Carrie'd Away by Cosmo Cupcakes

Sex and the City 2 opened this past weekend, and I went to see it opening night with some friends. Last year, my friends and I "pre-gamed" with some chocolate fondue. This year, I decided to make SATC-themed cupcakes: Cosmo Cupcakes!





And because it is such a girlie theme, I went out of my way to make sure everything was pretty and pink.

A cosmopolitan normally contains vodka, cranberry juice, triple sec, and lime juice. I basically reconstituted a cosmo as the batter liquid sans the vodka, because I figured that vodka wouldn't make a very strong contribution to flavor post-baking. I really wanted the other flavors to pop. 


All of the amounts specified in this recipe are meant to be used with the Duncan Hines white cake mix box. A different brand will have different amounts of water, oil, and eggs. If you are using a different brand of cake mix, follow the directions on the box for the oil and eggs, and just reconstitute the cosmo in whatever volume of water it calls for on the box. Or, you can just make it easy on yourself and substitute one of those cosmo ready-made mixes for the water in any white boxed cake mix.


For the icing, I chose to combine all the cosmo flavors into the buttercream. However, the icing can easily be made with just some (or one) of these flavors. Instead of 1 tbls per flavor, this icing can easily be made with 3 tbls of all one flavor, or split between your two favorites. If you'd like a cream cheese icing, just substitute in 8 oz of cream cheese for one of the sticks of butter in the icing.

Ingredients


Cake

• 1 box of Duncan Hines white cake mix
• 8 oz cranberry juice concentrate, thawed
• 2 oz triple sec
• 1 oz lime juice
• 1 tbls lime zest
• 2 tbls vegetable oil
• 3 egg whites
• dye gel in pink (optional)

Cosmo Icing

• 2 sticks of butter
• 5-6 C confectioner's sugar
• 1 tbls cranberry juice concentrate
• 1 tbls triple sec
• 1 tbls lime juice
• 1 tbls lime zest

Directions


1. Combine all liquors and juice into your mixing bowl and swirl it around to combine
2. Add rest of ingredients for the cake (egg whites, oil, zest, dry mix), and beat with a mixer until combined and smooth, about 1-2 minutes. At this point, add some dye gel if you want to enhance the color of your cupcakes
3. Divide amongst 24 cupcake wells, filling about 2/3 full
4. Bake at 350F for about 18-20, until toothpick inserted in center is clean, and/or they spring back when touched
5. For the icing, beat 2 sticks of butter until light and fluffy.
6. Add the juice, zest, and triple sec, and beat to combine
7. Add the sugar gradually, until desired spreading consistency is reached
8. Frost when the cupcakes are completely cooled, and enjoy!


As you can see from the picture, my pretty cupcake wrappers unpeeled from my cupcakes. This didn't happen until the next day, much to my disappointment. After visiting several baking forums, I have come to the conclusion that there was a coating on the inside of the baking cup that didn't let it adhere as well to the cake. If given the choice, I'd rather have this scenario than the cupcake being cemented to the wrapper, but it still made me a little sad.

These cupcakes were incredibly yummy. They were light, not overly sweet, and all of the flavors were fresh and bright. Fresh lime juice and zest really makes a difference here, definitely don't settle for anything out of a bottle.

Key Lime Pie

This is my third lime-related posting in a row. When I said that this summer's baking would be exclusively fruit-based, I didn't realize I meant exclusively one fruit! But who's complaining? Not me, that's for sure -- I love lime.

This recipe is extremely simple to put together and quick to bake. It originally comes from Emeril, and is a basic recipe very similar to others I have seen except for the amount of lime juice, which is a little more than the average recipe. Lime juice, sweetened condensed milk, and eggs come together to make a simple lime-flavored custard poured into a graham cracker crust, and a thin layer of slightly-sweetened sour cream and lime zest is smoothed on top after baking.



First point: the graham cracker crust. Emeril provides a recipe for a graham cracker crust with his recipe, which I will place at the bottom of his post in case anyone is interested. But, if you have a graham cracker crust recipe that you really like, from a cheesecake or whatnot, feel free to use that instead. Alternatively, you can do what I did, and buy the ready-made crust, which makes this pie even more convenient. I used a 9" shell, and had enough filling left over to fill 6 of the mini-graham cracker shells, so keep this in mind when you are deciding what crust to make/use. One thing I don't think I'd do, however, is use a regular pie crust. When you eat this pie, you will understand, but the graham cracker adds so much to the overall flavor that to leave it out would almost be a crime.

This took about 12-13 limes, but so worth it!

Second point: the limes. Originally, I bought ingredients for this pie because I wanted to use up the Key lime juice that I purchased for the Key Lime Coconut Crumb Bars. But that juice went bad in my fridge, so I scrambled out and bought a bunch of limes (about 13) to juice by hand -- and let me just tell you that it was a lot of work, but unquestioningly worth it. The flavor of the fresh lime juice (squeezed from run-of-the-mill Persian limes at the supermarket) was so bright and crisp, that I don't think I will ever use the Key lime bottled juice again except in an emergency. That is my recommendation, at least. The pie will still be delicious with the Key lime juice from the bottle, but it really has something extra special with the fresh juice. And whatever you do, don't ever use the lime juice in the little green plastic squeeze lime. That is for cooking garnish only, it has too many preservatives to taste good in baking.

Here's the yummy filling all blended.

Ingredients

• 1 9" graham cracker pie crust, ready-made (or recipe below)
• White of one egg

For the filling:

• 2-14oz cans sweetened condensed milk
• 1 C lime juice (freshly squeezed if possible)
• 2 eggs

For the topping:

• 1 C sour cream
• 2 tbls confectioner's sugar
• 1 tbls lime zest

 Mini pies without their topping -- glad I had these little crusts on hand!

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375F.
2. Brush the crust with egg white, and bake at 375F for about 5-10 minutes, until golden and fragrant. Let cool. 
3. Lower the oven temp to 325F
4. Combine the condensed milk, lime juice, and eggs in a mixer bowl, and beat on medium until combined and smooth (you can also do this by hand with a whisk).
5. Pour the filling into the cooled pie shell, and bake 15-20 minutes at 325F. If you have excess filling, you can fill mini-crusts. They bake in about 10 minutes.
6. Let stand at room temp for about 5 minutes before putting it uncovered in the fridge to set for at least 2 hours.
7. When the pie has set, prepare the topping by mixing the sour cream, confectioner's sugar, and zest together until smooth.
8. Gently smooth a thin layer on the top of the pie.
9. Store in the fridge until ready to be eaten (the colder, the better).

Coated with a thin layer of sour cream topping

These pies are delicious, and that's that. The flavor is strong and bright, and even people who dislike lime (like my mom) thought they were excellent. And there is no sacrifice required with regards to flavor intensity in order to get non-lime likers to enjoy them -- these are lime pies in every sense of the word. All of the flavors meld wonderfully together. I was unsure of Emeril's sour cream topping, but it works beautifully. However, I would like to also try sweetened whipped cream or meringue as a topping, to see how they work. I also have an idea to use this basic recipe using lemon juice to make a lemon custard for a lemon meringue pie. It wouldn't quite be a traditional custard, but I think it would taste a heck of a lot better than the cooked pudding Jell-o filling I currently use.

True lime filling is not naturally green unless you add dye.

Make these. You won't regret it.

Emeril's Graham Cracker Crust:

• 1 1/2 C graham cracker crumbs
• 1/2 C granulated sugar
• 4 tbls melted butter

 Combine ingredients and press into a 9" pie pan, and pre-bake as above.

Lime

Wasting Away in (Cupcake) Margaritaville

Margaritas are not my favorite drinks, although I can tolerate them -- especially raspberry ones. Let's just say that Jose is not always a good friend to me. However, I do love lime. I also love Cinco de Mayo, and baking things with a theme. So this year, I decided to bake Margarita-flavored cupcakes in honor of the 5th of May.

cup

I found my base recipe on the Hostess With the Mostess site. I kept the cake recipe pretty much the same, but I modified to icing recipe. Although I'm sure the cream cheese icing would be delicious, I happened to have a full fridge and nowhere to store them overnight, so I went with a lime buttercream frosting.

The recipe itself is extremely simple, you only need a few things for the cake: a white cake box mix plus the ingredients necessary to make it (i.e. oil and eggs): about 3 limes; (more if you are using key limes); margarita mix (the liquid kind, but not the frozen concentrated kind, I used Jose Cuervo Margarita Mix in Classic Lime); tequila; orange liquor (I used Triple Sec because my liquor store didn't have Grand Marnier, and it still tasted great); for the icing, the only extra ingredients are butter and confectioner's sugar.

This batter smelled and tasted amazing!

The first thing you want to do is zest and squeeze the limes -- a microplane zester is easiest for this step. Then, you combine the liquors and the margarita mix into your mixing bowl and give them a swirl or two to combine. Add the dry mix from the cake mix box, the egg whites, the oil and lime zest, and beat the batter for about 2 minutes, until smooth.

Then, you spoon the batter into your prepared baking cups, and bake at 350F for about 18-20 minutes until they spring back when touched, or an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

See all the lovely zest baked into the batter? Yum!

While they are cooling, you can start on the icing. Beat the butter in a bowl by itself until it is light and fluffy. Add in lime juice, lime zest, margarita mix, and about 6 cups of confectioner's sugar. Add sugar until you have your desired spreading consistency, adding by the tablespoon when you are getting close.

When the cupcakes are completely cooled, you can ice them up. I didn't put a thick layer of icing on, because my icing was delicious but potent. Anywhere from 1/4" to 1/2" is all you need, but taste test it first.

Now, I love lime, so my icing was stronger lime. However, you can always cut down on the lime juice, or omit the margarita mix altogether. If the cake is enough of a margarita-flavor for you, a basic buttercream icing with just the zest would work nicely.

I chose to roll the edged is colored sugar as a garnish, to resemble the salt around the rim of a margarita. If I had more time, I would have loved to garnish with candied lime peel or candied lime slices, but alas, the clock is always against me. Maybe next time...

I have to say, given that I'm not normally a margarita fan, I really enjoyed these cupcakes. The cake itself is super yummy, which is highly unusual for my tastebuds for anything containing tequila.  They have a little tang, and they really do taste like margaritas as opposed to just lime cupcakes masquerading as margarita cupcakes. I also used someone who never drinks margaritas because she hates tequila as one of my taste testers, and even she really liked them. Having said that, these cupcakes do have a bit of a bite, I wouldn't eat them too early in the day, they are definitely an after-lunch or after-dinner treat!

Ingredients

Cake:

• White cake box mix
• 8oz margarita mix
• 2oz tequila
• 1oz orange liquor
• 3 egg whites
• 2 tbls vegetable oil
• 1 tbls lime zest

Icing:

• 2 sticks of butter (* for the cream cheese version, use 1 stick of butter and one of cream cheese)
• 3 tbls lime juice
• 1 tbls margarita mix
• 1 tsp lime zest
• 6 cups of confectioner's sugar

Directions:
1. Combine all liquors and margarita mix into your mixing bowl and swirl it around to combine
2. Add rest of ingredients for the cake, and beat with a mixer until combined and smooth, about 1-2 minutes
3. Divide amongst 24 cupcake wells, filling about 2/3 full
4. Bake at 350F for about 18-20, until toothpick inserted in center is clean, and/or they spring back when touched
5. For the icing, beat 2 sticks of butter until light and fluffy.
6. Add the juice, zest, and margarita mix, and beat to combine
7. Add the sugar gradually, until desired spreading consistency is reached
8. Frost when the cupcakes are completely cooled, and enjoy!

Key Lime Coconut Crumb Bars

My husband and I have this  deal, you see. He really isn’t into sweets, which is rather unfortunate since all I know how to do is bake.  He will, however, make an exception for several things that incorporate fruit, such as the thumbprint cookies from a previous posting. I promised, in keeping with the theme of the approaching summer, that all of my baking would include fruit until at least the end of August.
 

So when I saw this recipe on the Pioneer Woman Cooks, I knew I had to try it. After all, it’s Ree Drummond.  Have you met Ree? If not, then head on over to The Pioneer Woman ASAP. You’ll thank me. Not only does she bake, she cooks, and her recipes are insanely good, her writing is always entertaining, and her photos are gorgeous. 

Anyway, on Ree’s site, there was this darling recipe for lemon crumb squares. And it caught my eye, because I was just talking about lemon squares with my mother the other week. But we were talking about more traditional shortbread-bottomed, cooked pudding-topped lemon squares. Ree’s recipe is a variation that uses two layers of crumbs that are cousins to coffee cake crumbs, except without cinnamon…and way denser…and with oatmeal...with a delicious layer of lemon sandwiched between them. And then, the clincher:  Ree casually mentions at the bottom of her post that the recipe would also work for key limes.

Sold.

I hoofed it over to the supermarket and grabbed a few limes, a can of sweetened condensed milk, and a bottle of Nellie and Joe’s Famous Key West Lime Juice. Sometimes this is in the juice aisle, and sometimes it is in the baking aisle, so you might have to look around for it.  Why didn’t I just squeeze the nice limes I grabbed at the supermarket, you ask? I don’t know, “key lime” just sounds a little sexier. Key lime pie, Florida, summer, and all those other lovely word associations I made in my head. Besides, key limes are tarter than the average lime. But, this recipe will also work fine with the juice from the typical Persian limes found in your supermarket. So if you feel really bad about pitching a perfectly good lime after zesting it, you can do this. Or you can do how I do and use the key lime juice from the bottle, zest from the Persian lime, and then cut up the Persian lime into wedges suitable for Coronas. Problem solved, no more qualms of conscious here. Phew.

So anyway, you zest the sucker (if you don’t already have a microplane zester, you should look into it. I much prefer it to traditional zesters with the holes on one end), which is a good way to wake up in the morning, by the way.  The smell is amazing.

Then you take all that lovely zest, a can of sweetened condensed milk, and about ½ C of the lime juice, and beat it together. I’ve already made these bars a few times, since there is way more than ½ C of lime juice in the bottle I bought, and I’ve used both the whisk and paddle attachments to do this, and they both work great. The mixture will be a little runny no matter how you mix it, don’t be alarmed.

Next up, the crumbs. You cream slightly softened butter with brown sugar until it is nice and combined. Then you add in some oats. At this point, I diverged from Ree’s original recipe a little further, because I made the command decision that I wanted coconut in my key lime bars. Because they go together. There’s even a song about it that Kermit sings (okay, Harry Nilsson sang it first, but who can resist Kermit the Frog?). So add about a cup and a half of shredded sweetened coconut at this point as well, and mix it up. Then, sift in the flour, salt and baking powder.

Half the crumbs go down on the bottom of the pan (I used a disposable 8X12 pan; Ree used an 8X11 casserole dish; a 9X13 pan can also be used, the bars will just be thinner).  You can push the crumbs down with your hands, or the back of a measuring cup. 

Then, dump on all of that lovely lime filling on, and spread it around. 

Then I decided to sprinkle more coconut on top of the lime layer, just by eye until I figured it was covered enough. 

And then, sprinkle on the other half of the crumbs. Don’t pat them down like with the bottom layer, just gently even them out. You don't want wayward crumbs standing tall, they will brown faster than the rest of the top layer, and may burn before the rest is done.

Then you bake it at 350F for about 25 minutes. When it comes out of the oven, let it rest at room temperature for about 30 minutes, to give the filling a chance to set up.   

Then, I would advise cutting the bars (leaving them in the pan) and then popping them in the fridge.  Trust me and cut them before you chill them – if you wait until after you chill the pan, the crumbs will be harder to cut through, and you will most likely destroy the top layer. 

 These bars are pretty fabulous, especially if you like citrus, and especially if you're ready for summer! They are easy to put together, and a definite crowd-pleaser! If you want lemon, that can be substituted as per Ree's original recipe. Personally, I'd like to try the lemon one with some blueberries sprinkled on top of the lemon layer, and maybe a dash of cinnamon in the crumbs.

Ingredients

• 1-⅓ cup All-purpose Flour
• ½ teaspoons Salt
• 1 teaspoon Baking Powder
• 1 stick (1/2 Cup) Butter, Slightly Softened
• 1 cup Brown Sugar (lightly Packed)
• 1 cup Oats
• 1  ½ cup shredded Sweetened Coconut for crumbs, plus more for sprinkling
• 1 can (14 Ounce) Sweetened Condensed Milk
• ½ cups Key Lime Juice
• Zest Of 1 Lime

Preparation Instructions

1. PREHEAT OVEN TO 350 DEGREES.

2. Mix butter and brown sugar until well combined. 

3. Add oats and coconut to the butter mixture and combine

4. Sift the flour, salt and baking powder together into the butter/sugar mixture and mix to combine. 

5. Press half of crumb mixture into the bottom of an 8 x 12 inch pan (or 8X11, 9X13, etc).

6. Mix together condensed milk, lemon juice, and lemon zest. Spread onto the bottom layer of the crumb mixture. 

7. Top with the other half of the crumb mixture, but don’t press.

8. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until golden brown. 

9. Allow pan to sit on counter for 30 minutes after baking. Cut into squares and refrigerate for a couple of hours or until cool.

Serve cool.

Lime