Yellow cupcakes with strawberry buttercream, and a ghoulish surprise

Do you ever have those times, when you go to the store to buy ingredients you always see there, and that one time that you actually need it, it's not there?  Such was the case for me with freeze dried strawberries.  Had I had the extra time, I would've gone to Trader Joe's, but I digress...Eventually, I got my hands on some just in time for these cupcakes!

But then in honor of Halloween, I went one step further, making a strawberry syrup to drizzle on top. I thought it would look spookily like blood!  You can skip the syrup entirely, and top them instead with a fresh or freeze dried strawberry slice for the other 11 months of the year.

Ghoulish Strawberry Halloween Cupcakes

I started these cupcakes with a half batch of the best yellow cupcakes ever.

Strawberry Buttercream
From Sally's Baking Addiction

Ingredients:

1 cup freeze dried strawberries
1 cup unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
4 cups confectioners' sugar
3 Tbsp heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
Salt, to taste (I didn't feel that it was needed, so I skipped it)

Directions:

Using a blender or food processor, process the freeze-dried strawberries into a fine powder.
You should have about a 1/2 cup.
Set aside.

Using a stand mixer with the paddle attachment or a handheld mixer, beat the butter on medium speed until creamy, about 2 minutes.
With the mixer on low, add the confectioner's sugar, strawberry powder, cream, and vanilla.
Increase to high speed and beat for 3 full minutes.
If it's too runny or thin, add an additional 1/4 cup of powdered sugar, and if too thick add 1 more Tbsp of cream.
Add a pinch of salt if the frosting is too sweet.
Frost cupcakes as desired.

Top with strawberry sauce (below) and bone sprinkles, if desired.

Strawberry Sauce
From The Pioneer Woman

Ingredients:

2 pounds of strawberries, hulled (I used frozen, unsweetened strawberries, since it's October, and they're super expensive right now)
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 lemon, juiced (I didn't have lemon, so I used 1/4 cup water)
A couple drops of red food coloring (optional) -- I used it, since I wanted mine to look "bloody" for these cupcakes

Directions:

Place all of the ingredients (except the food coloring, if using) in a medium sauce pan over medium-high heat.
Bring to a gentle boil, stirring constantly.
Allow the strawberries to cook for a good 5 minutes, or until the strawberries are very soft (FYI, frozen strawberries take longer than 5 minutes).
Turn off the heat ans use a potato masher to completely smush them to a pureed consistency (I used an immersion blender -- super easy!).

Pour the mixture through a fine mesh strainer placed over a bowl.
Use a spoon to stir the mixture so the liquid is forced through.
Continue until most of the liquid is in the bowl.
Set aside the pulp, in case you want to add some back into the finished sauce (I skipped this part, since I wanted mine to be super thin for these cupcakes, but would add it in in the future for, say, an ice cream topping).

Skim as much foam off of the sauce as you can.
Pour the skimmed sauce back into the same saucepan and boil again for 3 minutes over medium-high heat.
This is where I added the food coloring.
Skim any more foam that has formed on the surface.
Allow the sauce to cool slightly before pouring it into a pitcher or jar.
Add back a little of the pulp into the sauce if you like the texture, or just leave it plain.

Serve warm over vanilla ice cream, or refrigerate it to thicken and serve it cold.  You can also reheat the sauce after refrigerating.

Or drizzle over strawberry cupcakes for a ghoulish looking treat!

Assemble the cupcakes

Allow the cupcakes to cool.

Pipe the strawberry icing onto the cupcakes.  I used a star-like tip (Ateco 885), since I wanted grooves for the sauce to run through.

Using a piping bag or squeeze bottle, apply the strawberry sauce to the tops of the cupcakes and allow it to run down the grooves in the icing.

Top with small bone sprinkles, if desired.

Additionally, if not Halloween, you can skip the bone sprinkles or the strawberry sauce (but really, why would you?  It's soooo goood!), and instead use a wedge or slice of fresh strawberry, a small strawberry, or a slice of freeze dried strawberry.  

Bolognese sauce

I know, I know.  This is clearly not baked nor is it something sweet (most of the things on Julie Bakes are at least 1 if not both of those things), but seeing as I baked two things yesterday, and have another on the agenda for today, I needed to mix things up a little.  Plus, B and I have been bringing in a lot lately (busy schedules, little time to cook), and I wanted to make a home cooked meal for us.  So I had the day off today, I got my exercise in this morning, and B was at work all day, so I set out to make something tasty.

One of the things we tend to pick up is the fusilli Bolognese from a local restaurant -- at the recommendation of one of B's friends -- and it's delicious.  So I googled Bolognese recipes and the first one that came up was Marcella Hazan's recipe.  I've seen her recipes featured on a lot of the foodie sites that I look at, and so I went right with that one, because if people rave about her recipes...well, you get it.  Her tomato sauce (which I haven't made yet), it supposed to be amazing!

This recipe is time intensive, but in the best way possible.  Cooking down the milk before adding in the wine, and cooking that down as well, and finally adding the tomatoes makes the sauce rich and delicious.  The final cooking time -- a minimum of 3 hours! -- makes the sauce tasty and full of flavor.

In the future I'd probably adjust things a little (less wine, more tomatoes), but this sauce is a keeper!  It would probably be great for a dinner party, since the last 3 hours of cooking are mostly watching and don't involve a lot of hands-on time.

Marcella Hazan's Bolognese Sauce
Found on the NY Times website

Ingredients:

1 Tbsp vegetable oil (I used olive oil, since we didn't have vegetable oil)
3 Tbsp butter, plus 1 Tbsp for tossing the pasta
1/2 cup chopped onion
2/3 cup chopped celery
2/3 cup chopped carrot
3/4 pound ground beef chuck (or you can use 1 part pork (1/4 pound) to 2 parts beef (1/2 pound)).  I used generic ground beef'
Salt
Black pepper, ground fresh from the mill (we don't have a pepper mill -- something to register for, perhaps?! -- so I used regular ground pepper)
1 cup whole milk
Whole nutmeg (I used already ground nutmeg, which B and I don't particularly love, so I used about 1/16 tsp)
1 cup dry white wine
1 1/2 cups canned imported Italia plum tomatoes, cut up, with their juice

1 1/4 to 1 1/2 pounds pasta
Freshly grated parmigiana-reggiano cheese, at the table

Directions:

Put the oil, butter, and chopped onion in the pot.
Turn the heat on to medium.
Cook and stir the onion until it has become translucent.
Add the celery and carrot.
Cook for about 2 minutes, stirring vegetables to coat them well.

Add the ground beef, a large pinch of salt, and a few grindings of pepper.
Crumble the meat with a fork.
Stir well and cook until the beef has lots it's raw, red color.

Add milk and let it simmer gently, stirring frequently, until it has bubbled away completely.
Add a tiny grating -- about 1/8 tsp (I used half of that) -- of nutmeg.
Stir.

Add the wine.
Let it simmer until it has evaporated.
I added a pinch of salt and some pepper here to taste.
Add the tomatoes and stir thoroughly to coat all the ingredients well.
When the tomatoes begin to bubble, turn the heat down so that the sauce cooks at the laziest of simmers, with just an intermittent bubble breaking through the surface.

Cook, uncovered, for 3 hour or more, stirring from time to time.
While the sauce is cooking, you are likely to see that it begins to dry out and the fat separates from the meat.
To keep it from sticking, add 1/2 cup of water whenever necessary (I added 1/4 cup water after about 40 minutes).
At the end, however, no water at all must be left and the fat must separate from the sauce.
Taste and correct for salt.

Toss the sauce with the cooked, drained pasta, adding the tablespoon of butter.
Serve with freshly grated parmesan cheese on the side.

Salted caramel sauce

I just made the most delicious salted caramel sauce.  Granted it was part of another recipe that I'm working on now, but it's just so tasty, and has so many uses, that I decided it needed it's own post (truth be told, so did the original blogger, so I'm not that far off).

Hell, this would probably go really well on ice cream, maybe even with some of that coffee syrup I made earlier today.  Oh man, I might be onto something!  A caramel macchiato ice cream sundae?  How awesome would that be?!

I didn't have fancy salt at home, so I used regular salt, but cut down on the amount.  It came out perfectly salty and sweet and gooey and awesome!  I keep going back into the kitchen to taste a spoonful, and I'm not a huge caramel fan.  Although B is, and when he gets home from work today, I think he might just love me a little bit more ;-)

I actually cut the recipe in half because I only needed it for a cupcake recipe, but I'm really regretting that now...

Homemade Salted Caramel Sauce
From Brown Eyed Baker

Ingredients:

2 cups granulated sugar
12 Tbsp unsalted butter, at room temperature, cut into pieces
1 cup heavy cream, at room temperature (oops....mine was cold)
1 Tbsp fleur de sel (or any other flaky sea salt) -- I didn't have, so I used regular salt, but went down to 2 tsp

Directions:

Get all of your ingredients ready and set aside -- this who recipe comes together quickly and a few seconds can be the difference between heavenly salted caramel sauce and a burnt mess!!

Add the sugar in an even layer over the bottom of a heavy sauce pan (make sure it can hold at least 2-3 quarts).
Heat the sugar over medium-high heat, whisking it as it begins to melt.  You'll see that the sugar will begin to form clumps, but that's OK.  Keep whisking, and as it continues to cook, they will melt back down.
Stop whisking once all of the sugar has melted.
Swirl the pan occasionally while the sugar cooks.

Continue cooking until the sugar has reached a deep amber color -- this happened WAY quicker than I thought it would.  So watch.  it.  CLOSELY.  It should look almost reddish-brown, and have a slight toasted aroma.  This is the point where it can co from perfect caramel to burnt in a matter of seconds, so keep a close eye.  If you're using a instant-red thermometer, cook until the sugar reaches 350F (a good tip for beginners).

As soon as the caramel reaches 350F, add the butter all at once.  Be careful as the caramel will bubble up when the butter is added.
Whisk in the butter until it is completely melted.

Remove the pan from the heat and slowly pour in the cream.  Again, be careful because the mixture will once again bubble up ferociously.
Whisk until all of the cream has been incorporated and you have a smooth sauce.
Add the salt and whisk to incorporate.

Set the sauce aside and let cool for 10-15 minutes.
Pour into your favorite glass jar and let cool to room temperature.
You can refrigerate the sauce for up to 2 weeks.  You'll want to warm the sauce before using.