Apple Cider Cupcakes filled with Fuyu Persimmon Curd and frosted with Fuyu Persimmon Swiss Meringue Buttercream

Willowbird Baking Challenge #4. Filled cupcakes with a "Fall" Theme

Apple Cider. Persmimmons. Yup just add in pumpkin and thats a trifecta of fall flavors. I love the word trifecta. Yes I am a dork. And these don't have pumpkin in them. I took a break from pumpkin. For maybe a day.

 I couldn't have picked a more hectic week to do a more involved than normal cupcake. Last weekend I participated in a fitness and health workshop that a good friend of mine put on and she asked me to be there for moral support etc. WOW What a weekend. Inspiration and Perspiration was the name of it and not only did we get in some great workouts, but we learned a lot about each other, and life, and being happy finding our meaning and purpose. Definitely inspiring, makes me want to make this little blog a success even more now.

Then from Monday-Wednesday I was in an online conference called, OnlineBlogCon.com. All about food blogging from getting started with a blog, how to make pin worthy pictures, to utilizing social media and working with advertisers. I learned SO MUCH my head is spinning. So here I am inspired and a little sore from my workouts and incredibly motivated to make this blog awesome. Just you wait and see.

Ok. Back to the challenge. Julie had this week be a filled cupcake and wanted fall themed. Well I had seen persimmons at our farmers market the week before so we picked some up this week. We also took our kids to a local orchard, I know right? And apple orchard in Vegas? But there is one here, there actually are several, and we went apple picking, got a bunch of veggies actually and some apple cider. So I knew I wanted to make a cupcake with persimmon curd filling, but I wanted more than just a vanilla cake. So I decided on an apple cider cupcake. And persimmon buttercream of course.

I use an apple corer for cutting out the middle of the cupcake instead of a piping bag with a tip and shoving into the cupcake because I have totally used too much pressure and blown out the bottom of cupcakes before. Oops

So good. I love filled cupcakes. Its like a secret middle since one doesn't normally expect a cupcake to have a filling

The curd makes for a really good filling, not too sweet and the apple and persimmon flavors really complement each other well.

Apple Cider Cupcakes filled with Fuyu Persimmon Curd and frosted with Fuyu Persimmon Swiss Meringue Buttercream

Yield: 16 cupcakes

Prep time 45 min (and up to one day for chilling the curd)

Bake time 15 min

Total time plus cooling and assembly: 90 min (and up to one day for curd)

Ingredients for Curd

2 Fuyu Persimmons, washed, stem and leaves cut off, quartered

1 tsp. lemon zest

2 tbsp. lemon juice

3 egg yolks

1 whole egg

1/2c plus 2 tbsp. sugar

¼ tsp. salt

4 tbsp. cold butter, cubed

Ingredients for cupcakes

1 ¾ c all-purpose flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. apple pie spice

½ tsp. cinnamon

¼ tsp. salt

1 stick butter, melted and cooled

¾ c sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

2 large eggs (room temp)

¼ c apple sauce

1 c fresh apple cider, room temp

Ingredients for buttercream

4 egg whites

¾ cup granulated sugar

3 sticks butter

1/4 c persimmon puree (leftover from the puree made for the curd)

¼ c persimmon curd

Directions for Curd

Puree the persimmons with the lemon zest and juice until smooth. Set aside ¼ c for the buttercream.  Pour in to a medium saucepan, set aside

In the top pot of a double boiler or in a bowl set over, but not touching, a pan of simmering water, whisk together the egg yolks, whole egg, sugar and salt. Whisk until thickened and smooth, about 5-6 min. Remove from heat and stir into the saucepan with the persimmon puree. Place pan on stove and heat on medium, stirring until thickened about 4-5min. Slowly add in the cold butter cubes and stir again another 4 min. Remove from heat. Pour into a glass bowl and press plastic wrap down on the top of the curd. Refrigerate until cold and set. Chilling overnight is best

Directions for the cupcakes:                                                                                                 

Preheat oven to 350. Line standard muffin pans with paper liners.

Combine flour, baking powder, salt and spices in a small bowl, whisk and set aside. In bowl of a stand mixer combine sugar and melted butter; add in eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add the apple sauce and vanilla and mix again, scraping down sides if needed. Alternate adding in the flour and apple cider beginning and ending with the flour. Once all is combined mix another 30 seconds. Don’t over mix. Divide batter amongst the muffin tins, filling each up about 2/3-3/34 of the way full. Bake for 15 min or until a toothpick comes out clean, or the tops bounce back when pressed down lightly.  Cool in the pan for 5 minutes, cool completely on a wire rack

Directions for the buttercream:

Set a pan of water on the stove and heat to a simmer. In a bowl of a stand mixer combine the egg whites, sugar and salt and whisk over simmering water until the mixture reaches 160 deg f. Once it reaches 160 deg f immediately remove from heat and set bowl back on stand mixer. Using the whisk attachment slowly raise the speed to high and beat until the bowl is cool to the touch and the mixture is thick and white ( think marshmallow fluff). You can either keep the whisk attachment on or switch to the paddle at this point. On medium speed add the butter in one tbsp. at a time until it’s all the butter is in, the frosting may look soupy but don’t worry it will come together.  Slowly raise the speed back up to high and whip until it thickens and you hear and see a difference in texture.  Scrape down the sides as necessary. Add in the persimmon puree and curd and mix on low until it’s all mixed in, if it gets soupy looking again just mix on medium high to get it back to the right texture.

Assembly of Cupcakes:

Use an apple corer to take out a piece of the cupcake then fill with about a tablespoon of curd.  Instead of the apple corer method, using a piping bag and a long piping tip and injecting the cupcakes with the filling is fine. I have blown out through the bottom of cupcakes before doing it that way. So either way is fine. Just be careful not to use too much pressure. When I use the apple core technique I replace back a small bit of the core I took out on top of the filling so it’s easier to frost.

Once they are all filled, frost the tops with a big swirl of buttercream and drizzle more puree on top. I used a basic pastry bag and a 1M open star tip. Any bag or piping tip would work, or you can just use a spatula.

These are best eaten at room temp, if chilled set out until they are room temp before serving. 

 Persimmon Curd from The San Francisco Examiner. The rest of the recipes are Pineapple and Coconut originals or adapted from recipes I already have created.

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Willowbird Baking Challenge #3 Filled Cookies

  Filled Sachertorte Cookies

Willowbird Baking's Challenge #3 is for filled cookie. Think of  a cookie that has a surprise middle or something that isn't a usual filling, say an oreo like these from Picky Palate. This was Julie's inspiration for this challenge. I had two ideas in mind. One was for a filled snickerdoodle and the other was to take a cookie that my mom makes at Christmastime and instead of it being a thumbprint type cookie, I turned it into a filled cookie. She makes a Sachertorte cookie, a chocolate butter cookie with cherry preserves and melted chocolate drizzled over the top. They are a family favorite. I prefer them frozen. I know. I'm weird. I chose this one because I found a lot of recipes similar to the filled snickerdoodle one, and I wanted to do something a little different. Although I may do the other one soon. No one has made exactly what I was planning. Yet.

Making these filled was a bit of a challenge since its not normally a solid, So I had to work in stages of chilling and layering. Chocolate dipping a cherry is one thing, but chocolate dipping cherry preserves is a whole 'nother animal. ha  Once I had them filled these puppies were BIG. I got a dozen out of my batch of dough. I think my mom's original recipe makes like 4 dozen ha ha.

I could only fit 6 on my baking sheet at a time. I can normally bake a dozen cookies easily on these sheets. I'm telling you these were BIG.

A lot of the sugar got baked in. I am thinking if I do these again I may roll in turbinado sugar, a more coarse sugar, just because I like the look and the crunch of the coarser sugar.

I was kind of bummed that the filling wasn't pronounced as I thought it would be. The chocolate didn't melt into the cookie as it baked, I just was having a hard time getting it to show up on pics. These taste really good, but don't photograph all that well.

Still a really fun challenge to participate in. Thanks again Julie!! This was a challenging one for sure, can't wait to see what's next!

Filled Sachertorte cookies

Ingredients:

Cookies:

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, room temp

3/4c sugar

1 large egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 2/3 c all purpose flour

1/3c cocoa powder

Pinch salt

Granulated sugar for rolling cookies in a small bowl

Filling:

1 jar cherry preserves (the kind with whole cherries in it)

1 12 oz bag semi-sweet chocolate chips

3 tbsp shortening, butter or vegetable oil

Directions:

For the Filling

Preheat oven to 325 Deg F. Prepare a baking sheet with either parchment paper or a silicon bake mat.

Prepare the filing.  Melt the chocolate chips with shortening (or butter or oil) in a microwave safe bowl in 30 second intervals and stir until melted, about 2 min.  Let cool a few minutes. Prepare a baking sheet with wax paper. Spoon out a small circle of chocolate and chill in freezer for a minute to set up. Then spoon a cherry from the preserves with a little of the jam from the jar on top of the chocolate. Chill in freezer again another minute to set up, or let them freeze solid. Then top with more chocolate to cover, or if the preserves are frozen you can dip to cover them. I found that once there was a little chocolate covering them when frozen they were easier to dip. Just make sure no preserves are leaking out.  Store in freezer on the wax paper covered sheet until ready.

For the Cookies:

Sift together the flour, cocoa powder and salt in a small bowl and set aside.  Using a stand or a hand held mixer, cream the butter and sugar mix well, add egg and vanilla. Slowly add the flour mixture and mix on low until just combined.

Scoop out two separate tablespoons of dough and roll into balls. Make an indent in the middles with your thumb, place one of the chocolate covered cherry preserves pieces into the indent of one piece of dough, and cover with the other, pressing the sides to close the seam. Roll into a ball. Place the ball into the bowl of sugar and gently roll until covered. Repeat for remaining cookies. Place 2-3 inches apart on a baking sheet. Bake for 15-18 min. Let cool completely.  These are big cookies so I got 6 per batch I baked.

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Pumpkin Butter And Brown Sugar Ginger Poached Pear Braided Pastry with Spiced Caramel and Vanilla glazes

Julie from WillowBird Baking's Challenge #2. A braid pastry. Or as I call it, "Autumn" on a plate.

I had recently made a batch of pumpkin butter with leftover roasted sugar pie pumpkin puree I had made for a previous recipe and was trying to think of what it would go with, besides just a spoon headed straight for my mouth. When I saw a baking challenge posted on twitter from Julie at Willowbird Baking, I knew the pumpkin butter would be perfect as a filling, but I wanted something more than just that.  I had also just gotten a bag of gorgeous fresh pears in my latest CSA box this week and I thought the combo of the pumpkin and pear would go awesome together in a pastry. I didn't want to just slice up the pears and add them in, I wanted to give more depth of flavor, so they were poached with brown sugar, fresh ginger and cinnamon stick. I then went a step further and reduced the poaching liquid and made the spiced caramel glaze with it. My family gave me rave reviews and my 8 year old nephew even asked for seconds. My husband took fourths. And didn't gain an ounce. Jerk. I mean I love you honey! ha ha

I had googled "Braid pastry" for ideas on photographing the pastry and I must have read one too many recipes because I actually did two steps, wait three, that weren't part of Julie's original recipe, but part of who knows what recipe. And because I made a TON of filling, I made two pastries. And I still have leftover filling. I have more plans for that pumpkin butter. Yes I do. The second pastry followed her braid dough recipe to a T. They both came out slightly different, but both really good.

My first braid I had added 2 tbsp of sugar into the dough, I rolled it to about 12 x 16 inches and I did an egg wash on the braid before I baked it. Julie's original recipe called for no sugar, roll to 8x12 inches and no egg wash. Can't even tell you why I did what I did, but honestly, we liked the first braid better than the second. The smaller on was a lot thicker and seemed doughier. It also didn't look at all like Julie's, hers seems thinner. So I am thinking I may have messed something up. But we liked the thinner rolled dough and the extra touch of sweetness a little better.

I had also had an interesting time trying to photograph these. We got some crazy wicked thunderstorms the other night starting at 1 am, and early am there was good light in one room but it was fading quickly as a new storm was rolling in at 8 am. So I was frantically trying to set up, take pics, trying different angles etc. At one point I kicked over my cup of coffee I had forgotten I had set behind me instead of back up on the window sill, oops! And then the room was dark. I contemplated using lighting like a strobe light for pics, but it was too unpredictable so I waited for a cloud break to take more pics. The sky really made for interesting lighting in the room I was shooting in and I ended up taking 176 pics. Mostly because I couldn't tell which ones were blurry through my camera's view finder. I can't believe I narrowed it down to about 8 pics that I deemed blog worthy.

This was my first time making a pastry like this. This was a lot less intimidating than making my own puff pastry dough like a traditional Danish Braid. I still want to try that one of these days, mostly because I want to try making croissants. Filled with nutella of course. Duh.

Seriously so good.

Pumpkin Butter, Brown Sugar Poached Pear Braid Pastry with Spiced Caramel and Vanilla Glazes.

Yield: One Pastry, 6-8 servings
Prep Time :Approx 70 min
Total Time: 95 min

A delicious, light, not too sweet pastry that tastes like "Autumn" in each sweet bite. Excellent with a hot cup of coffee.

Note: Several of the steps can be made ahead of time so on assembly and bake day the actual prep is considerably less.

Ingredients:

Dough:
2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter
3 ounces best quality cream cheese
1/2 cup milk, minus 1/2 teaspoon

2 tbsp granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 egg

1tbsp water

Pumpkin Butter:
1 can (15 oz) or 2 cups organic pumpkin puree (not pie filling)

1 tbsp honey

¼  c brown sugar

1 tsp lemon zest

1 tsp lemon juice

½ tsp cinnamon

½ tsp ginger

½ tsp freshly grated nutmeg

Poached Pears:

4 firm but ripe bosc pears

1 cinnamon stick

2 inch knob of fresh ginger peeled and sliced into ¼ inch pieces

3 cups water

1 C packed brown sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

Spiced Caramel Glaze:

2 C of the poaching liquid from pears

¼ C brown sugar

½ tsp cinnamon

1 tbsp butter

3 tbsp heavy cream

Pinch sea salt

Vanilla Glaze:
2/3 cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon milk
1/4 teaspoon vanilla

Directions:

Pumpkin Butter:

Combine all in pan and cook over low heat for 5- 10 min or until slightly thickened. Taste and add more seasonings if desired. This can be made a few days ahead of time. Just thaw to room temp before using

Poached Pears:

Peel, remove cores and slice pears into quarters.

Combine the rest of the ingredients in a medium high sided sauce pan and stir over medium low heat to dissolve sugar. Add the pears to the pan and cover with a disk of parchment paper with a small hole cut in the middle. This way the pears stay covered in liquid but steam can still escape.

Simmer for 15 minutes until cooked through. Let cool in pan 5-10 min. 

If using same day remove pears and thinly slice each pear quarter. Each braid uses a little over 1 whole pear, you can use more if desired.

Reserve 2 cups of the sauce to make the glaze or refrigerate the pears in a covered bowl with the poaching liquid until ready to use. There will be leftover pears, they are great served over ice cream with the caramel glaze drizzled over them

Braid Dough:
NOTE: To prepare this braid in advance, complete all steps and assemble the braid but do not bake. Cover the braid on its parchment lined baking sheet with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. Set out in the morning as you preheat the oven and then bake as usual. The dough can also be made ahead of time and refrigerated. Just thaw to room temp and continue at the step where you roll it out to fill it.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

In the bowl of a food processor, mix the flour, baking powder, and salt. Add the cream cheese and butter into the flour mixture and pulse to cut the fat into the flour (about 6-10 pulses). Add the milk and vanilla extract and blend into a loose dough.

Turn the dough onto a floured surface and knead VERY LIGHTLY for 4-5 strokes. (NOTE: This is the step at which you can ruin the braid. If you overwork the dough, the pastry will be tough. Just gather the dough together and don’t worry about making it smooth. It will still look a little rough. That’s perfect.)

Between two sheets of waxed paper, roll the dough to a 12x16-inch rectangle. Turn dough out onto a piece of parchment paper, place on a baking sheet and remove the waxed paper. Measure and mark the dough lengthwise into thirds. Spread pumpkin butter down the middle third of the dough, keeping it about ½ inch from the mark on both sides. Top with the thinly sliced poached pears in a single layer. Make slight diagonal cuts at 1-inch intervals on each the long sides. Do not cut into the center filled area. Fold strips, first one from one side and then one from the other side in a rotating fashion, over the filling. It will now resemble a braid.

Whisk the egg and 1 tbsp water together in a small bowl. Using a pastry brush lightly brush the egg wash on top of the pastry. Don’t use it all just use enough to cover the top of the pastry.

Bake in a 425° oven for 15-18 minutes, until the dough is cooked through and the top is lightly browned.

Cool for 5 min and using the parchment paper slide the braid onto a serving platter.

Caramel glaze:

Pour 2 cups of the remaining poaching liquid in a sauce pan, add  the brown sugar and butter and cook over medium heat until it’s reduced by about half, and starting to turn darker brown and bubble.

Stir often and remove from heat once it’s starting to get thick. Quickly pour in the heavy cream and stir quickly until combined. Return to medium heat and stir until it starts to bubble again and starts to smell like caramel, being careful not to burn it. Remove from heat and add in salt and stir again.

Drizzle over braid with a spoon while glaze and braid are still warm. If not using right away just reheat it until it’s a thinner consistency as it will thicken as it cools.

Vanilla Glaze:

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and stir until it is all mixed together. Drizzle over the braid with a spoon while it’s still warm

I'm just glad I found enough pictures to use in the post considering my challenge with lighting due to the storm because my family ate the entire thing in about 10 minutes and I would have had to make a whole new one just for pics.

Braid dough slightly adapted from WillowBird Baking. The rest are Pineapple And Coconut Recipes.

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