Scramblers - Cupcake Style

It's been stated by more people than just me that savory flavors come to my kitchen to die. This is a slight exaggeration although not by much. If I had to claim savory specialties, the focus would be between soups and Mexican food such as tacos and enchiladas.

A close third place would be breakfast.

A few nights back I had made tacos and we still had leftovers. This included tortillas and I was inspired to create a new breakfast in our house based on ideas I had viewed on Pinterest (check out my repins).

Our 12-year-old wandered into the kitchen while I was pulling out tortillas, egg, and cheese. I had bacon in the microwave and was spreading hash browns out on a cookie sheet. One look at the cupcake pan sitting on the counter and I hear a "What are you making?" 

I didn't really have an answer so instead I just explained my game plan. Before I knew it I had a cheerleader and an assistant. He was very excited for this idea of what I eventually have decided to refer to as scrambler cups.

So my sidekick managed the bacon while I spread a couple tortillas out on the counter. I grabbed a plastic cup from the cupboard and, turning it upside down, I used it to cut circles out of the tortillas. I wasn't sure how filling this was going to be so I didn't try too hard to maximize the tortillas and ended up with 6 circles. Spread some Crisco into the cupcake pan and press the tortillas in: cups ready to go! 

I set my assistant to crumbling up our bacon. The only drawback to a young assistant is he keeps wandering off. I'm not super offended; after all, his dad was working on prepping the tires for their RC truck to be spray painted after breakfast. There's bound to be wandering when food competes with hobby.

My hash browns were going wonderfully! I hate doing hash browns in a skillet because they seem to take forever unless you do it just right. I'm not even sure what made me decide doing them in the oven was the way to go, but thank goodness for that! I had tossed the frozen little pieces of potatoes in some vegetable oil, pepper, and salt prior to spreading them on the cookie sheet. This was fabulous and, spoiler alert, we ended up with the best hash browns any of us had ever had: crispy but not overly oily. Perfect!

The only drawback was the tinfoil. I used a spatula to try and "toss" the hash browns to ensure even crisping. The tinfoil tended to tear and move around a little much. Next time, I'm just going to put them right onto the cookie sheet.

Back to the tortilla cups, I filled each with egg whisked with milk before my kitchen partner added bacon crumbles and cheese. We exchanged the cupcake pan with the cookie sheet. I had the oven at 450 for the hash browns and now turned it down to 350. 

After about 10 minutes, the egg mix has seemed to setup but was not cooked all the way through. I removed the pan to top with a little more cheese and the hash browns. Back in the oven for about 5 minutes or until they looked puffed, similar to cupcakes.

This was fantastic, pretty quick and easy. My boys both decided this is the new breakfast in our house.

Five Star Recipe!

Tip: make sure there is plenty of Crisco in the base of the cupcake pan and the cups will pop right out using a butter knife along the side. 

Serving: 2 was enough for me but I usually eat light. The boys both said they wanted one more scrambler cup and maybe a side of sausage with a slice of toast.

Suggestion: Think of this as an omelette and add veggies such as green peppers and onions. 

Dough Knots or Do Nuts?

I think my family had gone a bit loopy this weekend from too much rain. My weekend escapade was to be cake donuts. Somehow this launched both my spouse and our 12 year old into a verbal competition for exaggerated pronunciations of the word "donut."

Amidst the giggles and drawn out syllables, I somehow managed to conquer my task. At least, to some extent.

The challenge was sour cream donuts. As I worked my way through the recipe, I slightly regretted actually purchasing sour cream. Usually, I choose plain yogurt as a healthier option. Also, it smells a lot better. Luckily, the recipe called for nutmeg which covered the sour fragrance easily. Especially since I added cinnamon as well.

I never do just nutmeg. I always pair it with cinnamon, cloves, or both depending upon the recipe. The pairing seems to enhance the nutmeg and I have yet to encounter a recipe that is thrown off by an extra teaspoon of spice.

Again, this was a recipe that skipped the mixer in exchange for the whisk. I took a moment to consider but given the ingredients, I felt secure in my ability to conquer yet another recipe with my mighty whisk.

The original recipe reportedly yielded 6 donuts. I know my family and this would not be an acceptable quantity. Double up it was to be! This worked well since sour cream comes in an 8 ounce tub and the recipe called for half a cup. Perfect!

As I put my ingredients together and whisked away, I was happy to find that this batter actually was easy to whisk. Good deal.

My donut pans were hand-me-downs from my mother. I vaguely remember when she got them about a decade ago. They were used once and then promptly put away. At the time, the only recipe my mother had was a bake then fry. Far too much work and fat. Due to prolonged storage, the pans were in excellent shape if a bit dusty.

After a quick wash and dry, I greased up each slot as best I could.

Filling the donut slots was made far easier with the use of one of my featherweight pastry bags. Without the use of a pastry tip, the soft batter was more then happy to run straight through the pastry bag. Simple fold over and clip with a clothespin allowed me to fill my bag completely, avoiding the mess.

After a couple of fills, I found the method and pace to fill each donut slot efficiently. Into the oven the pans went.

While waiting through bake time, another round of the debate for Dough Knots versus Do Nuts began and swiftly ended as I shooed my boys out the door. Off to the park with you; go play with your RC boat. I was grateful for the silence as I contemplated my baking rings of cake.

The recipe had instructed to grease the pans. Only grease. I hate seeing this in cake related recipes as grease alone, in my experience, is never enough. I always ignore this line of a recipe and I will completely prepare my bakeware: grease and flour. However, I have never done a sour cream cake recipe nor have I baked something as thin and petite as these donuts appeared to be. I figured this should be a safe recipe to follow the guideline of grease only.

When I pulled the donuts from the oven, they looked lovely and smelled fantastically inviting.

And they outright refused to leave their cozy slots in the pans. Fantastic. Another lesson in following your baking instinct.

After much discussion between me and the donuts, each was removed and settled onto the cooling rack. However, the process had taken enough time that the donuts were no longer warm enough for a quick toss in granulated sugar, powdered sugar, and brown sugar (not all together!). A sample donut or two proved the cinnamon a good addition and none of the three sugar toppings was missed.

 

Tips: always grease and flour your pans. This allows for the greatest assurance that cake products will fall from their pans. Don't worry, not enough flour will stick to interfere with the recipe.

The pronunciation war finally subsided with the apparent winner being Do Nuts. Congrats to our 12 year old.

Naked Will Set You Free

Yes, I am here to admit that I am a baking exhibitionist. There's just something about a cake flouncing about in the buff that I just cannot resist. To have a view of fluffy, moist cake between layers of fluffy frosting decorations is just all the more appetizing.

There are far too many times when a cake is overloaded with frosting and fondant, leaving the cake itself to be lost under the bevy of frosted flavor. To me, it is just as important that the cake be flavorful, fluffy and moist. I think that is why I like the naked or semi-dressed trend in cakes: it brings our focus back to the cake!

If you follow my Pinterest feed, you will have recently seen a pinned recipe for no-bake raspberry-lemon cheesecake. Now, I'll say right here that cheesecake is probably the only cake I really could do without. Bake or no-bake, there is just something about cheesecake that just seems to muddle the flavors. Either it is too rich and about four bites is all that can be tolerated or it a cloying kind of texture that hangs up in the back of your throat. Either way, I'll pass on the cheesecake.

However, this no-bake recipe blends cream cheese with whipped cream. To me, that sounds like a lovely, light, creamy frosting. Plus, how can I resist raspberries with the onset of summer? Simple: I cannot.

So out came the cake recipes, pans, mixer, and bowls. I thumbed through my recipes with a specific flavor in mind: chocolate, of course.

Ah, here we go. Warm milk and semi-sweet cocoa powder... sugar, flour... fold until just combined. So away goes my mixer and out comes my sturdiest spatula. I wish I'd had a laziness-inspired moment and stuck with the mixer.

No matter the consistency of cake, it is never easy to stir or fold that many contrasting ingredients together. The amount of liquid did make for a pretty fluid start, but about halfway through adding the dry ingredients, whisked together in one bowl, the batter was beginning to thicken and fight back.

Given my less than formidable shoulder, I almost lost the joust. In the end, it was the batter and not me that was split between two 6" cake pans, greased and floured, before settling into the oven. Bake, remove, settle in the pans, then flip out to a wire rack to cool completely!

As stated: I chose a no-bake cheesecake recipe for my frosting. It wasn't really frosting, so I'll call it "topping" from here on out.

Fresh raspberries are a fabulous sight. Unfortunately, my raspberry bush just isn't into the season enough so I had to get these sumptuous little beauties from the grocery store. Luckily, I seemed to stop by the grocery just as new arrivals were being set out. Yay, no digging through pack after pack in search of a one without mold!

After washing my raspberries I quickly measured out what I needed for the topping so my sampling wouldn't short my recipe. The measured amount got a lovely bit of squashing with a fork and then folded in with the cream cheese and whipped cream.

As I set up my space and placed my first cake layer, my mind was racing through the pastry tips I had available. A wonderful aspect of naked cakes is you can focus more on what you put on them: rosettes, shells, pearls, strands, ribbons. As I am still getting use to my basic tips and techniques, I chose to use the rosette/shell tip.

First, I had to set my two layers. Another great aspect to naked cakes is they are usually not cut to level. If you are making a multi-tiered cake, obviously you still want to level your cake layers. However, with just two layers it is perfectly acceptable to skip the leveling. Having the natural top of the cake is part of keeping it au natural.

I filled, layered, and topped in uneventful bliss. As I started in on rosettes, I noticed my top layer seeming to settle to one side. I resettled it and continued my rosettes. Turning the table as I worked my way around, I returned to the beginning to see my first rosette seeming lower than it was previously. I stepped back to look at the cake and the top layer was off again.

It was then I realized: I had worked with softened cream cheese to make my topping and then had gone straight to building my cake. I had not chilled my topping and it was now too soft.

Play would have to wait for another cake; this one needed to be finished.

  

Note: Raspberries, as most berries, stain everything! This includes plastic colanders, counter tops and featherweight pastry bags. Be sure to rinse utensils immediately and thoroughly.

Obvious note: chill topping/frosting prior to use as needed.