Purely Whimsical

All, I just finished baking some birthday cupcakes. And they are awesome, I can’t believe how tasty they are. I swiped the basics from a Gourmet recipe, but I substituted gluten free flour, and made a few other changes. You could make them glutinous again buy just using cake flour. HWSNBN says this is the best gluten free cake - heck cake - I’ve made yet. Only willpower is keeping me from eating ‘just one more’.

There was a lot of drama in the kitchen before these got made. I decided to do some dishes, and managed to slice my finger nearly in two. Ok, so that was an exaggeration, but it really felt like it, and it certainly bled enough for it. As a matter of fact if I don’t keep pressure on it and here it is at least 4 hours later, it will start bleeding again.

Then, I couldn’t find the beaters for my mixer. I searched the kitchen four times. FOUR times. Here I am bleeding everywhere, I actually had to clean some off the wall and I KNOW you wanted to know that, and I can’t find crucial equipment for making cake. I know I could hand mix it, but gluten free cake really does best if you can beat the shortening for a long time with a mixer, I just can’t imagine how long that would be manually.

I just got more and more upset the longer I searched. Eventually I managed to collect myself and went to talk to HWSNSN. He could see how upset I was, and searched the kitchen for me again and found the beaters. Yay! So the birthday cake was on again.

You really HAVE to try this, it’s incredibly good.

GF Chocolate Chip Buttermilk Cupcakes
(makes just over 12 regular cupcakes)

12 muffin liners
2 cups Better Batter Gluten Free flour
1 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoons salt
1 sticks (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoons vanilla
2 large eggs
1 cup well-shaken buttermilk
1/2 cup gluten free semi-sweet chocolate chips

Heat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Mix dry ingredients in bowl, set aside. Add liners to muffin pan.

In mixer, beat butter and sugar together until the butter is white, approximately 10-15 minutes on high. Add eggs to butter mixture one at a time, beating well after each one is added. Turn mixer to low, and add buttermilk. Add dry ingredients to mixer in three batches, stopping after ingredients are just combined. Fold in chocolate chips.

Spoon batter into muffin cups. Batter will come to the top of the cups, and there will be some left over. Bake for 22 minutes, do not overcook.

Let muffins sit for 5 minutes after coming out of the oven, then cool on wire racks. Frost, if desired.

(recipe may be doubled for 24 cupcakes)

I also mixed up an easy to spread frosting. Recipe is below.

Quick frosting
1 cup gluten free semi-sweet chocolate chips (what’s left of the bag you opened for the cake)
1/2 cup heavy cream
3 cups confectioners sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 stick butter (1/2 cup)

Melt chocolate in small bowl at low heat in microwave, being careful to not burn the chocolate. While it is melting, beat butter in mixer. Add heavy cream and vanilla. Add chocolate once it’s melted. At low speed, add sugar one cup at a time, mixing until it is blended in.

This will make a very soft frosting. If you like a thicker frosting, only add about 2 tablespoons of heavy cream or milk, adding more teaspoon by teaspoon, until it is the consistency that you prefer.

I baked the left over cake batter in a miniature loaf pan inside my toaster/convection oven, and that is what I taste tested today. It is the lightest, softest, moistest cake I’ve had in quite some time.

I really wanted to make a buttermilk cake, since I had bought some buttermilk to make corn muffins. I’ve got a really tasty corn muffin recipe that calls for buttermilk and I wanted to try it with real buttermilk. They’re tasty. (I’m so happy I can have corn again!)

Below is the corn muffin recipe, it’s a modified Cook’s Illustrated recipe. I used gluten free flour, and increased the sugar, because I like my corn muffins just a little sweeter than they do. Also, they recommend Arrowhead Mills corn meal - and it does make a difference. I tried Bob’s Red Mill first and the muffins were just awful. I had to throw them away. ‘Regular’ corn meal would probably work, just not as well.

Here’s that recipe, if you’re interested. (Again, just sub flour for my gluten free flour for regular cornbread)

Cornbread

1 cup yellow cornmeal (or white), stone-ground
1 cup Better Batter Gluten Free flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
4 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon table salt
2 large eggs
2/3 cup buttermilk
2/3 cup milk
2 tablespoons unsalted butter , melted, plus extra softened butter for greasing the pan

1. Adjust oven rack to center position and heat to 425 degrees. Grease a 9-by-9-by-2-inch metal pan or 12 cup regular sized muffin tin.

2. Stir cornmeal, flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, and salt in large bowl. Push dry ingredients up side of bowl to make a well.

3. Crack eggs into well and stir lightly with wooden spoon, then add buttermilk and milk. Stir wet and dry ingredients quickly until almost combined. Add melted butter; stir until ingredients are just combined.

4. Pour batter into greased pan. Bake until top is golden brown and lightly cracked and edges have pulled away from side of pan, about 25 minutes (18-20 minutes for muffins).

5. Transfer pan to wire rack to cool slightly, 5 to 10 minutes. Cut cornbread into squares and serve warm. (Pan can be wrapped in foil up to 1 day. Reheat cornbread in a 350-degree oven for 10 to 15 minutes.)

I’ll have to admit, I hate melting butter (it’s mussing an extra dish), so I’ve taken to adding Butter Buds for flavor to the dry ingredients, and just adding oil. I think it actually improves the texture. The original recipe only called for 4 teaspoons of sugar, which wasn’t sweet enough. Four tablespoons is just enough, any more and it would be too sweet.

These are really good with whipped honey butter! (One stick of butter whipped with one tablespoon of honey.)