Valentine's Day Heart Cupcakes (and Truffles!)

You know you're single when you think Valentines Day is on the 28th of February.

But being single isn't all bad because that means I get to spend the night with two men, Ben AND Jerry (and in future years Jose, Jack, and Jim). I could be a grumpy old maid and go on and on about how awful Valentine's Day is and how it was created by greeting card company's to remind singletons that they had better start their cat collection now...BUT I don't like cats. So I'm going to talk about desserts instead! Much better alternative, and chocolate can't claw me in the face...or poop into a box in my house.

In my mind Valentine's Day is as much about treats as it is relationships. Sure the ladies want a sparkly diamond bracelet, but chances are you're gonna get some chocolate and flowers. Not such a bad deal (says the girl spending the night with ice cream). Now, you'll have to excuse my spam of pictures, you have your relationship, I have my adorable Valentine's Day cupcakes!

Which are the epitome of valentines day by the way.

They include romantic conversational chocolate toppers and (drum roll please)...

A PINK HEART CENTER!

And I made chocolate raspberry cake ball truffles using the cake/icing extras,

I was in a festive mood, Happy Valentine's Day to me!

Cut off the very tip of a plastic bag and use melted chocolate to create chocolate
Valentine-y words and shapes. Place in freezer or refrigerator to harden.

Extract raspberry juice from frozen raspberries

(I would definitely ditch this step and use 1 tbs milk instead).

  

Add neon pink food coloring to 1 cup of the cupcake mix,
bake in a 9" round, and use a small cookie cutter to cut hearts out.

Spoon one tablespoon of batter into each liner. While holding, spoon a couple more tablespoons of batter around the cake heart, so it stays in place. Place all hearts the same direction in the liners.

 Cover the top of the heart with batter, until liner is about 3/4 full,

Bake and let cool. Tops of hearts will most likely be visible, if not, you placed them all in the

same direction in the pan! Mark the direction of the heart on the cupcake in some way for

later cutting purposes (I marked a line on the bottom of the cupcake liner with a sharpie).

 Mix icing.

Ice and add topper!

Couldn't have turned out more perfectly.

 

Om nom nom

  

Optional: place the rest of the pink cake in a bowl,
add icing until a mold-able dough forms.

Shape into balls, chill, then coat in melted chocolate.

Valentine's Day truffles!

Makes 12 Cupcakes

Cupcake Ingredients:

1 box vanilla/white cake mix

½ cup sour cream

½ cup oil

4 egg whites

1/2 + 1/4 cup milk

1 tbs raspberry juice or milk*

Neon Pink Food Coloring

Small heart cookie cutter

Raspberry Frosting Ingredients:

1 cup (2 sticks) room temperature butter

1/2 cup seedless raspberry jam

6 cups confectioners sugar

Neon Pink Food Coloring

Topper Ingredients:

1/2 cup chocolate chips

1/2 tbs vegetable oil

1. To make toppers, microwave chocolate chips, stirring in 30 second intervals. Once melted add vegetable oil. Spoon into plastic bag and snip off the corner of the bag. On waxed paper write desired words. Place in refrigerator or freezer to cool (makes removal from paper easier).
2. Combine cake mix, sour cream, oil, egg whites, and 1/2 cup milk, in a large bowl. Mix until combined and lump free.
3. Remove 1 cup of batter and place in a separate bowl. Add 1 tbs of raspberry juice or milk*, add food coloring, a couple drops at a time until desired colored is reached.
4. Pour into lightly greased 9 inch pan and cook in oven (preheated to the temperature for a 9 inch cake pan, listed on cake box).
5. Cook about 15 minutes, or until the cake starts to pull away from the sides or a tooth pick stuck into the center comes out clean (do not over cook!). Let cool completely.
6. Once cool, remove cake from pan and cut 12 hearts from the cake using small cookie cutter. Trim cake if too thick. Save remaining cake if making optional truffles (see recipe below).
7. In the remaining batter, add last 1/4 cup of milk, stir. Place 12 cupcake liners in cupcake pan. Spoon 1 tablespoon of batter into the bottom of each liner, then carefully hold one cooked cake heart in the middle of a liner, spoon batter in front of, behind, and on the sides of the cake heart until it stays in place. Then spoon batter on top of heart so that no cooked cake pokes out (liner should only be 3/4 full once complete). Repeat for each cupcake.
8. Bake in oven (preheated to desired cupcake cooking temperature, stated on cake mix box) for allotted cupcake time, or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean.
9. While cupcakes are cooling, in a standing mixer whip butter and jam together for frosting, add confectioners sugar one cup at a time until desired constancy is reached. Add neon pink food coloring until desired frosting color is achieved.
10. Once cupcakes are completely cool, mark heart direction on the bottom of the cupcake liner (for cutting purposes), pipe frosting onto cupcake, and add topper.

Note: If only icing cupcakes and not making optional truffles, half icing recipe. Thicker chocolate toppers will be less delicate.*I was hoping the raspberry juice would color my batter, it didn't, so I suggest just using the food coloring + 1 tbs milk for the pink cake.

Makes about 12

Cake Ball/Truffle Ingredients:

Remaining pink cake

Some remaining frosting

1 cup chocolate chips 

1 tbs vegetable oil

1. In a medium bowl crumble remaining pink cake.
2. Add icing a few scoops at a time, until balls can be formed from mixture.
3. Using a spoon or cookie scoop, dollop 2 tbs sized balls of truffle mixture onto waxed paper, place in refrigerator to chill.
4. Microwave chocolate chips, stirring in 30 second intervals until melted. Add vegetable oil and stir until smooth.
5. Using fingers or two spoons, coat chilled cake balls in chocolate and place on waxed paper. Once all are covered, place back into refrigerator until chocolate hardens.

Note: If chocolate hardens during coating, re-microwave.

 Frosting Recipe from here


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Duck and Sauerkraut

Can anyone clue me in on this weather? Its the end of January and for the past week I have seen bikini clad girls sunbathing at the dorm pool as I walk to and from class. Even if it is 70 degrees out, I'm not sure whether that behavior should be tolerated in January, its just the principle of it.

Where is my winter weather? The sunshine is great and all but I have such sassy cold weather attire that needs to get some use this year! My door rack is practically sagging from my ever growing scarf collection. Now that I have the complete rainbow of pashminas I am branching out to some heavy knit and infinity scarves. Warmest and trendiest fashion accessories ever? I think so.

Uncooperative weather or not, family traditions will prevail! We made this a few weeks back, it is a New Years Day tradition and man is it delicious. The toughest part is always finding the main ingredient, duck. It's best to plan ahead and keep a few in your freezer when you run across them, we rarely manage to plan that far ahead. By the 4th grocery store we managed to find two on the morning of the big day.

Bear with me, this isn't the most photogenic meal in the world. But it's relatively easy and some of the least attractive of meals have the most incredible flavor!

Salt, pepper, and poke ducks in a large roasting pan. Bake.

After baking, remove from oven.

Quarter both ducks.

Our favorite Sauerkraut!

Pour a jar of sauerkraut into a large pan, add one quartered duck.

Add more sauerkraut and the second quartered duck.

Pack in and top with remaining sauerkraut, onions, brown sugar, water, and pepper. Bake.

Three hours later.

The recipe makes so much that we were able to have it the next night too!

With some homemade cheddar onion pierogies of course.

Cooking the duck for so long results in amazingly tender meat.

Ingredients

2 domestic ducks, 3 pounds each, thawed

4 jars sauerkraut

2 yellow onions, sliced

¾ cup packed brown sugar

1 cup water

2 tsp pepper

1. Stab ducks multiple times with a fork or prong (this gets rid of the extra fat while cooking) and sprinkle with salt and pepper. 
2. Place ducks in a large roasting pan, cook at 400 degrees for 1 ½ hours. Remove and let cool. 
3. Quarter both ducks. Pour one jar of sauerkraut into the bottom of a large pot, add one quartered duck, add second jar of kraut, layer second quartered duck, pack in and then top with remaining jars of kraut. 
4. Top with sliced onions, brown sugar, pepper, and one cup of water.
5. Cover pot and place back into a 350 degree oven for 3 hours, until duck is very tender.

Adapted from The Frugal Gourmet Cooks American By Jeff Smith

Notes: This makes a lot of duck and sauerkraut, simply half recipe for smaller portion.

Linking: This Week's Cravings

Homemade Pierogies

I, along with most other Americans, am a European mut (heritage wise). My ancestors really liked to spread their loins...everywhere. But the largest contributor to my mudblood (Harry Potter reference of the day) is good ol' Poland.

I'm fairly certain there are some awesome Polish jokes out there, so if you know one, feel free to share, but I'm fresh out...Did you hear about the Polish man who thought his wife was trying to kill him? She had a bottle of "Polish Remover" under her sink. HA! Beat you to it.

Unfortunately no recipes have been passed down from the Polish side of the family (no, not due to illiteracy). But according to mom,  my great grandmother, who was entirely polish, used to make a small batch of dough and use whatever leftovers were available to make pierogies for my great grandfather's lunch.

If you have no clue what a pierogi is, go right this instant to the grocery and look in the frozen section for a blue box of Mrs. T's Pierogies. They are heavenly potato dumplings that come in a variety of flavors. We typically get cheddar and onion but I recently tried a sweeter plum version.

My family is pierogi obsessed, my sister most of all. They were one of the highlights of her wedding menu, and I have a hunch that she has a little hidden shrine for them in her closet. We always have a box of Mrs. T's in the freezer but sometimes my ambition gets the better of me.

Dough Ingredients: 

Pour wet ingredients into the flour well.

 Mix and kneed until smooth.

 Cover and refrigerate.

 Filling Ingredients (plus onion, below):

Peel and quarter potatoes.

Boil until soft and drain.

My magic chopper!

Finely chop 1/2 onion.

Brown the chopped onion in butter.

Mix filling (minus cheese).

Cover and cool, then mix in cheese.

Assembly:

On a floured surface, roll out dough to about a 1/8" thickness.

Cut circles out of dough, I used a mason jar lid (seen in pictures below, 3 1/2 inch diameter)

Stretch out dough circle.

Place 1-2 tablespoons of the filling (I used a small cookie scooper) onto the dough circle.

Flatten filling

Fold over dough and pinch the edges together, if the edges aren't adhering, moisten your finger with water and run along the crescent to help dough seal. (I found that it was easier to seal the perogies if I placed the filling on the side of the dough which had been touching the counter).

Wa-la! Place finished perogies on a lined cookie sheet.

Once you use all of the circles, add a few drops of water to moisten the remaining floured dough and re-form it into a ball. Continue to re-roll and re-cut dough until completely gone.To Freeze perogies, do so on a cookie tray (like below). Once solid, transfer into baggies.

Cook the perogies in boiling water until they float, about 3 minutes.

In a buttered saute pan, brown both sides of the boiled perogi.

New family tradition? I think so! More work but WAY better than
Mrs. T's and just like great grandma used to make, I'm sure.

Yield: about 3 1/2 dozen

Dough:
2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup melted butter (1/2 a stick)
1 egg
1/2 cup sour cream

1. In a large bowl combine flour and salt. In a separate bowl mix melted butter, egg, and sour cream. 
2. Create a small well in the middle of the flour and stir in the butter mixture using a spoon or your hands. Knead the dough until smooth and thoroughly combined (5-7 minutes). 
3. Cover and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Cheddar Onion Filling:
3 medium potatoes, peeled and boiled until soft
2 tablespoons butter

½ onion (finely diced)
1/2 cup sour cream
1 cup shredded cheddar

Salt and pepper to taste

1. Melt the butter in a sauté pan, add diced onions and cook until lightly brown. 
2. Using a mixer, blend the cooked potatoes, cooked onions and butter, sour cream, salt, and pepper until relatively lump-free. 
3. Allow to cool fully (about 30 minutes in the refrigerator) before mixing in the cheese.

Assembly: See step-by-step photos above.

Optional: serve with sour cream

Recipe adapted from here

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