New Business Kickoff

Well, we finally jumped in the pond by starting our new business. We selected the name Buttercup Treatery because it sounded so good, almost good enough to eat. The picture is Amy's award winning Mad Hatter cake, just to show you what can be done.

Featured will be our unique cupcakes, Pina Colada, Champagne, Harvey Wallbanger, and my favorite Arnold Palmer (lemon and sweettea). Of couse we will have all the usual chocolate, vanilla, spice and more, but the fun is to find new and exciting flavors.

Additionally we have our famous Whoopie Pies in many flavors, Cake Pops all decorated and ready for a party and of course the Celebration cakes that are Amy's forte.

If you want cookies, candies and more.....basically any kind of treat we will find a way to make something that is unique to your celebration or event.

The fun is always the main attraction, but using quality ingredients is a must for everything we do. I don't like artificial anything...do you?

Our website is www.buttercuptreatery.com and our email is marketing@buttercuptreatery.com. We will be working on the site as we finish more of our products and collect the appropriate pictures.

If you want to have a sweet experience that only Buttercup Treatery can provide contact us today!

Raspberry Chocolate Cupcakes

I was trolling the blogs and found this fantastic recipe on The Culinary Chronicles. I just have to share it. I made them and they are absolutely awesome. I hope you enjoy them as much as my grandsons did, they didn't last very long.

Chocolate Raspberry Cupcakes
Makes approximately 30 Cupcakes (depending on size)

Ingredients:
Chocolate Cake:
1½ Cups Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
3 Cups All Purpose Flour
1½ Teaspoons Baking Soda
¾ Teaspoon Baking Powder
1½ Teaspoon Salt
3 Cups Granulated Sugar
4 Ounces Semi Sweet or Dark Chocolate, finely chopped
1½ Cups Buttermilk
1½ Cups Strong Brewed Hot Coffee
¾ Cups Vegetable Oil
3 Large Eggs
2 Teaspoons Raspberry Extract
Chocolate Ganache:
12 Ounces Quality Dark Chocolate, finely chopped
1 Cup Heavy Cream
1 Tablespoon Framboise Liqueur
Raspberry Filling:
2 Cups Frozen Raspberries
1 Cup Granulated Sugar
1 Tablespoon Framboise Liqueur
1 Teaspoon Fresh Lemon Zest
Prepare Cakes: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place paper cup liners in cupcake pans. Place finely chopped chocolate in a bowl and pour hot coffee over it. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and allow to sit for a few minutes. Remove plastic and stir until smooth. Sift together cocoa powder, flour, baking soda, baking powder, sugar, and salt into a large bowl. In a mixing stand, beat eggs for a few minutes until they become a pale yellow. Beat in oil, buttermilk, and raspberry extract . Scrape down the sides of the bowl and slowly add the chocolate. Slowly add dry ingredients and mix until just incorporated. Pour batter into the lined cups–about 3/4 way. Bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow cupcakes to cool in the pans for 10 minutes before removing to cooling racks.
Prepare Raspberry Filling: Place all raspberry sauce ingredients in a medium sized, heavy saucepan. Simmer on medium-low until berries have broken down and the sauce has thickened. Approximately 10-15 minutes. Let cool to room temperature. *If you don’t want seeds in your filling, puree the raspberries in a blender and strain before cooking.
Prepare Chocolate Ganache: Place chocolate pieces in a large bowl. Heat heavy cream on medium high until it comes to a boil. Remove from heat and immediately pour cream over chocolate. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and allow to sit for a few minutes. Remove plastic and add framboise—stir until smooth and glossy. Allow ganache to cool completely before frosting. *If you wish a fluffier “whipped” frosting, allow ganache to cool completely before transferring to a stand mixer. On medium-high speed, whip until you reach the desired consistency.
Assemble Cupcakes: Once all items have been prepared, fill a piping bag with a small round tip with the raspberry filling. Fill another piping bag with the ganache. Taking one cupcake, place the tip of the raspberry filled bag into the cake and squeeze in a few teaspoons of the filling. Be careful not to “inject” too much or your cupcakes will implode Finally with the piping bag filled with ganache, pipe/decorate swirls on top of the cupcake. Garnish with fresh raspberries.

More Whoopie Pie information

Today I am going to try something new to hopefully enhance my Whoopie Pie reputation.


In the South they have a drink called the Arnold Palmer after the famous golfer. If you order it they bring you 1/2 glass of sweet tea and 1/2 glass of lemonade, you mix them together and enjoy on a hot summer afteroon. I have made these as cupcakes and they are delicious (thanks, Paula Deen), but I wanted to take it one step further. I am going to take a Yellow Cake Mix and change it up to make Arnold Palmer Whoopie Pies.


Here is my experiment.

1 Duncan Hines Yellow Cake Mix
3 Eggs
1/3 Cup Vegetable Oil
1 Cup Tea Infused Milk (heat milk just to boiling point, steep 4 tea bags until milk cools) Do this first so milk has time to cool completely!(reserve 1/4 cup of tea infused milk for filling)
1 Teaspoon Grated Lemon Zest
1 Tablespoon Fresh Lemon Juice

Put Mix, eggs, oil and slowly add 1/2 to 3/4 Cup infused milk into mixer and mix until well blended. You want your batter to be a thick consistency, don't make it too thin!

Prepare parchment paper on large cookie sheet by drawing round circles with a glass or cookie cutter to make your desired size of pies. Mini or Large, your choice.
Flip paper over so markings are on the bottom.
Fill large piping bag with batter and pipe cookies in template. (You can also drop the cookies with a spoon or small ice cream scoop if you want)

Bake at 325 for 15 minutes (or until the tops spring back when lightly touched)
Cool on a baking rack until completely cool.

Filling:

1 3 oz. package of cream cheese (room temperature is very important)
4 tbsp unsalted butter, room temperature, again very important
2 cups confectioners sugar (sifted to remove lumps)
1 Teaspoon Lemon Zest
Reserved infused milk

Put cream cheese and butter into mixer and beat until fluffy (if they are not at room temperature they will not get fluffy like they need to, so be sure you follow this advice)
Add confectioners sugar (hint: to prevent a sugar cloud, dampen a tea towel and drape it over your mixer then start the mixer very slowly until sugar is incorporated, this will contain the cloud)
Add Lemon Zest
Add infused milk a teaspoon at a time until the filling is the consistency of toothpaste, be sure it is not too thin (if it is too thin, add more confectioner sugar until it is thicker...this does affect the flavor and makes it sweeter so be careful)
Pipe filling into the cooled cookies and top with another cookie.
Wrap and keep in a cool dry place.

You can freeze these if you wrap them individually.

I know the cupcakes I made were lucious and I am sure these will be as well., Make yourself a tall glass of Arnold Palmer tea, bust out a AP Whoopie Pie and turn on the PGA. Sounds like a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Whoopie Pies

I have become known around town as the Whoopie Pie Lady, this is OK I guess, but I do have a little bigger repertoire than that. However when I came across this recipe on bakingbites.com, I had to give it a try.

Frequently I have bananas that have to be used and a person can only eat so much banana bread, or muffins so I gave them a try.

I have to say they are delicious, different, but delicious. The recipe doesn't make a tremendous amount, but I tend to make my pies bite size so it did give me a nice number. If you individually wrapped the pies you can freeze them or later use.

So if those bananas are hanging from the rack look a little bedraggled try these pies. You can easily double the recipe to make more, or scale down the size of your pies (and reduce the baking time by a couple of minutes) to get smaller, bite-sized pies and get more of them. These keep well when stored in an airtight container at room temperature, but they are so moist and flavorful that I bet you’ll find them as difficult to resist as I do.


Banana Whoopie Pies
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 cup butter, room temperature
1 1/4 cups sugar
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cups mashed banana (2 medium)

Preheat oven 350F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon.
In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light. Beat in egg and vegetable oil, followed by vanilla and mashed banana. Add flour mixture and stir until just incorporated.
Drop 2 tablespoon balls (approx 1 1/2-inch balls) and bake for 12-14 minutes, or until cookies are lightly browned around the edges and “set” in the center.
Remove to a wire rack to cool.
Makes about 2 dozen cookies (1 dozen sandwich cookies).

Cream Cheese Filling
3 oz cream cheese, room temperature
4 tbsp butter, room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 – 2 cups confectioners sugar

In a medium bowl, beat together cream cheese and butter until smooth. Blend in vanilla and confectioners’ sugar until mixture is smooth and thick. Add additional confectioners’ sugar if mixture seems runny.

If you bake them on parchment paper you can make a template with a round cookie cutter so that your pies are consistent in size. Just trace the cutter on the paper with a pencil and then flip it over so the markings are on the undersize of the paper. Pipe your cookies with a large piping bag for even better control.

Be sure to let the cookies cool completely before filling.

Enjoy, but beware.....these do call your name even from the fridge or freezer.

I love Paula Deen

I was watching my girl Paula Deen today and she was making Arnold Palmer Cupcakes from scratch. An Arnold Palmer (in the South)is 1/2 Sweet Tea and 1/2 Lemonade mixed together to make a great drink (you could add a little kick with rum if you want even more.

The cupcakes sounded delicious, but I wondered why I had to go to all the trouble to do it from scratch. So I used a yellow cake mix and instead of the 1 1/3 Cup of water I used the 1 1/3 of warm milk steeped with tea as the liquid, grated some lemon rind and added 1 Tbsp of lemon juice. She also used the Tea infused milk and lemon juice to make the chocolate butter cream, so I did the same. I have to tell you the cupcakes are delicious, moist and very unusual. You go Paula!!!

Paula is a genius and I have made many of her recipes, never have I been dissapointed with the results. She is the most down to earth cook and her show is always entertaining.

I hope all of you had a great Valentine's Day and spent it with the ones you love.

Me....I spent it with the puppies curled up on the couch feeling lousy...don't know what is up with this getting sick stuff....enough is enough for this year.

I'm Back

I haven't been here for a while, but I am going to try to be better with my updates.

It is Double Hostess Months in February and March with Dove Chocolate Discoveries (www.dovechocolatediscveries.com/daytonchocolatiers) and what better time with Valentines and Easter on the horizon. You should book Chocolate Tasting Party TODAY!!

This week was a fun time, I worked with my grandsons to make Cake Pops. If you haven't heard about them they are a blast to make. If you have a cake that needs to be used, but noone is eating...just crumble it up and mix wth a small amount of butter cream icing until it is moist but not to wet. Every cake is different so it is difficult to give exact measurements, however for a 1 layer it takes about 2 or 3 Tablespoons of icing. Mix it thoroughly and then using a small ice cream scoop, form the mixture into balls. Put in freezer or fridge to set up.

When you are ready to make the balls, melt your favorite Dove Chocolate Bars, dip lollipop sticks or craft sticks in the chocolate and put them into the balls. Let set up completely. This is an important step, because you don't want them to drop into the chocolate when you are dipping.

Melt enough chocolate for dipping and carefully dip the balls into the chocolate. It is easy if you have a piece of stryofoam to hold the dipped cake balls in to setup. You can put candies into the soft chocolate for eyes and noses or just sprinkle them with candy jimmies. They can also be rolled into nuts or coconut if desired. We actually made royal frosting and made Cake Ball Critters. They are absolutely rich and delicious (of course the boys ate the ones they felt were "rejects). You can make them for any occasion, like the picture for Valentines day, but make them to fit your special celebration.

It is a great way to spend a winter afternoon and have some fun with your kids or grandkids. They are also great for bake sales and fundraisers. Just slip a plastic bag over the top and tie with pretty ribbon. You can display them right in the styrofoam so they stand up straight and tall. They are lots of recipes on the internet for these, but really just make them this easy way.

Chocolate for the Holidays

It's time to start that Christmas and Holiday baking. It can be so much work and it doesn't make sense to use bad or fake chocolate when making all your goodies.

Take a step up and pick really good ingredients. Use real butter, fresh nuts, high quality chocolate....don't use margarine or those "chocolate" melts. I guess my best suggestion is to READ ALL THE LABELS. If you can't pronounce it ..don't eat it or feed it to your family.

Learn how to temper chocolate...don't add wax or parrafin to your candy. Check out this one of many websites: http://candy.about.com/od/candybasics/ht/temperchoc.htm for the how to..

Instead of bagged Chocolate Chips, chop up a bar of really good chocolate. My latest venture is making meringue drops dipped in Dark Dove Chocolate. They are awesome.

Here is the recipe:

4 Egg Whites
1/4 Tsp Cider Vinegar
1/4 Tsp Salt
1 tsp White Vanilla
1/3 Cup Holiday Sprinkles

Whip egg whites to stiff peaks, add Vinegar, Salt and Vanilla
Fold in 2 Tbsps. Sprinkles

Put into a large pastry bag with large star tip and pipe onto parchment lined sheets
Sprinkle remaining Holiday Sprinkles onto piped cookies

Bake at 250 degrees for 40 minutes, turn off oven and let sit in oven with door closed for 2 hours to dry out meringue (hint if you only have one over, place a cooling rack over the pan on the bottom shelf and place another sheet on the rack, this gives you more options)Melt 8 oz Dove Chocolate Baking Bits (the Mint is awesome)in the microwave. Be careful not to overheat (30 seconds at a time is the way to go)(You can also melt Dark, Milk or White Chocolate bars as the dipping chocolate)

Dip bottom of each meringue into the melted chocolate and place on parchment paper sheets to set. Refrigerate for at least 15 minutes to completely set chocolate.

Keep in a cool dry place in an air tight container.

Variations: Substitute Peppermint Flavoring for the Vanilla, use Green Sprinkles
Use Coconut Flavoring or any flavoring of your choice. All gives a special taste.

You can also fold in crushed pecans and spoon onto the sheets. May clog up the pastry bag if you add nuts to the batter.

These make about 4 to 5 dozen cookies

ENJOY and Happy Thanksgiving