Baking With The Sis: Neapolitan Cupcakes

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My sister is on her Spring break, so she is back in town! Mid April is an odd time to schedule break though, but I guess that's the way dental school rolls. None of my sisters' spring breaks coincided with mine. Sad.

When my sisters were younger, my dad used to buy neapolitan ice cream for them to eat. I however only remember him buying french vanilla ice cream. What made it special was sprinkling Rice Krispies on top to get that crunchy texture along with the silky smooth ice cream. Is that a weird combination? I just know it's one of my more vivid memories of my childhood. Of course what I remember the best deals with food. 

I have attempted to bake with my sister several times in the past. Yet, each project has gone terribly wrong. We made chocolate cookies that came out of the oven deformed, mangled, crunchy, and just bad. They looked like amoebas. We tried making buttercream together. Who knows what went wrong there. The frosting was curdled and lumpy. Today we made cupcakes and aside from this batch, they puffed up, sunk, and spread into amoebas in the cupcake tins. Come to think of it, whenever we need to refer to one of these baking endeavors, we just need to say one word: amoeba.

I must give her credit for the piping of the frosting on these cupcakes though. She did a fine job. She was able to utilize my brand new french piping tip. It is so pretty!

Below is the recipe for the buttercream frosting that literally tastes like strawberry ice cream. I ended up mashing the frozen strawberries with a fork instead of whipping out the food processor so that there were bright red speckles throughout. The cake itself is half chocolate cake, which you can find the recipe here, and the magnolia vanilla cake, which you can find a reference to here. I normally hate confectioner's sugar frostings because I find them grainy. However, I find that you just need to beat the frosting for a very long time so that it gets smoother, fluffier, and creamier. Enjoy!

Whipped Strawberry Frosting
From Sweetapolita
INGREDIENTS

• 3 sticks + 2 tablespoons butter, room temperature
• 4 cups sifted confectioner's sugar
• 1 tablespoon milk
• pinch of salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 3 tablespoons strawberry puree, made from frozen strawberries

DIRECTIONS

1. Beat the butter on medium speed of a mixer until pale and fluffy. Roughly 8 minutes.
2. Turn down the speed to low and dump in the rest of the ingredients except for the strawberry puree. Beat for one minute, and then increase the speed to medium again for 6 minutes so that the frosting becomes very light and fluffy.
3. Add in the strawberry puree and beat to thoroughly combine. Use immediately. 

Strawberries n' Cream Scones

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I woke up and decided to make strawberry scones. Usually my sister gives me ideas on what to bake. She saw a picture of animal cupcakes on Facebook which prompted me to make these earlier this week. To make the scones even more special, I added milk crumbs and opted for the all out usage of heavy cream instead of half and half or buttermilk. SO much cream. I do admit the dough was silky smooth because of it though.

These are amazing. They're tender, chock full of strawberries, and that crunchy milky bite from the milk crumbs ties all the flavors together. Sure there were a ton of dishes to clean, a few extra steps for the milk crumbs, but rest assure they are worth every tasty morsel. The scone recipe itself is actually quite simple.

Mmmm... milk crumbs

I promised my older sister I would make her mandu (Korean dumplings) this week, so I will hop right on that later today. That means I can use my nifty dumpling press I got from the Asian supermarket! It's so exciting to whip that contraption out. Perhaps I'll make a post about those dumplings, but they're not necessarily baked goods.

You can find the milk crumb recipe here. You may not need use all of the milk crumbs the recipe yields, but cutting the recipe down may result in some funky measurements.

...? Wart? 

If your strawberries are extra juicy, dice them up and spread them out on paper towel to soak up the moisture. They will be difficult to incorporate into the dough if they're too wet. Enjoy!

Strawberries n' Cream Scones

Yields 8 scones

INGREDIENTS

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 5 tablespoons cold butter, cut into cubes
• 1 cup diced strawberries
• 1/2 cup milk crumbs
• 1 cup heavy cream

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit

1. Dump the flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt into a food processor. Pulse for a few seconds until all the dry ingredients are thoroughly mixed.
2. Add in the cold butter and pulse for about 30 seconds until combined. 
3. Dump the mixture into a large mixing bowl. Mix in by hand the strawberries and milk crumbs. Slowly add in the cream until a dough ball forms.
4. Place dough onto a light floured surface and form into a rectangle so that you can cut out 8 wedges. 
5. Place onto an ungreased baking sheet, and bake for 12-15 minutes or until golden brown.