Mississippi Mud Cupcakes - Southern Cake Book

My second baking adventure using the scrumptious looking The Southern Cake Book by Southern Living was Mississippi Mud Cupcakes. 

The final product looked so cute with its dainty, fluffy tuff of Marshmallow Frosting, and clusters of nuts and chocolate.  Click HERE for the recipe on the Southern Living website.

But appearances can be deceiving because despite its silky good looks I found the cake itself a little dry. Not Sahara desert dry, but it definitely needed a tall glass of milk to wash it down.  If I make it again I would do some tweaking to the recipe, and also reduce the baking time by 3-4 minutes.  

The mixing process also dirties a lot of bowls and utensils. One set for the blending of sugar & eggs, one for the dries, and one for the sour cream mixture.

Eventually everything goes into one bowl.

And then the beautiful chopped chocolate are added as the last step.

Dropped into the prepared cupcake liners the batter looks more like brownies than cake.

But after baking they puffed up nicely.  I baked mine for 17 minutes (18-20 was the recommended time).

Slicing one open shows just a few hints of the chopped chocolate that was added to the batter. It definitely needs more chopped chocolate, lots and lots more chopped chocolate.

The Marshmallow Frosting was the most eye-opening part of this baking adventure.  It was a flavorful mix of butter, cream cheese, and marshmallow cream. I’m not a big fan of marshmallows, but I have to say this stuff was really, really good. Not too sweet, with just a hint of marshmallow and cream cheese.  Neither taste was overpowering.   It was the perfect blending of both.

Nice.

It also had a light airy consistency that added to its appeal. I think this will become my standard cupcake frosting. I also added a few drops of Americolor Bright White Food Color to bring the color back to pure white. Between the yellow butter and the brown vanilla extract the frosting had a slight yellowish cast.  A few drop of Bright White got rid of the frosting's jaundice look.

The final verdict came from my family at our 4th of July party.  Granted these cupcakes were competing with lots of festive red-white-and-blude desserts, but the cupcakes just sat there. Sad, lonely, forgotten.  A few were eaten but no one went back for seconds :-(

I took the leftovers home with me and ate them with ice cream. Nothing moistens up cake like melting ice cream.

So this adventure turn out a little disappointing. If I try these again I would do something to add moisture to the mix.  Maybe add some oil to the batter (2 Tablespoons), double up on the amount of chopped chocolate, and decrease the baking time by 2-3 minutes. I would start checking for doneness at 14 minutes and err on the side of undercooked instead of overcooked.

Overall I would give the cake 3 stars, but the Marshmallow Frosting gets the highest rating of 5 finger-licking stars. That stuff is good.

Amaretto-Almond Pound Cake - Southern Cake Book

I bought another baking book today... I think I have over 500 of them now by now.

But this was is different, this one is unique. This one is special because I would really like to bake every cake in this book. How often does that happen? The name of the book is The Southern Cake Book (2014 edition) by Southern Living.

I purchased this book because it was featured in the Lagniappe section of New Orleans’ (no longer daily) newspaper – The Time-Picayune. The reporter made it sound so luscious and delectable that I just had to have it. And when the book arrived I wasn’t disappointed. The photos are gorgeous, and all the cakes look delicious. I couldn’t decide which one to bake first, but I finally decided on Almond Amaretto Pound Cake. I LOVE Pound Cake, and I love Amaretto. Win-Win.

The recipe was easy to follow and the batter came together without any problems. The only thing out of the ordinary was that you added the eggs as the last step. Flour first and then the eggs.  Odd.  I wonder if there is some chemistry to mixing the ingredients in that order. Where is Alton Brown when you need him?

Into the pan the batter goes… I’m still loving my HIC silicon fluted pan. I find the silicon pan doesn’t burn the outer edge of the cake as much as the metal pans do. I also love the bright red color! But my pan only holds 10 cups and the recipe calls for a 12-cup pan, so I cut the recipe in half and baked for about 40 minutes. I also didn't include the sliced almonds on the top of the cake. I have a brother visiting that has severe nut allergies.

The last step in the process is to make an Amaretto syrup to pour over the top of the warm cake.

Well, hum… Something went wrong with this step. I followed the instructions, I swear, but I guess I cooked it too long and I ended up with Amaretto candy instead of syrup. It was too thick to absorb into the cake (like the recipe describes), instead it coated the top of the cake and dribbled down the sides.

After a while the Amaretto “syrup” got pretty hard and broke apart when I cut a slice. But it still tasted awesome. Very almond-y. And the cake was moist enough without the added moisture from the absorbed syrup. Yummy…

So I would definitely list this pound cake as one of the best I have tasted. It rivals even the famous Elvis Presley Pound Cake or my even my Pound Cake Love recipe. This one is a keeper for sure.

Here is a link to the recipe on the Southern Living web site.

I also learned an interesting factoid from this recipe. Amaretto flavoring is made from apricot pits. Who knew?! And because the Amaretto is made from apricot pits you will find that it tastes very similar to almond extract. Why? Because almond extract is made from bitter almond oil which gets it flavor from a substance called benzaldehyde. Benzaldehyde is found in almonds of course, but it is also found in the the kernels of “drupes” or stone fruits like peach, apricots, plums, and cherries. So check the label of your favorite brand of almond extract and see if it gives you the source of the bitter almond oil.  Your almond extract could be made from almonds, but it could also be made from peach pits, or even a combination of different stone fruits.  Very interesting. Here is a link to Cook’s Illustrated ’s overview of Almond Extract.


Happy Baking....

Carol

Update:  Ha!! After looking at the recipe posted on the Southern Living web site I found a discrepancy between the directions shown in the book and the online version.  And that discrepancy has to do with the glaze.  Ha!   The one thing that I messed up on!! Double Ha!  So it wasn't a stupid, Carol, moment after all.

The book just tells you to spoon the hot glaze over the cake.  From the picture of the cake I thought that meant remove the cake from the pan and start spooning the glaze over the top.  Wrong!  The online version goes into a lot more detail, and tells you to start the glaze 10 minutes before the cake comes out of the oven.  As soon as the cake comes out start spooning the hot glaze over the BOTTOM of the hot cake.  Do not remove the the cake from the pan.  Spoon the glaze over the cake while it is still in the pan.

So I didn't mess up (well not completely).  Therefore I'm taking this cake out of my "You did something wrong" column and putting it in the "book had a miss-print column".

I'm going to try the cake again this weekend (for the 4th of July), and  I will post a new picture of my perfectly glaze cake as soon as possible.

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