Pumpkin Ale Cupcakes with Recipe Link

image courtesy of My Baking Addiction

Yes, I'm posting yet another "when worlds collide" type cupcake...this being alcohol and cupcakes meeting once again to become: PUMPKIN ALE CUPCAKES! The name alone makes it sound seasonal and fun, don't you think? I can only imagine the absolute hit these would be with all the guys at my Thanksgiving celebration!

This simple yet exciting looking recipe was created by My Baking Addiction. Check out the recipe here!

Portland, Maine cupcakes: Fat Elvis, s'mores, Andes mint, pumpkin cheesecake, chocolate mudslide and more by Y-Lime's Gourmet

Y-Lime's Gourmet is one of the cupcake companies I read about at Portland, Maine cupcake blog Cupcakes! Cupcakes! Cupcakes! Here's how they describe themselves:"We are located in Portland, Maine and proudly bake all gourmet cupcakes and cakes from scratch. We high quality ingredients, and organic and natural products whenever possible.You can find Y-Lime's Gourmet desserts at: Coffee By Design, Stonyfield Cafe, PeRx-U-Up Cafe and The Gorham Grind in Gorham." All these photos are from their Facebook page.


"Fat Elvis"-Banana Cupcake with Peanut Butter Frosting and Brown Sugared Bacon


s'mores!!


Pink Lemonade: Lemon Cupcakes with Fresh Raspberry Buttercream


Grasshopper with Andes mints (ever since I ate a real grasshopper on a cupcake, I feel like I should put the mint chocolate kind of grasshopper in quotes!)


Carrot cake cupcakes


Pumpkin Cheesecake Cupcakes


flower cupcake


Chocolate Mudslide Cupcakes (Dark Chocolate Ganache Center, with Kahlua Mocha Buttercream Icing)


Blackberry buttercream cupcakes

Y-Lime's Gourmetylimesgourmet at gmail.com207-899-5367

Stout Cupcakes with Chocolate Covered Pretzels with Recipe Link

Somehow I managed to stumble upon another beer cupcake recipe. I'm still trying to get myself to indulge in such a sinful vice but have yet to bake up any alcohol based treats for myself. However, these beer-infused cupcakes created by Jamie of My Baking Addiction look too delicious not to at least try! I was particularly intrigued by these espresso stout based cupcakes because of the chocolate/coffee flavor mingling of it all. The kicker is the dark chocolate covered pretzels atop these little bad boys, because in her words, "what goes better with beer than pretzels?!" She created an easy to follow guide on her site so you can create these dude pleasing cupcakes for yourself!

Chianti chocolate mini cupcakes and recpe link

These Chianti chocolate mini cupcakes are by blogger Sprinkle Bakes, where you can get the recipe and more photos. From the post:

The red wine flavor in the chocolate cake is subtle, so I felt punching up the Chianti taste with frosting was an absolute necessity. I made a simple confectioners' icing with a wine reduction and finished it with a few tablespoons of Chianti strait from the bottle. I've made these twice; once as full size cupcakes and once (shown here) as minis. I loved the minis, and could imagine them lined up on a fancy platter for the perfect sweet bite at a cocktail party.

Realistic and creepy black widow spider web Halloween chocolate rum cupcakes

These spider web Halloween cupcakes are by blogger 6 Bittersweets, who has the recipe for the decorations and the chocolate rum cupcakes (with instructions on how to make them without alcohol too). From the post:

... I really wanted to make my version more realistic and creepy than those I'd come across ^_^. Since it's notoriously difficult to color homemade fondant a true black and I happened to have some black modeling chocolate on hand, I turned to this medium to make my crawly friends more dimensional and thus, my spidery vision start coming to life. Then melted chocolate, red candy melts, and a good blast of cold freezer air did the rest!

Blue Moon Cupcakes with Recipe Link

Lately I've been seeing more and more alcohol based cupcakes. Now I haven't had one myself but I occasionally like to partake in spirits and I do love cupcakes, so I see no reason why these two worlds shouldn't be combined to create some epic treats...and the site, Miss Make, figured out a way to do just that. The recipe looks pretty easy to follow, you can check it out here!

Review: Prohibition Bakery Cupcakes

I recently sat down with Prohibition Bakery's owners, Brooke Siem and Leslie Feinberg to talk (mini) cupcakes and (mega) cocktails.

Brooke and Leslie with mini (boozy) cupcakes.

Brooke is a classically trained chef who has put in time at ChefMod and restaurant WD~50 with Wylie Dufresne (I kinda love him). Leslie is a mixologist/bartender who has plied her trade getting NYC's best and brightest drunk and drunker. They both found themselves unemployed and broke earlier this year and, as they say, "A chef and a mixologist walk into a bar and Prohibition Bakery was born."

"We're all about vice," says Leslie.




The cupcakes:

For the love of bacon, strawberry daiquiri, shiny apple, salted margarita, pretzels and beer, scotch and cigar, car bomb, pretzels and beer, scotch and cigar, car bomb, strawberry daiquiri, L'Italiano, shiny apple, for the love of bacon, L'Italiano (back to forward left to right).






I don't drink alcohol, so I invited a tasting pro, Matthew Stevens coeditor of Dessert Professional magazine to assist me. He loves the pairing of alcohol and sweets and has provided tasting notes for CTTC in the past. And with these cupcakes, there's alcohol in the frosting and filling (!) but not necessarily in the cake. As in, there's no macerating the cakes in alcohol, although they might have the flavor of alcohol, such as the beer baked into the pretzels and beer cupcake.

On to the cupcakes:

Scotch and cigar (molasses, Laphroaig scotch and tobacco).  Before I tell you the horrors I experienced at the hands of this cupcake, let me just say I detest cigars (and cigarettes) and I do not drink, nor do I like the taste or flavor of alcohol. I mistakenly thought it would be a mild version of a "manly" flavored dessert, with hints of scotch and the merest whiff of smoke. Ohhh no. This cupcake is like eating a cigar and scotch and sugar confection. I loathed it. But -- and here's where having a pro taster came in, Mathew pronounced it one of the best things he'd ever tried. He LOVED it! He was very impressed (it's tough to impress him) and he felt it was worthy of an award. For what? Dunno. He said you get a full-on flavor sensation of scotch, a quality scotch, and the delicious taste of a fine cigar. He claimed to have tasted actual tobacco in the mix and he is probably right.

If you like scotch and spirits, and you like cigars, you will love this cupcake. If, like me, you do not like either, you should stay far away. Let the buyer (taster) beware.

This cupcake is not for the faint of heart. (Or palette.)



Next up, the Irish car bomb. (No hate mail please, I didn't name the cupcake.)





Irish car bomb (Bailey's, whiskey, stout and chocolate).






Bisected.




Matthew thought this was a very unified, well-married cupcake. He said the flavors combined well to form a delicious package that he ate in one quick bite. The he asked for another one. He found it smooth, and I believe he actually said, "It's like an inside-out Ding-Dong, only better."  I tasted a teeny-tiny piece (I had learned my lesson with the scotch and cigar one) and I found it to be pleasant with well-defined flavors and mildly alcoholic. The ganache filling was divine.





For the love of bacon:







Bacon, toffee and chocolate.





Bisected:






As a vegetarian I couldn't taste this one, but I was eager to see what Matthew thought. He confessed early on that he doesn't like bacon in sweets. I let him eat his mini and watched his face. I knew it was a success when he asked for the second one. He said, "I would say this is a successful bacon cupcake." Then he looked confused, as if someone had pulled a fast one on him. He went on to say the common pitfalls found in bacon cupcakes weren't present at all. No oiliness, excellent crisped texture. He said he felt the bacon was handled well, almost like a lardon, with all parts coming together to form a perfect taste.I suspect he would have eaten a third one, if we had it.



Next up, we had no idea what flavor it was but we tried it anyway. By process of elimination, we discovered it was the Shiny Apple (moonshine, cheddar, apple).







Since we didn't know what we were tasting we just make notes on what we thought. We both decided it was good. Very good. Light, no real alcoholic taste or aftertaste, and rich but airy. We loved the topping, which to us had a cheese wafer-type taste. We tasted fruit but decided it might be orange. Or a mixed flavor. Once we went back and ID'ed it, it was like, Ohhh, of course it's apple.  *sigh*


Next up was my favorite:







The L'Italino: rosemary cake, cranberry filling, roasted almond frosting.







Delicious! Sweet yet savory. The rosemary was right up there with the first bite, then the almond and then the sweet sugary flavors of the buttercream and cranberry. Not only was this a scrumptious cupcake, it was the prettiest of the bunch. The presentation was wonderful. This cupcake was a good choice for me as it had no meat and no alcohol. It's sophisticated and probably not for kids. I could have eaten a half-dozen, easily.





Next in line was the strawberry daiquiri:






Strawberry daiquiri (rum, strawberry and lime).

This cupcake smells so darn good. It was very very sweet (perhaps like a strawberry daiquiri might taste?) and the strawberry taste came through clearly. The rum was more of a mild finish, an aftertaste that lingered pleasantly on the palette. It's not too rich but rich enough. It's like drinking your cocktailed dessert or eating your alcohol. Yummy. Both Mathew and I liked this one.




Last up was the well-deserved best seller, the perfect pretzels and beer:






Pretzels and beer (pale ale, nutella and pretzels).

This was clearly Matthew's favorite cupcake and my second choice. It was delicious and needed no tinkering at all. The beer was baked into the cupcake lending it the flavor without the alcohol bite. I didn't taste the nutella nor did Matthew but we thought this cupcake was perfection and fought over who would get the last bite. (He won.) We thought it was malty, crunchy, salty and sweet with a perfect texture. I challenge you to find someone who wouldn't enjoy this cupcake! The sugar cuts the salt and the salt cuts the sugar and the chocolate and hoppy taste all come together. Brooke and Leslie, this is your killer cupcake.

Website. Facebook. Email.

Phone:  646.454.9970

Cupcakes are approximately $34 to $48 for 2 dozen minis, 2 dozen minimum order.

Gluten-free minis are in development, no vegan or allergy-free stuff planned as of yet.

Local NYC delivery available, with surcharge.



You can see the whole set of pictures here, all shot by Stacie Joy for CTTC.




;)

Beer cupcakes are coming! Sweet and Stout meets their Kickstarter campaign goal

Like beer cupcakes? Then you're in luck, because Sweet and Stout just ran a successful Kickstarter campaign and will now be bringing their unique, often local-themed beer cupcakes to Spokane, Washington. You can also keep up with them on their Facebook page and @SweetandStout on Twitter. Photos below are from their blog, where you see more fun cupcake flavors and get more details about these beer cupcakes. They can be reached at sweetandstout at gmail.com or 509-780-6197. (Note to bakeries: we are not cupcake omniscient, though that would be pretty awesome, and would've loved to blog about this while the Kickstarter campaign was going on, so if you're running a cupcake Kickstarter campaign, let us know at cupcakestakethecake at gmail.com and we'll retweet or blog about it.)





Chocolate pumpkin cheesecake cupcakes using Night Owl, a pumpkin ale from Elysian Brewing Company.



Crème brulee cupcakes using Crème Brûlée Stout from Southern Tier Brewing Company a



Orange Belgian style cupcakes using Great Divide Brewing Company Hades Belgian Style Ale



Cinnamon Irish Death cupcakes using Quilter’s Irish Death from Iron Horse Brewery



Black cherry ale cupcakes with "a gooey cherry center" using Derailed Black Cherry Ale from Erie Brewing Company

Cupcake violence captured in photographs

I don't really know what to call these photos other than cupcake violence:






But then in their whole form they are gorgeous. First are "Coffee Cupcakes topped with an indulgent Irish cream frosting. Decorated with a white & dark chocolate curl & a dusting of cocoa. Served with a pipette of Irish cream Liqueur."



This next one is: "A moist banana muffin sprinkled with chopped almonds & brown sugar. Topped with peanut butter frosting & embellished with crispy streaky bacon. Served with a pipette of maple syrup - perfect for drizzling!"



They're all by Arthur & Aleksandra, who you can reach at frostme at arthurandaleksandra.com and can also be found @oohhhfrostme on Twitter and on Facebook. They're doing a pop-up bakery October 7-9 as part of Birmingham, UK's Grand Designs Live.