Peppermint marshmallows

I've said it before, and I'll say it again.  Nothing compares to a homemade marshmallow!  I used to be afraid of them, afraid to make them that is, until I came across one recipe.  One life altering recipe.  And you know what happened the other day when I went to get it?  It had disappeared -- the original blog where I found it gave me one of those error messages.  But then I realized something -- it's a good thing I type out all the recipes that I make on the blog (P.S. as of this morning the original site was back up and running....phew!).

Here's the thing.  This recipe is INSANELY easy.  No candy thermometer.  Just "boil for one minute."  I kid you not.  So.  Easy!

And adaptable.  Like these peppermint marshmallows I made last night.  I took a plain vanilla marshmallow recipe and made it a red-swirled fluffy peppermint marshmallow.  I even piped a little bit of the leftovers into a mini ice cream cone and made a super cute treat.  But I digress....fluffy pepperminty marshmallow pillows of deliciousness.  Make yourself a cup of hot cocoa and dig in!

Peppermint Marshmallows
Adapted by yours truly from this recipe

Ingredients:

1 cup of water, divided
3 envelopes unflavored powdered gelatin (3 Tbsp + 1.5 Tbsp)
2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1/2 tsp fine salt
1 tsp peppermint extract (I used an organic peppermint oil that I had on hand)
5 - 10 drops red food coloring

3/4 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup corn starch

Directions:

Spray a 9x9" pan with cooking spray.
Line with parchment paper.

In a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, pour in 1/2 cup water.
Sprinkle gelatin on top.
Let stand.

In a medium saucepan over high heat, stir together the sugar, corn syrup, salt, and remaining cup of water.
Stir until sugar dissolves and mixture begins to boil.
Stop stirring and once mixture comes to a rolling boil, continue boiling for 1 minute.
Remove from heat.
Carefully pour mixture into a 2-cup measuring cup.

Turn the mixer to low.
Mix the gelatin to loosen a bit.
Very slowly and carefully add the hot mixture by pouring it gently down the side of the bowl.
Continue to mix on low until all the sugar mixture is added.

Turn the mixer to high.
Whip the mixture for 10-12 minutes until the marshmallow batter almost triples in size and becomes very thick.
If you have a smaller mixer bowl, you may need to scrape down the sides of the bowl frequently to avoid the batter overflowing.
Stop the mixer.
Add the peppermint.
Whip briefly to combine.
Taste the mixture -- if it's not minty enough for your taste, continue adding peppermint, 1/4 tsp at a time, until you reach the level of mintiness that you want.

If you want yours to look like mine, add 5 drops of red food coloring over the top of the mixture in different places.
Turn the mixer on for a few seconds to incorporate the coloring.
It will look pink but still have some sections that are white.

Transfer the mixture to the prepared pan.  I used a rubber spatula for this.
Use the spatula or a bench scraper to spread the marshmallow evenly in the pan, pushing it down into the corners.
Work quickly, as the marshmallow becomes more difficult to manipulate as it begins to set.

Drop 1 drop of red food coloring in each of the corners and one in the center.  
Using a knife, or even your finger, quickly swirl the red drops into the marshmallow batter to get awesome red swirls (seen above).

Spray a sheet of plastic wrap liberally with cooking spray and lay it across the top of the marshmallows, sprayed side down.
Using your fingers, smooth the plastic wrap on top of the marshmallows to seal it smoothly and tightly against the mixture.

Leave the marshmallows to set at room temperature for at least 3 hours (can sit overnight).
They'll be too sticky and soft to cut if you try too soon.

Mix together the corn starch and powdered sugar.
Sprinkle some liberally onto a cutting board.
Remove the plastic wrap and flip the marshmallows onto the prepared board.
Rub more powdered sugar-corn starch mixture on top of the slab of marshmallow.

Using a pizza cutter or large knife, cut the slab into 1 x 1 inch squares.
Roll each in the powdered sugar-corn starch mixture.
Shake off excess coating and allow to dry slightly before packaging them up.

I think they're super cute tied up in a bag with a mini candy cane attached.  But that's just me ;-)

Mint chocolate chip buttercream (on dark chocolate cupcakes)

Let's face it, I like to bake.  Sometimes, I bake things just to bake them, with no actual event to attend or people to serve it to.  Other times I find a reason to bake...and yet sometimes there's an event scheduled and a reason to bake and so I bake.  This was one of those times!

My parent's neighbor wrote a book and she threw a party for the book's launch (I was one of the fortunate people to have read it before it was released).  Naturally, I offered to bake.  Originally, I was going to go with a theme -- nail polish bottle cookies (the book is called "Mani-Pedi STAT") -- but then I found out that one of her friends had beat me to it and had already offered to make those.  So instead I went with mini cupcakes.  A variety of mini cupcakes, to be exact.

I had grand plans.  It's the overachiever in me.  I was going to make 5 different kinds of mini cupcakes -- seriously, have I mentioned how overzealous I am sometimes? -- but that fell by the wayside.  Instead, I simply went with dark chocolate mini cupcakes.  Then, I mixed them up with the icings.....Mint chocolate chip buttercream and Oreo icing.  For the Oreo cupcakes, click here for a link to the cupcakes, and here for a link to the icing.  But the new recipe was this heavenly mint chocolate chip buttercream!!  And it went oh-so-well with the dark chocolate cupcakes (same as the ones above for the Oreo cupcakes) I've been making a lot lately...they were simply amazing!!

Mint Chocolate Chip Buttercream
Icing is slightly adapted from this recipe
They go great on these dark chocolate cupcakes...

Ingredients:

3/4  cup butter, partially softened (preferable half salted and half unsalted -- I didn't have salted butter, so I just added a little pinch of salt)
1/2 tsp mint extract (I used peppermint, even though the original recipe said not too, so I just used less)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups powdered sugar
Green food coloring (I used about 5 drops) -- color to your liking
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips (The original recipe said to used finely chopped chocolate, which I might try next time, since it made the icing look more chocolate chippy [totally a real baking term, OK?])

Mini ice cream cones, for decoration.  I made mini cupcakes and the mini cones were just the right size, although I think I'd stick with mini cones even on full-sized cupcakes...

Directions:

In the bowl of an electric mixer using the paddle attachment, whip the butter on medium speed until it's light and fluffy.
Scrape down the sides and bottom often.
Blend in the extracts.
Add in the powdered sugar, first on low until it's incorporated.
Add the food coloring.
Increase mixer speed and beat until very light and fluffy; again continuing to scrape the bottom and the sides of the bowl.
Fold in chocolate chips.

Using a mini ice cream scooper or a cookie scoop (for mini cupcakes), scoop icing onto cupcakes.
(This got quite tiresome for me, so after a while, I piped it on with a large round piping tip, being sure to pile it on a little high, so that it still looked like a scoop of mint chocolate chip ice cream!)
Top each frosting scoop with an upside down mini ice cream cone.

York peppermint patty cupcakes -- Belated blog birthday post

I am the worst blog-mommy ever.  My sweet (no pun intended) little baking blog turned 3 on October 16th, and I skipped right over it.  Didn't mention it on the blog.  Nothing.  I didn't even realize that I missed it until October 29th -- nearly two weeks later!!  I am THE.  WORST.  EVER!

But the funny thing is that I baked a day or two before (this babka....it was a delayed post), and again two days later (when I made these brownies for the second time -- to rave reviews, yet again).  But neither for this momentous event.

Again, I SUCK.

Here's the thing -- I just didn't want JulieBakes to feel neglected and let it's birthday pass too long without mention, so I'm mentioning it now and am including this very, very, very belated (we're talking 17 days belated) blog birthday treat post!!!

I had actually been wanting to make this cupcake that I had come up with for a while.  I was inspired by all of those new (and not-so-new) mini candies -- unwrapped miniature candy bars in 1- or 2-bite sized pieces.  The ones that were calling to me the most were the York Peppermint Patty minis...and I wanted to make a cupcake for them.  

So my idea was to make a dark chocolate cupcakes with a white mint buttercream....and top them off with a mini York patty and a little dark chocolate drizzle....so that's exactly what I did!

I present to you the very belated "happy 3rd birthday, JulieBakes" York Peppermint Patty (dark chocolate peppermint) cupcakes!!

The dark chocolate cupcakes have become my go-to as of late....I made them first in July for B's birthday and then pretty recently for the spooky graveyard cupcakes.  They're super easy and uber chocolatey, and well, it's hard to go back to another chocolate cupcake when these are so darn delicious.  The white peppermint buttercream is completely my own recipe (albeit, when you've made enough buttercreams over time, I guess they all have a pretty basic base recipe).  The chocolate drizzle is straight from the Hershey's Special Dark Syrup bottle, but I put it into a small squeeze bottle to get a finer drizzle.  If you wanted to go completely homemade, a dark chocolate ganache would work well (which I wanted to make, but was out of cream).

York Peppermint Patty Cupcakes

Dark Chocolate Cupcakes
From Brown Eyed Baker
Makes 12 cupcakes

Ingredients:

8 Tbsp unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces
2 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped (I used semisweet since the store didn't have bittersweet.  They're basically the same thing anyway).
1/2 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder
3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp baking powder
2 large eggs
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon table salt
1/2 cup sour cream

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350F (325F if using a nonstick pan).
Line standard-sized muffin pan with cupcake liners.

Combine butter, chocolate, and cocoa in a medium heat proof bowl.
Set bowl over saucepan containing barely simmering water, and heat mixture until butter and chocolate are melted.
Whisk until smooth and combined.
(...or you could microwave the mixture at 50% powder, stirring every 30 seconds, until completely melted.  Which is exactly what I did.)
Set aside to cool until just warm to touch.

Whisk flour, baking soda, and baking powder in a small bowl to combine.

Whisk eggs in another bowl to combine.
Add sugar, vanilla, and salt until fully incorporated.
Add cooled chocolate mixture and whisk until combined.
Sift about 1/3 of the flour mixture over the chocolate mixture and whisk until combined.
Whisk in sour cream until combined.
Sift the remaining flour mixture over and whisk until batter is thick and fully incorporated.

Divide the batter evenly among the cupcake liners.
Bake until a skewer inserted into the center of the cupcakes comes out clean, about 18-20 minutes.

Cool cupcakes in muffin pan on a wire rack until they are cool enough to handle, about 15 minutes.
Place cupcakes on a wire rack.
Cool to room temperature before icing, about 30 minutes.

Peppermint Buttercream

Recipe by yours truly

Ingredients:

2 sticks of butter

3 cups of powdered sugar

Pinch of salt

1 tsp peppermint extract, or more to taste (I used 1 tsp and found it to have just the right amount of mintiness aka not TOO minty...you could always start with 1/2 tsp and then add gradually to taste)

Few drops of vanilla extract (I used about 9 drops)

I wanted my icing to be white to mimic the filling of a York Peppermint Patty.  You could always add some green food coloring if you wanted to go for the typical "green" mint.

Directions:

Beat the butter with a hand mixer or in the bowl of a stand mixer with a paddle attachment fir a few minutes until light and fluffy.

Add the powdered sugar, about 1 cup at a time.  

Make sure that the mixer is not on high speed, otherwise you'll end up wearing powdered sugar!

Once all the sugar is incorporated, increase the mixer speed.

Add the salt and the extracts, and beat until incorporated.
Add more peppermint extract, as needed, for taste (I didn't need to add any).

Other ingredients you'll need:

12 York Peppermint Patties

Dark Chocolate Syrup (or homemade ganache.....you can always use the recipe from these cupcakes)

Assemble the cupcakes

Place the icing into a piping bag fitted with a large circle tip.

Pipe icing onto cupcakes.
I did half with a spiral, and half with a big dallop of icing on top.

Place cupcakes on a papertowel/piece of wax paper/piece of foil.
Drizzle the chocolate syrup on top of cupcakes -- I went back and forth a few times in a zigzag pattern.
Top each cupcake with a York Peppermint Patty mini.

2013 - The year in review (in baked goods)

2013 was a busy year both for me personally, and for JulieBakes. 

I went to Thailand. 
JulieBakes turned two!! 
I graduated with my doctorate. 
JulieBakes reached 175 fans on Facebook.
This year, JulieBakes had a week of birthday treat posts leading up to my (33rd) birthday.
B and I celebrated a year together. 
JulieBakes had a record 23 posts in December (24 if you include this one!).
Oh, and on December 23rd was JulieBakes' 200th post!


I decided that to cap off this great year, I'd do a "Year in Review" of JulieBakes posts for 2013.  My version of a "Best of" JulieBakes, so to speak.  So I've gathered my favorite shots from the blog from 2013, categorized them my type of treat, and posted them all here for you to see in one place!

Hope you had a great 2013 -- and that you have a sweet and happy 2014! 

Love,
Julie

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