Devil's Food Nutella Cupcakes

This is my favorite cupcake, hands down! Not only is it tasty, I just love how the buttercream looks on the cupcake. I added chocolate morsels to the tops to make it interesting to look at.

I am not a fan of Nutella… or should I say ‘was not” a fan. I made this buttercream in class and was very hesitant to try it. Once I did, I swear I could have eaten the whole bowl! It was so light and fluffy and the flavor was delicious!

 The cupcake is a basic devil’s food cake recipe. To add more depth, you could always add miniature chocolate chips to the batter. For the buttercream, I did it in the Italian meringue style. That is, boiling the sugar and water to 243 degrees, basically making syrup, and that pouring it slowly into the already beaten egg whites (which should be at a stiff peak). This process can be dangerous, due to the possibility of being burned by the very hot syrup. But once mastered THE best buttercream ever!

 If you don’t want to try this type of buttercream, then use the common buttercream method. Beat the egg white to a frothy consistency, then and the sugar 1-2 tablespoons at a time. Once stiff firm peaks have been reached, add the butter a couple of pieces at a time. Once added, the mixture will have an appearance of a velvety mayonnaise. Add the Nutella and blend well. Once done, refrigerate until needed. Again, I prefer the Italian style buttercream. It took me a while to master it, but definitely worth the effort!

 See the recipe tab for the printable recipe.

Strawberry Soufflé

This soufflé was easy to make and really good. I’ve never made a soufflé before and wanted to try my hand at it.

 I love the movie Sabrina, featuring Audrey Hepburn. There is a very specific scene in which she is in France at a cooking school and she was tasked in making a soufflé. As her instructor was going up the line critiquing the student’s soufflés, Sabrina was standing there and her soufflé caved in… FAIL! This scene scared me away from every trying to make one, as they ARE very delicate and take a light touch to make.

 The key to making a soufflé is, I think, is in the whipped egg whites. I use room temperature eggs, and whip them to a stiff firm peak. They were glossy in appearance and held their shape. It takes practice to know when you are done whipping. If the egg whites break, thus are over-whipped . . . just start over. No problem! Mistakes happen, believe me, they happen a lot, but baking and cooking is all about trial and error and learning from those errors!

 I also worked with plating and setting for the pictures. I took over 150 pictures and only had a handful that turned out almost perfect. I know I have to work on the lighting and background, but I was happy with them. See the recipe tab for the printable recipe.

Browned-Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

I am obviously a HUGE fan of cooking show, cook books, and cooking magazine. On PBS, I watch every Saturday America’s Test Kitchen, with host Chris Kimball. It took me a while to get use to this show because I thought the host was a little odd. But after watching it for the past five seasons, it’s grown on me and I have learned a lot from Chris! He is a plethora of information dealing with the science behind the dish. And I love his dry sense of humor!

 I ordered the cookbook containing all the season up until 2013. It is honestly my “go to” cookbook. Every recipe in it turns out great, and it actually gives explanations on why you are using this ingredient over that. I’m a cookie lover, and the recipes for chocolate chip cookies (there are 3 in this cookbook) are fabulous. When cooking chocolate chip cookie, I have always used light brown sugar, but for this recipe I used dark brown sugar and browned the butter... what a difference it made in the flavor and texture of the cookie. I did modify some of the recipe to make it my own, and the cookies turned out fantastic.

Honestly when I put the plate out for my guests, they were gone within 30 minutes.

Go to the recipe tab to print out my version of the recipe.

The Publican Restaurant

In May, I went to a restaurant called The Publican in downtown Chicago. To this day I'm still thinking about the meal my friend Tina and I had. Everything we ordered, we split…just so we could try a lot. It was funny because as the servers were bringing food to other tables, Tina and I would watch with envy as the plates were put on the table. A couple of times we even grabbed the server and asked “what it was he just served that table” and would then order it ourselves. In all we ordered 5 plates of food, including dessert, and a basket of their famous fries with Aioli dipping sauce! So good.

The dessert was my favorite: Pavlova...whipped cream, rhubarb marmalade, meringue, green strawberries, ginger beer, and rhubarb frozen yogurt

If you are in Chicago, this is a restaurant to visit!     http://thepublicanrestaurant.com


A couple of pictures of the dishes I ate.



Fries with aioli sauce



Forest Mushroom dish



Fried Green Tomatoes



Sausage and Peppers



Tilapia dish

Blueberry Cupcake with Swirled Cream Cheese Frosting

This cupcake is a real crowd pleaser. I found it in a 2012 issue of Martha Stewart Living and fell in love. I’ve made it couple of times and it always comes out.

What I love most about it is the different textures going on it this beautiful cupcake. You have the fluffy cake mixed with sweet blueberries and its topped with a crunchy brown sugar mix, then topped with a smooth cream cheese frosting with swirls of blueberry jam. Yum!

Being a novice food photographer, I’ve really been practicing my photography and editing skills. Hope you enjoy!

~For the recipe, see the "recipe tab"

The crumb topping- dark brown sugar, granulated sugar, and cinnamon

Freshly washed blueberries

Press the crumbs on top of the batter

Just out of the oven

Cream cheese frosting with a side of blueberry jam

Funfetti Cake Balls

This was my first attempt at doing cakes pops. I looked on many sites for how-to guides and recipes, and for a lot of good information. But my cake pops didn’t take shape and soon became “Funfetti Cake Balls.” While I think the pictures turned out good, and the consistency of the cake and frosting mix was good, I had many issues with making them.

I go to Starbucks a couple of times a week and I have to say that their Birthday Cake Pops are delicious. So I figured, being almost done with culinary school and “thinking” I had the skills to easily replicate this particular cake pop, I’d try making them on the weekend.

Oh wow was I wrong. I made a funfetti cake, let it cool and added the whipped vanilla frosting. This turned out really good. But then everything went down hill. I scaled out and shaped the cake balls and inserted the lollipop stick and stuck them in the refrigerator for an hour. Then I melted the Wilton Pink Candy Melts, but it was soooo thick, so I followed the advice on one of the sites I found and added some oil to thin it out. It seemed to work…. “seemed” being the magic word. When I dipped my cake pops in the melts, the cake ball got stuck in it and the sticks came out. Now this presented a problem, how do I get the cake ball out? I used my freshly washed finger and tried to pick it out, but I ended up burning them since the melts were hot. Then came the fork and spoon and let me just say, it was not a pretty site! So after struggling for 30 minutes, my cake pops turn into messy looking cake balls. But I have to say, they really did taste good!

The box mix and the frosting I used.




The finished cake mixed with the frosting



Shaped cake balls



Finished product

An inside look

First Post!

Welcome to my blog Sweet Taste of Sugar! This is actually my second attempt at a blog. My first one was called Culinary Bites by Lisa, but it got too expensive to keep it up, thus I did not renew it. But I like this new fresh start. Who am I… I’m a culinary student with one semester left till I get my degree. It has taken me a little longer than most students to get my degree because I work a full time job at a doctor’s office as a supervisor and go to culinary school at night. In school you are either a culinary chef or you are baker. I love to do both. And this is what this blog with be about, both baking and cooking (mostly baking though, but I will throw in some great cooking recipes). I will share my school, travel, and restaurant experience with you as well as the recipes I do at home, both good and bad ones. I am also a novice self-taught photographer, though I think I will eventually take a class to help me get better. I really hope you enjoy this blog and feel free to leave your comments!