Cupcake 44 - School Lunch - PBJ Cupcake with Vanilla Cream Frosting topped with a Chocolate Chip Cookie

I was a "brown bagger" for my first 12 years of school. Actually for the first three I had lunch boxes, The Partridge Family was my last one. Sadly, I had to retire the Partridges when it was no longer cool to carry a lunch box and moved on to a brown bag. I'll admit it, I was a huge Partridge Family fan, first the TV show, which segued into the album, trading cards, a poster and finally I got to see the Partridges "live", thanks to my cousin, Brenda. David Cassidy, with his feathered hair and pastel bell-bottoms was every girl's dream. Truth be told, my real favorite was Danny Bonaduce. The red hair and devil-may-care attitude drew me in. Who knew back in the day he'd turn out to be an on-again-off-again drug addled pseudo-celebrity. But I digress. I proudly displayed my fan loyalty through my choice of lunch box.

Selecting the right lunch box at the beginning of the school year caused me great angst. The pressure was on. Without a lot of finagling with Mom, I couldn't willy-nilly swap out Bobby Sherman for the Partridges mid-school year. I had to pick correctly in August while shopping for all my other school supplies. My only out was breakage; after Thermos switched from glass to plastic the whole set up was practically indestructible. I could have easily gone a full 12 years toting Shirley, Ruben and the gang, but that would have been a deal breaker in the lunch room. Friendships were built on cool. Really, the Mondrian square inspired school bus only had about a grade's worth of cool until the next hot lunch box came along.

The option of the school prepared lunch never wowed me. Not even on special days when the dittoed menu promised pizza or cheeseburgers. The rectangle shaped slab of anemic pizza didn't appeal. I never developed a fondness for tater tots, a major selling point for the cheeseburger entree. I stayed true to the brown bag and Mom obliged, packing my lunch every day. I consumed a lot of PB&J on white bread, the only bread in the 70's. She would mix things up a bit throwing in an occasional lunch-meat combo sans condiments, maybe tuna fish, but it didn't hold up well in a locker all day. Along with a sandwich, I'd get Fritos if I was lucky, maybe a Zinger or Devil Dog and a fruit cup (the kind in the can with the pull tab.) Without a Thermos, I'd buy milk. I didn't much care for milk back then, it was always warmish and tasted like the paperboard carton it was sold in. A whopping six cents bought milk in 1973 and I had issues keeping up with the nickel and penny prior to lunch. Unable to locate my funds most days due to the deep pockets of my book bag, I'd bypass the milk. This must have been foreshadowing, some years later, I'm still not good with money, but I do like a bargain, and back then milk was a bargain.

School officially starts this week, in honor of school lunches everywhere this week's cupcake is aptly named Brown Bag Lunch - a peanut butter cupcake filled with grape jelly, topped with a layer of vanilla cream and finished with a chocolate chip cookie. Lunch never tasted so good.

Peanut Butter & Jelly Cupcakes

To your favorite yellow cupcake recipe add 1 cup peanut butter. Fill wells of cupcake pan 1/2 full add 1 t grape jelly, top with more batter. Bake 20-23 minutes.

Frost with vanilla buttercream and top with homemade chocolate chip cookie. I've been dying to trying this recent recipe from the NY Times A bit more involved than the Toll House recipe, but it paid off.

Cupcake 43 - Naga Cupcakes

An odd combination of flavors - pumpkin, curry coconut and chocolate, but worked and worked well. I was rushing the season a bit, after all pumpkin is a fall flavor. These cupcakes satisfied my taste for pumpkin while I wait for the weather to cool.


Adapted from Martha Stewart.com
36 cupcakes

3 c AP flour
1 1/2 t baking powder
1 1/2 t baking soda
1 1/2 t salt
3 3/4 t curry powder
1/8 t of cayenne
3/4 c light brown sugar
2 3/4 c of sugar
1 1/2 c unsalted butter, melted and cooled to room temperature
6 large eggs
23 ounces pumpkin puree

Preheat over to 350

Shift together the flour, baking powder, soda, salt, curry and cayenne. Set aside.

Whisk together the sugars, butter, and eggs. Add dry ingredients and mix well. Add pumpkin. Fill lined cupcake wells 3/4 full. Bake 18 - 23 minutes. Cool on wire rack.

Chocolate Ganache


14 ounces of chocolate
1 1/4 c heavy cream
1/4 c butter, room temperature
2 c confectioners sugar
1/2 t salt
1/2 c milk
1 t vanilla
unsweetened coconut

Chop chocolates, put in heat proof bowl. Simmer cream, pour cream over chocolate. Allow to sit for one minute, stir until combined and melted. and transfer into a heat proof bowl. Add butter and stir well.

In separate bowl whisk sugar, salt, milk and vanilla. Add sugar mixture to chocolate, mixing well. Allow to cool to room temperature. This will thicken when it cool. Beat until fluffy with electric mixer. Frost cupcakes, top with coconut.

Chocolate Cake With Hazelnut Semifreddo

The recipe was published recently in The Baltimore Sun, before the name change and new format (what the hell?) I added to it the pile of "make sometime soon" recipes and moved on. I made this a couple weekends ago when were We having company. Set aside a good chunk of time, its a bit involved. But the payoff is huge, a really good summer treat.

Cupcake 42 - Chocolate Zucchini Cupcakes

Me: Promise you won't talk to her today.

Hubby: You know I can't promise you that. I work with her, I have to talk to her.

Me: Well, make sure its only work stuff, 'kay? Keep it all business. And quick.

Hubby: Really, how's that going to work?

Me, starting to whine: I don't know, but don't look her in the eye then.

Hubby: You're just being crazy, now. I have to work with her, we are going to interact.

Me: Well then, just say no!

Hubby: I can't, it would be rude.

My husband's coworker has a garden. She has a bountiful crop of zucchini this year, well every year. She keeps bringing them into work and handing them out, like condoms on a Baltimore Street corner. Rob can't turn the zucchini down. I don't have as much use for zucchini. It's a "filler" vegetable in my mind, used to stretch more expensive vegetables. Truth be told I ate way too much of it when I worked at the airport in 80's. One of the perks of my college employment was free meals, and I'm not complaining, but airport food and zucchini used in the same thought never nets out with anything good!

In an effort to use these babies up, this week its Zucchini Cupcakes. I went chocolate, so no one mentioned zucchini bread and even more to hide the green taste of the veggie.

Chocolate and Zucchini Cupcake

Makes 24 cupcakes

1 ½ c brown sugar
¼ c melted butter
¾ c vegetable oil
3 eggs, room temperature
1 t vanilla
½ c buttermilk
2 c grated zucchini
1 c chocolate chips
2 c AP flour
1 c coca
½ t salt
2 t baking soda
1 t allspice
1 ½ t cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350. Line 24 muffin tins with liners, set aside.

Sift together flour, coca, salt, baking soda, allspice and cinnamon. In bowl of standing mixer, beat butter, oil and sugar. Stir in buttermilk and vanilla. Add zucchini and chocolate chips. Add liquid ingredients to dry ingredients, mix to incorporate.

Fill cupcake wells ¾ full, bake 20-22 minutes. Do not over bake. Cool on wire rack.

Vanilla Glaze
1 ½ c confectioners sugar
2 T cream
½ roasted chopped pistachios

Shift confectioners sugar into medium bowl, add cream stirring until smooth. Dollop scant 1 tablespoon onto each cupcake, sprinkle with nuts.

Cupcake 41 - Peaches and Herb

Peaches are plentiful this time of year and I thought they would make an interesting cupcake flavor. Fearful that peaches alone would not give enough flavor, I opted to roast the peaches much like the bananas a couple weeks ago. The sugars caramelize to enhance the flavor, in addition, I simmered peach nectar to a thick syrup which added another layer of flavor. A tablespoon of fresh thyme worked well with the peaches. And it made me giggle every time I said "Peaches and Herb" when anyone asked about the flavor of the week. After several very off-key rounds of "Reunited" Rob forced me to move on. I may have to dig out my cassette....

I used a standard yellow cupcake recipe and replaced most of the liquid with
1 c sour cream
1/4 c oil
1 c roasted peach (cut peach in half, remove pit, roast at 350 with cut sides down, 30-40 minutes, cool, peel and puree with hand blender)
3/4 c peach nectar, reduced to 1/4 c by simmering

Cupcake 40 - Roasted Banana Cupcake with Chocolate Fudge Frosting and Salted Carmel

As a kid, every summer, we'd make our annual retreat to Delaware shore, staying in the same house, sleeping in the same bunk bed each time. The days were spent on the beach bogie boarding, reading and trying to stay one step ahead of sun poisoning - a challenge for a fair skinned kid. The evenings were spent roaming the boardwalk (only after Mom covered me with a good layer of Noxema to ease the days' sunburn.) Never a fan of rides or games, my favorite boardwalk attraction was Spin Art. Night after night after night, I'd create 4" x 5" masterpieces. For as long as I was allowed to linger with the spinning art board and squeeze bottles of paints, I would perfect my technique, mingling colors and splatters. Finally the attendant would flip the switch, turning off the dizzying easel and carefully place my work into a cardboard frame to dry.

Drunk from the fumes of the Spin Art paint combined with Noxema and salt air we'd head down the boardwalk for ice cream. I'd opt out the traditional cone, going for a frozen banana, a delicacy only found at the beach in the early 70's. The bananas were frozen so hard the first bite would make my teeth ache and by the end the thawed fruit was a mushy chocolate-y mess. I had to be very careful to preserve the art work, not dripping any banana goo into the tacky paint.

This week's cupcake is a nod to the beach's frozen treat. I roasted the bananas to caramelize the sugars and enhance the flavor, this paid off with a deeper flavor and more subtle texture. I topped the cupcake with a fudge frosting created with five kinds of chocolate, I added a drizzle of caramel, Spin Art style, and sprinkle of nuts. But no Noxema in the air. I'm much more careful in the sun these days.

This was a simple swap in your standard yellow cupcake, replace some or all of the liquid for the following:

1 c sour cream
1/4 c oil
1 c roasted banana (place two banana's in peel on cookie sheet, roast at 350 for 10 minutes. Skins will turn black; allow to cool, peel and mash)

Cupcake 39- Lychee cupcakes with Raspberry Cream

Lychee Cupcakes

1 ½ c self-rising flour
1 c AP flour
¼ c ground almonds, toast before grinding
1 c unsalted butter room temperature
2 c sugar
4 eggs, room temperature
¾ c whole milk
¼ c rose water
24 whole lychees, if canned rinse several times

Preheat oven to 350. Line 24 wells of muffin pan with liners, set aside.

In bowl combine flours and almonds, set aside. Combine milk and rose water, set aside.

In bowl of standing mixer cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at time, mixing well with each addition. Add dry ingredients alternating with milk in 3 increments, beating well. Fill cupcake wells ¼ c batter, place a single lychee in the center of well, add an additional ½ c batter on top, spread batter to cover lychee. Batter will rise, don’t overfill. Bake 20-25 minutes. Cool on wire rack.

Raspberry Buttercream
½ c unsalted butter, room temperature
8 ounces mascarpone cheese, room temperature
2 c powdered sugar
½ c raspberry jam

In bowl of standing mixer, beat mascarpone cheese and butter until smooth. Add powdered sugar, mixing well. Add raspberry puree and beat on high until smooth and creamy.

Cupcake 38 - Balsamic Black Pepper Strawberry

For several years growing up Mom had a "jones" to pick strawberries. Long before school ended, Mom would start pulling out canning jars, stock piling sugar and Sure-Jel l in preparation. We had a little "Pick your Own" farm near our house (living in suburbia, I'm not sure why this tiny farm survived over development, but it did) and Mom would keep an eye out for the hand lettered signs announcing "Ripe Strawberries." The announcement coincided with the end of school and me sleeping late. I did not enter into this process willingly --it would take a fair amount of prodding on Mom's part, until I'd finally give in, sighing and huffing as only a teenage girl can. We'd spend most of the morning squatting between rows of strawberries in the hot sun, dusty and bug bitten, filling boxes and buckets with precious cargo. We paid for the berries by weight, sub par berries were a waste, Mom kept a good eye on the quality aspect of this process. There was no sense rushing.

We would return home at lunchtime for a quick sandwich and begin the tedious process of "capping" and chopping the berries for jam. The jars were saved and used from year to year, depending on the style of lid, some were sealed in boiling water others with wax, only six at a time. It was a long day, there was no sense rushing.

The jam would last most of year, much to my dismay. My friend Leslie's mom always had grape jelly and when the container was empty it doubled as a juice glass with a Mighty Mouse character on it. She had the whole set. I was so jealous. (Leslie's mom also made spaghetti sauce from powder in a packet that only needed water and for sleep-overs she would make fried Spam sandwiches with orange Velvetea cheese.) Leslie was so lucky. Mom assured me many, many times that our jam was better. I doubted her until I was old enough to understand preservatives, high fructose corn syrup and meat by-products.

I used Maryland strawberries for this batch of cupcakes. I didn't pick them myself, but got them at the farm stand and stashed them in my freezer a few weeks ago. They were perfectly sweet. The balsamic vinegar and black pepper added a "grown up" element enhancing the strawberry flavor. I even had a little of the strawberry sauce leftover for ice cream. Maybe I should look Leslie up and invite her over?