My advanced sculpture class has gotten into the habit of bringing food to class every night. It needs to stop. Because I eat it and then I go home and eat dinner. And considering I get out of breath just sitting due to my current state of sickness, the gym has been out of the question the past week. Although, I think my body has confused my constant state of being out of breath with exercise because I lost three pounds yesterday. And trust me, I've been eating! Remember...I said people having been bringing food to class!
Last week someone asked Shunn if we could bring food to critique and he said, "You can bring food whenever you want." (If you've ever been in the art annex, you know how unhealthy this has to be with all the saw dust, clay dust, metal dust and other filth floating around.) Then he did the unthinkable; he brought food himself!! Fruit AND vegetable trays!! How many of you have a professor that awesome?? That's what I thought.
And last night Laurie brought hot wings. And I ate them. And then I came home and ate corned beef, cabbage and potatoes. You know, the traditional St. Patty's Day meal...only a day early. Anyway, point is, I haven't been starving myself.
And just when I said this tradition needed to stop, here I am bringing food to class! I stumbled across these Key Lime Cupcakes today and HAD to make them! When I find a new recipe I want to try I'm sure to make them where they can be taken and given away. Lord knows I don't need this stuff sitting around the house! Anyway, lemon, lime, anything with a citrus taste, I'm all over it! So these cupcakes, they were a no-brainer. Here's the recipe:
Graham Cracker Crust:
Prepare two muffin pans with liners.
3/4 cup crushed graham cracker crumbs
1/8 cup granulated sugar
3-4 tbsp melted unsalted butter
In a food processor, blend together graham cracker crumbs and sugar. Add 3 tbsp melted butter. Pulse a few times. If it seems like it needs more butter add the remaining tbsp. Distribute evenly among cupcake liners and press to form a shell using a spoon.
Lime Cake:
2 1/4 cups cake flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
2 egg whites
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 tbsp lime zest
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Combine flour, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl; set aside.
Beat butter and sugar in large bowl with electric mixer at medium speed until light and fluffy.
Add egg whites, beating well after each addition. Add eggs, beating well after each addition.
Add lime zest. Beat until blended.
Combine milk, vanilla, and buttermilk in a small bowl together. Whisk until incorporated.
With an electric mixer at low speed, add flower mixture alternately with milk mixture, beating well after each addition. Pour batter evenly into prepared pan. Best to use an ice cream scoop. place right on top of the graham cracker crust.
Bake 20-22 minutes (for full size cupcakes) and 15 minutes (for mini) or until wooden toothpick inserted into centers comes out clean. Cool cupcakes in pan on wire rack for ten minutes. Remove from pan and allow to cool completely on rack.
Key Lime Pie Filling:
8 oz mascarpone cheese, at room temperature
5 oz key lime juice
9 oz sweetened condensed milk
Place all ingredients in a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Mix on low speed for 30 seconds. Increase speed to medium and blend for 2 minutes. Place in a separate bowl and place in fridge for 2 hours.
Key Lime Buttercream Frosting:
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
6-8 cups powdered sugar
3 tbsp key lime juice, and most likely more to thin out frosting
Place the butter in a large mixing bowl. Add 4 cups of the sugar and key lime juice. On the medium speed of an electric mixer, beat until smooth and creamy, about 3-5 minutes. Gradually add the remaining sugar, 1 cup at a time, beating well after each addition (about 2 minutes), until the icing is thick enough to be of good spreading consistency. You may not need to add all of the sugar. If too thick, thin with more key lime juice. You can also use more lime juice if you want a more tart flavor. But remember, you already have lime in the cupcake and the filling.
To Assemble:
Take key lime pie filling and place into a pastry bag fitted with a small tip. Take tip and place into cupcake and squeeze filling into cupcake using the cone method. Frost cupcake and sprinkle with crushed graham crackers.
Let me just say, I'm not the cupcake maker in the family. That would be my sister. I usually stick to cookies, but I couldn't pass these up. Now, I had a few issues. First of all, as far as the cake part goes, I think this recipe could make more than 24 cupcakes. All of mine kind of spilled over the edges and aren't so pretty. That being said, if you did intend to make more that 24, you'd need to increase the graham cracker crust as there was barely enough for the 24. Secondly, I've gotten into the habit of turning things in the oven while they're baking to ensure that they bake evenly; bad idea for these cupcakes. They all completely sunk in. In this case, it wasn't such a HUGE problem because they were being filled with the key lime filling. But next time, I won't be turning them. Also, I decided to leave the graham cracker crumbs off the top and next time I might even leave the graham cracker crust out completely. I think they'd be great without it. But with that being said, me and the family split one of the cupcakes into fourths to test them out before I took them off and Oh. Em. Gee. They are phenomenal!! Seriously delicious! Oh, and I almost forgot, since it's St. Patrick's Day, I added a little green food coloring to the icing to make things festive.
Hope you've all had an awesome St. Patrick's Day!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment