Fluffertella

I was, but I couldn’t taste test it, so my friends did. To find out if they preferred this Nutella Fluffernutter hybrid to the straight-up Fluffernutter hit the jump to find out and for the recipe.

Coconut and Citrus Cake

A while back I started melting butter for cookies and not just in cookies that required a brown butter component. I tried it because I’m always forgetting to take out butter to soften it and was too lazy to cut it up for more surface area to bring the butter to temperature quickly. That said I wanted to see how the melted butter methodology would work in cakes. I first tried it in this pound cake recipe, with no compromise in texture or rise. So I thought time to test it once more in this citrus cake.

It worked. The recipe I used to do the comparison is based on my recipe from here. As for the flavor, I love the zing and bite the Satsuma provides against the sweetness of the coconut. 

On a different note, if you read my post on Monday, than you know I was hit with some very disturbing news regarding my little guy. Thank you all for the thoughtful comments and emails. I’m happy to say that we are on a great start to resolving the problem.

 A few notes:

• Coconut cream is a base for many mixed drinks and can generally found near the liquor section of your store. Make sure to shake the can or the bottle before using as it can separate on the shelf.
• I used a 10 cup bundt pan but if you don’t have one a regular 10 inch cake pan will work just as well. If you use a 10 inch pan, make sure to check the center for doness.
• If Satsumas are not in season for your area, oranges will work just as fine. Lemons or limes will also work. If you use lemons or limes, I would reduce the zest by a tablespoon and adjust the juice to ½ cup since lemons and limes tend to be more tart than Satsumas or oranges.
• Cake is best consumed within two days.

Coconut and Citrus Cake              

Preparation: Cover a 10 cup bundt pan with bake spray and dust with flour.

Ingredients:

• ½ cup sour cream
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ cup coconut cream
• 1 ½ cup sugar
• 2 eggs plus one egg yolk
• ¾ cup butter, melted
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ½ cup shredded coconut, sweetened
• ½ cup plus 2 tablespoon Satsuma juice, fresh squeezed
• 5 tablespoon of Satsuma zest (about 5-6 large Satsumas)
• 2 cups all purpose flour

Instructions:

1. Place sour cream and baking soda in a bowl and whisk to combine. Set aside. Measure out coconut cream and set aside in separate bowl.
2. Place sugar and eggs in a stand mixer bowl, fitted with a paddle attachment, and beat on medium to combine. Add in melted butter and beat on high until light and fluffy, about 3-4 minutes (mixture should resemble pancake mixture in texture). Add in vanilla, baking powder, shredded coconut, Satsuma juice and Satsuma zest, beat to combine.
3. Turn off mixer. Combine coconut cream into sour cream mixture.  Using a sturdy spatula or a wooden spoon, fold flour in 3 batches into wet mixture, alternating with sour cream mixture. 
4. Pour mixture into prepared pan and bake at 350 degrees F for about 45 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Let cake rest in pan for 10 minutes then release cake onto cooling rack.

Fluffernutter Bars

This past weekend was madness for us. I came from work on Friday night and Matt stopped me before I could come in to tell me some heartbreaking and painful news that’s too difficult to share until we can resolve it. So being the weekend and without any resources to handle what has come our way I baked through the night for some calming therapy.

Thank goodness for baking and blogging to calm my racing mind while I wait for Monday to come. I’m hoping what seems catastrophic and devasting now will give way to professional reassurance that everything will be fine.

Cole has no idea what is going on, but I still wanted to give him a little piece of sweet happiness, so I made these bars for him since he absolutely loves Fluffernutter. Oddly, he did not initially like them. He said they were too big to eat – makes sense for his little mouth, so I sliced them into little matchstick-size bars and he loved them.

A few notes:

• To shortcut the hands on time and avoid chopping up the regular size Reese’s cups, use mini Reese’s cups.
• The Fluffernutter Bars can be prepared a day in advance and will keep for up to 2 days once made.

Fluffernutter Bars

Makes 8×8 pan | Preparation: Line pan with a foil sling and cover with bake spray.

Ingredients:

• 10 Nutter Butter sandwich cookies, chopped
• 10 Reese’s cups (regular size), chopped
• 3 cups mini marshmallows, divided use
• 2 tablespoon butter
• 8 oz. Reeses Peanut Butter chips

Instructions:

1. Place chopped Nutter Butter sandwich cookies, Reeses Peanut Butter cups and 1 ¼ cups of mini marshmallows in a bowl and toss to combine. Set aside.
2. Place remaining 1 ¾ cups of marshmallows in a pan over low heat and stir until melted. Add in butter and stir to combine. Add in Reeses Peanut Butter chips and stir to combine. Remove from heat.
3. Pour warm marshmallow mixture over chopped Nutter Butter and Reeses Peanut mixture. Fold to combine and pour into prepared pan. Using an offset spatula spread top to an even finish. Chill in refrigerator for about one-half to two hours or until bars set. Once set remove from refrigerator and cut to desired size.

 Although this past weekend my family  accused me of putting a “snobby” foodie spin on this copycat homemade version of a Twix bar since I  originally called them this. . . 

Hit the jump and tell me if you agree with them.

Chocolate Cranberry Tart

Can I be honest and say, sometimes I run out of ideas for desserts and my brain goes down the usual path of all my favorites like chocolate, caramel, Oreo, cupcakes, candy . . . chocolate again.  This was where I was last week until three bags of cranberries fell out of the freezer onto Matt’s foot. He might have voiced some discontent about it. But at that moment, inspiration hit me and I’m pretty sure everything he said blurred to a carnival-like distortion like you see in movies.  

I wasn’t paying attention (sorry, Babe), I was busy thinking cranberry curd and working through the recipe in my head. So to alleviate our overfilled freezer and Matt’s frustration of something always falling out when he opens the freezer the door, I made some cranberry curd. Okay, a lot of cranberry curd— I have enough to eat it by a few dozen spoonful and to spread it on more than a few slices of toasted pound cake.

A few notes:

• If you love cranberries like I do, stock up now. Pretty soon you won’t see fresh cranberries anymore and you’ll have to wait until Fall comes around once more. Fresh cranberries can be frozen and will keep up to nine months and can be used without thawing.
• To create the ruffling I used Wilton’s tip 104. For the pan I used a 4x14inch tart pan, but a round 9inch tart pan will work just as well.
• The cranberry curd can be made five days in advance and kept refrigerated with a piece of plastic wrap laid directly on the surface.
• Make sure to keep a close eye on the meringue when brulee-ing it. The meringue quickly goes from golden to burnt in a matter of seconds. I actually open the broiler door every 30 seconds to check on it.

Chocolate Cranberry Tart

Preparation: Lightly cover pan with bake spray. Heat oven to 375 degrees F.

Ingredients:

For the Chocolate Tart Shell  recipe and instructions click here.

Cranberry Curd

• 6 egg yolks, room temperature
• 12 oz Cranberries
• ¾ cup water
• 1 cup sugar
• 8 tablespoons of butter, cut into pieces

Meringue

• 3 large egg whites
• 3/4 cup sugar
• pinch cream of tartar
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
• Pinch  salt

Directions:

To make cranberry curd:

1. Whisk egg yolks and transfer to a saucepan; set aside.
2. 2. Place cranberries, water and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat. Heat and lightly stir until the cranberries pop and sugar completely dissolves. Add in butter and stir until melted and combined. Transfer mixture to a food processor or blender and puree. Push pureed cranberry mixture through a strainer. Set mixture aside to cool from hot to warm, about 10 minutes.
3. Gradually pour warm pureed cranberry mixture into saucepan with egg yolks, while continuously stirring until everything is combined. Return combined mixture to stovetop over medium low heat. Cook and continuously stir mixture until it is just barely thick enough to coat the back of a spoon, about 6-8 minutes. Push mixture through strainer one last time to catch any curdled eggs. Use immediately or cover surface with plastic wrap and refrigerate for up to 5 days.

To make meringue:

1. Place egg whites and sugar in a stand mixer bowl. Place bowl over a pot of simmering water, Heat and whisk continuously until mixture is heated to 150 degrees F.
2. Transfer mixture to stand mixer, fitted with a whisk attachment. Add in pinch of tartar, vanilla and pinch salt into mixture. Turn mixer on at medium speed and beat for 2 minutes then turn mixer up to high and continue beating until mixture becomes glossy and forms stiff peaks.
3. Fit a pastry bag with tip 104 and fill it with meringue.

Assembly:

1. Fill chocolate crust with cranberry curd. Use an offset spatula and smooth out top of curd to an even finish.
2. Pipe meringue on top of cranberry curd layer.
3. Place fully assembled tart under broiler for about 1-2 minutes or until meringue tips turn golden. KEEP A CLOSE watch over the tart as the meringue goes from golden to burnt in a matter of seconds.

You guys know next to baking, photography is my second addiction. Since I bought my DSLR last year, it’s traveled with me nearly everywhere. But sometimes I don’t always feel like carrying my camera. Sometimes I’m lazy and I want to be less encumbered by all that bulkiness, but I still want the ability to take some pictures with a little more versatility than my camera phone allows me.

Now I can and you can too. Turn your camera phone into a pocket size power camera.

You can easily get “wide, up-close, super zoomed and wonderfully warped” with these three lenses that quickly mount on your phone by using the detachable magnetic ring that sticks to your cell phone.

Seriously if you are an Instagram or any type of mobile phone picture addict, you will love these new lenses. They are a lot fun to play with and at the price of $49-they aren’t too expensive. Best of all Photojojo has generously offered to send one lucky Bakers Royale reader a set of their own Fisheye, Macro, Wide Angle and Telephoto Phone Lenses!

Get ready to have some fun with these lenses:

• The Wide Angle/Macro Lens can double fist and give you high quality close-up detail while the Wide Angle Lens allows to capture a more panoramic shot.
• The Fisheye Lens lets you get artsy with a 180 degree curved edges.
• The Telephoto lens gives you 2x the zooming powers when you just can’t get physically close enough.

How do you win?

{Main Entry-Required}

Leave me a comment letting me know your favorite photo app for your iPhone or Android phone.

Want extra entries?

Each item you do will get you ONE chance to win (for a total of four extra chances), if you already do any of these things, they do count. So make sure to comment for each item – you MUST leave each entry as a separate comment or only one comment will count!

1. Tweet the following: Enter to win a set of @Photojojo camera phone lenses from @bakersroyale at http://bit.ly/wJ7vx8 #giveaway
2. “Like” Bakers Royale’s Facebook or follow Bakers Royale on Twitter.
3. Follow @Photojojo on Twitter.
4. “Like” Photojojo on Facebook.

Important Details:

-This giveaway is OPEN WORLDWIDE and will run until 1/27/2012 at 11:59 pm PST.
-A winner(s) will randomly be chosen. Winner will be notified via the contact email provided on the comment contact form.
-Winner will have until 11:59 pm PST of 1/30/11 to claim their Fisheye, Macro, Wide Angle and Telephoto Phone Lenses from Photojojo or another winner will be chosen.

Disclosure:

This giveaway is provided to you by Photojojo. The views and opinions expressed on Bakers Royale are purely my own and based upon my personal experiences with the Fisheye, Macro, Wide Angle and Telephoto Phone Lenses. I was not monetarily compensated for a positive review or giveaway.

Double Decker Oreo Fudge

As a chocolate lover, I’ve never been a huge fan of fudge. It’s usually too rich and I can never have more than just a few bites. But as my friend Michelle, and from a one blogger to another, she reminded me I don’t have to like it.

Before you shake your head in confusion-let me say I totally agree. If you are a regular reader than you know this is the case when it comes to peanut butter. Not only do I not like it, but I’m also allergic to it. Luckily, not so much that it prevents me from working with it.

That said, I decided, yes I would make some fudge for a Valentine’s treat, since many people do love fudge and it’s fast and easy to make.

As for the result and as a non-fudge fan—I will say loved it. The Oreos really make it perfect for me.

A few notes:

• If you are not a white chocolate fan, replace that portion with all chocolate and omit the butter. The butter helps to melt and keep white chocolate smooth.
• For straight black and white double decker fudge omit the Oreo.
• Make sure to store the fudge in a tightly sealed container to keep it creamy and moist.

Double Decker Oreo Fudge

Preparation: Line a 8×8 pan with foil.

Ingredients:

• 1 can of sweetened condensed milk, portioned in half
• 10 Oreos, chopped
• 1 cup white chocolate
• 2 tablespoon butter
• 1 cup of semi-sweet chocolate

Instructions:

1. Split sweetened condensed milk in half and set aside. Chop Oreos and set aside
2. Place white chocolate, one ½ of sweetened condensed milk, 2 tablespoon of butter in a heat proof bowl over simmering water. Stir and mix until melted and combined. Fold in Oreos and stir to combine. Pour mixture into pan.
3. Place semi-sweet chocolate and remaining half sweetened condensed milk in a heat proof bowl over simmering water. Stir and mix until melted and combined. Pour mixture on top of Oreo layer and refrigerate for 1 an hour to set.
4. Remove from refrigerator and peel away foil once set. For ease of cutting make sure to clean knife between cuts to prevent sticking.

Royal Velvet Jello Shots

For any of you regular readers, this won’t be a shocker-but hey, I’m moving this series over to Endless Simmer. As usual I will post the teaser here with the recipe to be featured over there.

Hit the jump for the recipe to this week’s boozy bite feature.

Valentine's Rose Cupcakes

I’ve been sick, real sick. I was down for all of last week with the flu. I stayed home from work and didn’t do one bit of blogging. Now for a person who is use to constant movement that was hard. But my body fought against me and just wouldn’t allow my baking hands any exercise.

So of course coming out of a week-long baking absence, I wanted to make something cheerful. Cupcakes always do the trick for me. I’m not quite sure what it is, but they always make me smile.

This is a simple cupcake idea using some of my favorite basic elements like my go-to classic chocolate cupcake and my go-to vanilla frosting. The only thing I did different was to carve the frosting into some roses for a Valentine’s cupcake theme.

I wish I had set-up the shot better so you could see how simple the piping is from the side, but the bad lighting in that first shot washes everything out. Truth be told,  I had 10 minutes to photograph this morning. It shows—not my best work. And as you can tell I couldn’t settle on any one style for the shot. The composition in this second shot is all wrong and the bright white background I had intended is a dingy grey.

Valentine's Rose Cupcakes

Ah well. . .moving on.

Don’t be intimidated making these.  Rose cupcakes are so much easier than you may think. I started by creating a white base of ruffles with Wilton’s 2D tip and then using an offset spatula to flatten the top. After that I used Wilton’s #104 tip  to create a rose. Here’s is Wilton’s tutorial. I will be posting a video next week, since I’m assuming I can’t be the only one who likes seeing instructions in action.

A few notes:

• Feel free to use your favorite go-to frosting. I’m personally a fan of SMB since it’s lighter in texture and not as sweet.
• For ease of piping, I did a flash freeze of the ruffled white base after it was piped. This will help to prevent any accidental nicks to the ruffled edge if your hand slips while piping the rose on top.
• To create the soft pink I used 2 drops of Americolor’s Electric Pink. Remember – it’s always easier to add color than to take it away, so start slow with adding it.

Valentine’s Rose Cupcakes

Recipe adapted from Alice Medrich for Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker

Makes 12 cupcakes | Preparation: Position a rack in the lower third of the oven. Heat the oven to 350 degrees.

Ingredients:

Cupcake:

• 1 cup (4.5 ounces) all purpose flour
• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (7.3 ounces) sugar
• 1/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons (1.5 ounces) SCHARFFEN BERGER Unsweetened Natural Cocoa Powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted and warm
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup hot coffee

Vanilla Swiss Meringue Buttercream Frosting:

• 5 large egg whites
• 11/2 cup sugar
• 4 sticks unsalted butter, diced and softened
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon vanilla

Instructions:

Cupcake:

1. Add flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking soda, and salt in a blow and mix thoroughly to combine. Add the butter, eggs, and vanilla and beat on medium speed for one minute. Add the butter and egg mixture and beat for 20 seconds. Scrape the sides of the bowl and add the hot coffee. Beat for 20-30 seconds until the batter is smooth. The batter will be thin enough to pour. Divide it evenly among the lined cups. Bake 18-22 minutes just until a toothpick inserted into a few of the cupcakes comes out clean. Set the pan on a rack to cool. Frost the cupcakes when they are completely cool. Store and serve at room temperature.

TIP: For light tender cupcakes, spoon flour and cocoa lightly into measuring cups (instead of dipping the cups into the flour or cocoa) and then sweep the measures level without tapping or shaking them.

Vanilla Swiss Meringue Frosting:

1. Combine egg whites and sugar in a bowl placed over simmering water. Bring mixture to 150 degrees F while whisking constantly.
2. Transfer mixture to stand mixer bowl, fitted with a whisk attachment and beat on medium speed until mixture cools and doubles in volume.
3. Add butter in one piece at a time, mixing to incorporate after each addition. The mixture may appear clumpy and almost curdled looking-this is normal. Keep mixing and it will become even and smooth again. Add salt and vanilla and mix to combine.

Mudslide Pudding Shooters

If you are a regular reader then you know I’ve made quite a few mudslides recipes. And since I’m running a Boozy Bites Series that will be featuring pudding shooters, I thought to kickstart the pudding shooter portion of it I would feature one my favorite drinks.

These are a fast and easy treat that you can whip up quickly. To shortcut the hands-on time further, just serve the boozy pudding mixture in a glass or tart shell. To make the cups I used a silicone mold, since they are more pliable and make for easy removal rather than the traditional metal or plastic chocolate forms.

Now that I have featured all three types of desserts for the Boozy Bite Series (marshmallows, Jello shots and pudding shooters) I will be moving on to your requests next week.

A few notes:

• Make sure to buy instant pudding and not cook and stir or you will have a lumpy mix.
• You can use Cool Whip instead of making homemade whip cream, but I find the texture works out better with the latter and can be left out at room temperature longer.
• These can be prepared and fully assembled two days in advance and kept covered in the refrigerator.

Mudslide Pudding Shooters

Chocolate Shells

Ingredients:

• ¼ cup semi-sweet chocolate, melted
• ¾ cup white chocolate, melted

Mudslide Pudding Mix (makes approximately 2 ½ – 3cups)

Ingredients:

• 1 3.9 oz Instant Jell-O Chocolate Mix
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1/3 cup Kahlua
• 1/2 cup Bailey’s Irish Cream
• 1 1/2 cup homemade whip cream (recipe follows)

Instructions:

To make chocolate shells

1. Melt both chocolates. Using a small paint brush, lightly spot areas with semi-sweet chocolate. Then use a separate brush and cover walls of form with white chocolate transfer to freezer and chill for 5 minutes. Remove and apply a second coat and chill once more. The chocolate cups can be made 3 days in advance and kept at room temperature or stored in the refrigerator.

To make mudslide pudding mix

1. Place pudding mix and milk in a bowl and whisk to combine. Add in Kahlua and Bailey’s and vigorously whisk to combine. Fold in whip cream until no streaks remain.

Assembly:

1. Fill a pastry bag with pudding mix and fit with preferred tip and pipe into chocolate shells.