil, and black pepper.

 

Bring to boiling; reduce heat.

Simmer, covered, for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Makes 8 servings (12 cups)

We like to sprinkle some Mexican blend cheese on it and eat it with tortilla chips. Yummy!!

Fast, easy, pretty cheap, did it tons of times before and will again.

ground beef: $3/lb
onion (2 large): $0.68
pepper (1 large): $0.50
kidney beans: $0.75

pinto beans: $0.75

black beans: $0.75
diced tomatoes: $0.68
tomato sauce: $0.75

Grand total: $9.36 or $1.17 per 1.5 cups. Usually there is enough for us to eat this twice, we eat it for dinner one day and put the other half in the freezer for an extremely easy dinner later.  What can I say, we really put away some chili.

Orecchiette with No-Cook Tuna Sauce

I'm not a big fan of tuna. We buy it because Rodney likes to stir it up in mayo and eat it on chips (which subsequently makes his stomach hurt). So, as a sort of compromise, I decided to try this recipe: tuna for him and pasta for me. And besides it calls for Kalamata olives, so I could use up some of those we bought to make that Tuscan Pot Roast earlier. At the onset though, neither of us foresaw any desire of my doing this recipe after this one time.

This recipe came from a copy of Cooking Pleasures, but for some reason, it's not on the Cooking Pleasures website. No worries though, I didn't deviate except for the amount of pasta. I used a whole pound because I didn't want to keep 4 oz. of pasta laying around.

1.5 tbsp balsamic vinegar

3 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

3 large tomatoes, chopped

2 green onions, sliced

2 garlic cloves, minced

3 tbsp pitted Nicoise or Kalamata olives, halved lengthwise

3 tbsp chopped fresh basil, divided
1/2 tsp salt

1/8 tsp freshly ground pepper

12 oz. orecchiette or other short shaped pasta, like medium shells

1 6 or 7 oz can of tuna, undrained

Place vinegar in large bowl. Gradually whisk in oil until incorporated.

Stir in tomatoes, green onions, garlic, olives, 2 tbsp of the basil, salt and pepper. Let stand for 30 minutes.

 

Meanwhile, cook pasta in large pot of boiling salted water according to package directions, drain.


Add pasta to tomato mixture, toss to mix. Gently fold in tuna and juice, leaving tuna in large chunks. Sprinkle with remaining basil.

Simple, dinner was done in less than 45 minutes. And surprisingly good! It makes for a convenient lunch if you are working on a construction site and don't have access to a microwave. A bonus is that it's cheap:

• tomatoes: $1.60
• green onions: $0.39
• olives: $3.99
• fresh basil: $1.20
• pasta: $0.99
• tuna: $1.43

Total: $9.60 or $1.60/serving.

Caramel and Apple Upside-Down Cake...Again

I made this cake again and this time remembered the milk! Rodney confirmed it's better with milk, so that's good. It'd suck to find out it was better the first time.

Take a look at the batter when all of the liquid is added:

So much easier to "carefully" spread over the apples. I simply poured it on and smooshed it toward the pan edges.

And when it's done baking...

I was a little bit too impatient and didn't let the cake cool enough before flipping it out onto the cooling rack. Caramel oozed everywhere.

Like last time, it was good when it was warm. The next day, it wasn't as good. If I make this again, I will be sure to boil the caramel a little longer. I wonder if I do that AND let the cake bake completely whether the caramel will be stiffer, like on caramel apples. I hope so.

Oven Barbecued Chicken

If you don't have a grill, are sick of cleaning the stupid broiler pan and crave some BBQ chicken, this is the way to go.

Oven-Barbecued Chicken

4-5 lb chicken pieces
1/2 c chopped onion (1 medium)
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tbsp cooking oil
3/4 c bottled chili sauce
2 tbsp honey
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp prepared mustard
1/2 tsp prepared horseradish
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper

Skin chicken. Arrange chicken, bone side up, in a foil-lined 15x10x1-inch baking pan. Bake in a 375°F oven for 25 minutes.

Meanwhile, for sauce, in a small saucepan cook onion and garlic in hot oil over medium heat until tender but not brown.

Stir in chili sauce, honey, soy sauce, mustard, horseradish, and crushed red pepper; heat through.

Brush half of the sauce over the chicken. Flip the chicken and brush remaining half of sauce over the chicken.

Bake for 20 to 30 minutes more or until chicken is no longer pink (170°F for breasts; 180°F for thighs and drumsticks).

This is pretty easy, on par with the Broiled Lemon Chicken. If you chop your own chickens you can quarter one like I did here, or cut it into easier-to-eat sized pieces (drums, thighs, quarter breasts etc). Oh, and if you'll notice, there are no wings. I put those in the freezer so I can make wings later.

This recipe took 45-60 minutes.

I love BBQ chicken and this sauce is easy to make. It is very similar to the sauce in the recipe for honey and apple ribs. For some reason, a lot of the Better Homes and Garden recipes are similar. It's weird. Anyway, Rodney and I both like this and have it on a somewhat regular rotation.

Cheap, about 5-10 bucks depending on the price of your bird and chili sauce and stuff.

One thing I've noticed is that we have baked potatoes a LOT. Maybe I'll look at making different sides sometime.