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Strawberry & Cream Cupcakes and Cake Pops

It’s Cupcake Week on Willow Bird Baking! Cupcake Capers was a 5-day summer camp I conducted last week wherein 5 middle school girls learned to bake, fill, and frost cupcakes. We eschewed pedestrian cupcake flavors in favor of creative combinations that I now get to share with you! Every day this week I’ll be posting fun memories and recipes from Cupcake Camp.

On Day 4 of Cupcake Camp, things got a little silly. I’ve talked before about the moment toward the end of the school year when teachers realize they’ve controlled their classes as long as they can, and that the powder keg of summer frenzy is about to blow. Turns out cupcake camp has that moment, too!

On Day 4, everyone went a little crazy in their own personal ways. Energetic Erica played the Carrot Song until I felt sure I was going to throw a cupcake at someone. Elbow Grease Ella decided she was going to decorate her cupcake with polka dots and then wash every bowl by hand (okay, so her particular method of going crazy happened to be awesome).

Meticulous Mary Rood and I convinced everyone to watch the YouTube video of the sneezing baby panda (no seriously, go watch it). And then there were Pistachio Peyton and Elaborate Elizabeth.

They decided to become architects.

Measuring powdered sugar can get messy. Like, whole-cups-of-powdered-sugar-spilled-on-the-counter messy. Instead of cleaning this up like ordinary children, Pistachio Peyton and Elaborate Elizabeth decided to be extraordinary. They carefully constructed a perfect block of powdered sugar that they then manipulated with a table knife into various shapes and messages. Because, you know, that’s what you do at Cupcake Camp, right?


They may have gotten a little territorial.

I finally convinced the girls to clean off the counters despite their insistence that the powdered sugar sculpture should remain as an eternal (ahem) monument to Cupcake Camp. And believe it or not, in between watching crazy YouTube videos and playing with our food, we actually made some cupcakes!

These Strawberry & Cream Cupcakes were the perfect cool, sweet treat for summer. Tender strawberry cakes were filled with easy vanilla mousse and topped with a creamy, delicious strawberry cream cheese frosting. We had leftover cupcakes, too, so can you guess what we did?

We made cake pops! We crumbled the cupcakes up and mixed them with some of the frosting, rolled them into balls, chilled them overnight, and dipped them in pink candy melts.

If you’ve ever made cake pops, you know that dipping them is the hardest part (see my video tutorial at the bottom of the recipe). I loved watching the girls develop their own dipping techniques as they got the hang of it.

Pistachio Peyton dipped her pops and then rolled them in the spoon to get full coverage. Elbow Grease Ella used the spoon to drizzle candy melts over her cake pop. Elaborate Elizabeth was a pro at turning cake pops into cake balls if they fell off of their pretzel sticks (I love using these instead of lollipop sticks) by draining them on a couple of forks.

Despite a few inevitable cake pop missteps, the campers all successfully rolled, dipped, and ate! The cake pops were a tasty addition to our cupcake picnic.

With Day 4 complete, the girls dropped off their aprons and recipe notebooks and headed home. I’m pretty sure that I went home and collapsed into a cupcake coma (or maybe just a long nap). One more day left of cupcake camp!

What’s your favorite funny YouTube video?

Strawberry & Cream Cupcakes


Recipe by: adapted from Annie’s Eats
Yields: 18-24 cupcakes

Cupcake Ingredients:
2 ½ cups cake flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup unsalted butter
1 ½ cups sugar
2 eggs
1/3 cup buttermilk
¼ cup oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups chopped strawberries

Vanilla Mousse Filling Ingredients:
1 cup milk
1 cup heavy cream
1 (4 serving) package vanilla Instant Pudding Mix (not Cook & Serve)

Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting Ingredients:
½ cup strawberries
1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, at room temperature
1 ½ sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
4-5 cups powdered sugar, sifted
½ teaspoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon vanilla
pink sanding sugar, if desired

Directions:
*Note: This recipe makes twice as much mousse as you need for filling the cupcakes. If you want to use half the pudding pack and save the rest for later, just measure it out and do so. Or use the extra mousse for another project (you know, like eating it with a spoon).

Make cupcakes: Line two muffin tins with paper liners. Preheat oven to 350°F. Onto a sheet of parchment or wax paper, sift flour, salt and baking soda. Set aside. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light, fluffy, and pale yellow (several minutes). Add eggs one at a time, mixing after each. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed. Mix in buttermilk, oil and vanilla. Pick up both ends of the parchment/wax paper and use it to add dry ingredients into the bowl and stir until just combined. Fold in the chopped strawberries (you could toss these with a few tablespoons of the dry ingredients first, if you were worried about them sinking to the bottom).

Fill each liner about 3/4 full of batter and bake for 15-20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of several cupcakes comes out with just moist crumbs. Let cool completely.

Make mousse: To make the vanilla mousse, combine milk, cream, and pudding mix in a medium bowl. Beat with a mixer until you reach soft peaks, or a thick whipped cream consistency (this takes a few minutes). Refrigerate mousse until you’re ready to use it.

Make frosting: To make the frosting, puree the strawberries in food processor and then strain them through a fine mesh sieve to remove the seeds. In a separate bowl, beat the cream cheese and butter until fluffy and smooth before adding the lemon juice, vanilla, and sugar (start on the low side with the sugar and add more until the frosting reaches your desired consistency). Add the amount of puree needed to achieve your desired consistency and color (I do this before I’ve added all the sugar, so I can adjust both as needed). This is a loose frosting and benefits from sitting in the fridge for awhile after you make it with a damp cloth covering it.

Assemble cupcakes: To fill the cupcakes, use the Cone Method: cut an upside-down cone out of the top of each one. Cut off the tip of the cone (and eat it, if you wish) leaving just the “lid.” Fill the cavity with mousse using a piping bag or zip-top bag with the corner cut off, and then replace the “lid” to give you a relatively smooth surface to frost. Use a piping bag or zip-top bag to pipe on the frosting. Dust with pink sanding sugar if you wish.

Strawberry & Cream Cake Pops


Recipe by: adapted from Annie’s Eats
Yields: probably around 40-50 cake pops

Cupcake Ingredients:
2 ½ cups cake flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup unsalted butter
1 ½ cups sugar
2 eggs
1/3 cup buttermilk
¼ cup oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups chopped strawberries

Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting Ingredients:
1/4 cup strawberries
4 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
2-2 1/2 cups powdered sugar, sifted
1/4 teaspoon lemon juice
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

Other Cake Pop Ingredients:
pretzel sticks
pink candy melts or candy bark
sprinkles or pink sanding sugar, if desired

Directions:
*NOTE: We made our cake pops with leftover cupcakes, so I’m printing instructions for making them with cupcakes here. I’m not sure how this recipe would work if you tried baking this as a cake to save liners, so I don’t want to recommend that, but let me know if you try it.

Make cupcakes: Line two muffin tins with paper liners. Preheat oven to 350°F. Onto a sheet of parchment or wax paper, sift flour, salt and baking soda. Set aside. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light, fluffy, and pale yellow (several minutes). Add eggs one at a time, mixing after each. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed. Mix in buttermilk, oil and vanilla. Pick up both ends of the parchment/wax paper and use it to add dry ingredients into the bowl and stir until just combined. Fold in the chopped strawberries (you could toss these with a few tablespoons of the dry ingredients first, if you were worried about them sinking to the bottom).

Fill each liner about 3/4 full of batter and bake for 15-20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of several cupcakes comes out with just moist crumbs. Let cool completely, and then crumble your cupcakes into a large bowl. Set aside.

Make frosting: To make the frosting, puree the strawberries in food processor and then strain them through a fine mesh sieve to remove the seeds. In a separate bowl, beat the cream cheese and butter until fluffy and smooth before adding the lemon juice, vanilla, and sugar (start on the low side with the sugar and add more until the frosting reaches your desired consistency). Add the amount of puree needed to achieve your desired consistency and color (I do this before I’ve added all the sugar, so I can adjust both as needed).

Make cake balls: Mix about 3/4 cup of frosting into your crumbled cake, adding more frosting if the mixture is still too crumbly. You want it to reach a sort of stiff play-dough texture so you can shape it into balls. Prepare a sheet pan with a sheet of wax paper on it. Shape your banana mixture into balls and line them on the wax paper. Chill these in the refrigerator overnight. I don’t freeze mine like some sites suggest, because I find chilling them in the fridge instead reduces cracking after I dip them.

Mount and dip cake balls: After cake balls have chilled overnight, melt your candy melts or chocolate bark according to the package directions. I keep my bowl of candy melts situated in a bigger bowl of hot water to keep them warm and fluid, but be careful no water gets into the melts! To mount each cake ball, take a pretzel stick and dip the end in candy melts. Gently but firmly push the end of the pretzel stick into the cake ball. Put these back on their silicone mat or wax paper to chill. Repeat until all cake balls are mounted and chill for about 30 minutes.

After chilling, you’re ready to dip! Dip each cake ball into the candy melts, using a spoon to help coat them. After dipping, hold your cake ball over the bowl and gently bounce to drain the excess off. Turn the pop as you drain. When well-drained, sprinkle some sprinkles on top and gently place the pop in a foam block to continue drying. I placed mine in the fridge to reduce drying time. Once they’re dry, you’re ready to eat them! These keep great in an airtight container in the fridge.

Never made cake pops before? I made this video tutorial to show you some techniques involved.

All Cupcake Week Recipes:
Day One: Chocolate Pistachio Cream Cupcakes
Day Two: Banana Split Cupcakes and Cake Pops
Day Three: Creamsicle Cupcakes
Day Four: Strawberry & Cream Cupcakes and Cake Pops
Day Five: Apple Cinnamon Cream Cupcakes

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Creamsicle Cupcakes

It’s Cupcake Week on Willow Bird Baking! Cupcake Capers was a 5-day summer camp I conducted last week wherein 5 middle school girls learned to bake, fill, and frost cupcakes. We eschewed pedestrian cupcake flavors in favor of creative combinations that I now get to share with you! Every day this week I’ll be posting fun memories and recipes from Cupcake Camp.

Day 3 of Cupcake Camp was a day several of the campers had been waiting for. It was Creamsicle Cupcake day.

Each day at our cupcake picnic, I’d been asking the girls what they thought of the day’s cupcake and mousse. And each day, like clockwork, a few of them had been ready with the same response: “This one’s good, but I think my favorite is going to be the Creamsicle!”

Meticulous Mary Rood and I discussed this phenomenon in the kitchen before the others arrived one morning. We agreed that it was impressive how certain they were of their favorite before they’d ever tasted it. Some of them had had the cupcakes ranked from favorite to least favorite as soon as Day 2! She wondered aloud if the Creamsicle cupcakes would live up to their expectations.

First thing’s first, though — before we could eat or even decorate our Creamsicle Cupcakes, we had an activity to complete. When all the campers had arrived, I sat them down with a list of cake flavors, filling flavors, frosting flavors, and toppings and gave them 10 minutes to come up with creative cupcake combinations of their own. Anyone can be given a book of fun recipes and whip them up, but I wanted these kids to experience what it’s like to create a new flavor.

Turns out they’re creative geniuses. Pistachio Peyton was dreaming of chocolate when she came up with her Chocolate Dream Cupcake, comprised of chocolate cake, chocolate filling, and chocolate frosting. Elaborate Elizabeth wanted to make a Fruit Punch Cupcake, while Elbow Grease Ella was excited about one covered in cashews. And these are just three examples of the almost 20 ideas they came up with!

With our brainstorming complete, we set about filling our moist orange cupcakes with the easy vanilla mousse I discussed yesterday. Each camper then frosted their masterpiece with a big swirl of orange cream cheese frosting.

They were thrilled with how their piping skills had improved since Day 1 of camp, and especially with the consistency of the cream cheese frosting, which is soft and easy to pipe. They topped their cupcakes with a dusting of orange sanding sugar before refrigerating them to let the frosting stiffen up.

At our cupcake picnic that day, the moment of truth had finally arrived. Everyone peeled off their cupcake papers, eager to see if the Creamsicle Cupcake was as awesome as they’d imagined it to be. Five hungry mouths opened and took five gigantic first bites, and . . . silence.

Lots of silence, and lots of this:

In other words, 10 middle schooler thumbs up! I have to hand it to the girls, they know how to pick ’em. I hope you enjoy these as much as they did!

What creative cupcake flavors can you imagine? Have you made any fantastic cupcake combinations lately?

Creamsicle Cupcakes


Recipe by: adapted from My Baking Addiction
Yields: about 14-16 cupcakes

Cupcake Ingredients:
1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
2/3 cup granulated white sugar
3 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 teaspoon of pure orange extract
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup milk

Vanilla Mousse Filling Ingredients:
1 cup milk
1 cup heavy cream
1 (4 serving) package vanilla Instant Pudding Mix (not Cook & Serve)

Orange Cream Cheese Frosting Ingredients:
1 8-ounce package of cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, room temperature
1/2 teaspoon clear vanilla extract
1 teaspoon orange extract
4 cups confectioners’ sugar
orange sprinkles or sanding sugar, if desired

Directions:
*Note: This recipe makes twice as much mousse as you need for filling the cupcakes. If you want to use half the pudding pack and save the rest for later, just measure it out and do so. Or use the extra mousse for another project (you know, like eating it with a spoon).

Make cupcakes: Line two muffin tins with paper liners. Preheat oven to 350°F. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. In a separate, medium bowl, cream butter and sugar together until light, fluffy, and pale yellow. Add the eggs in one at a time, beating after each, and then beat in the vanilla and orange extract. Add the dry ingredients in, alternating with the milk, in three additions. Begin and end by adding the dry ingredients. Scrape down the sides of the bowl periodically.

Fill the paper liners about 2/3 full of batter and bake cupcakes for 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out with just a few moist crumbs. Remove cupcakes from the oven and let cool completely.

Make mousse: To make the vanilla mousse, combine milk, cream, and pudding mix in a medium bowl. Beat with a mixer until you reach soft peaks, or a thick whipped cream consistency (this takes a few minutes). Refrigerate mousse until you’re ready to use it.

Make frosting: To make the frosting, cream butter and cream cheese together until fluffy in a large bowl. Add extracts and mix. Add sugar gradually, mixing as you go, and then beat the frosting until smooth and creamy. Cover the bowl with a damp cloth until ready to use.

Assemble cupcakes: To fill the cupcakes, use the Cone Method: cut an upside-down cone out of the top of each one. Cut off the tip of the cone (and eat it, if you wish) leaving just the “lid.” Fill the cavity with mousse using a piping bag or zip-top bag with the corner cut off, and then replace the “lid” to give you a relatively smooth surface to frost. Use a piping bag or zip-top bag to pipe on the frosting. Sprinkle on orange sanding sugar, if desired.

All Cupcake Week Recipes:
Day One: Chocolate Pistachio Cream Cupcakes
Day Two: Banana Split Cupcakes and Cake Pops
Day Three: Creamsicle Cupcakes
Day Four: Strawberry & Cream Cupcakes and Cake Pops
Day Five: Apple Cinnamon Cream Cupcakes

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Chocolate Pistachio Cream Cupcakes

Welcome to Cupcake Week on Willow Bird Baking! Last week was quiet around here, in large part because I was conducting a summer camp for middle schoolers. Not one of those sleep-in-tents, get-harassed-by-cheeky-raccoons, feed-your-body-to-mosquitoes kind of summer camps, but the kind of summer camp dreams are made of: CUPCAKE CAMP.

Cupcake Capers was a 5-day camp where campers learned to bake, fill, and frost cupcakes. We eschewed pedestrian cupcake flavors in favor of creative combinations that I now get to share with you! Every day this week I’ll be posting fun memories and recipes from Cupcake Camp.

Monday morning at 9 a.m. sharp, five sweet faces popped into the Cupcake Capers kitchen ready for dessert. Cake and frosting might not be morning fare for your average kid, but these five kids were anything but average. They were the Cupcake Campers.

Meticulous Mary Rood, Energetic Erica, Pistachio Peyton, Elaborate Elizabeth, and Elbow Grease Ella were bright-eyed, bushy-tailed . . . and hungry.

But first thing’s first: we had to ensure no one would lose limbs or eyeballs during our week-long exploration of all things cupcake. The campers settled down to build their cupcake boxes and draw designs on fresh white aprons with fabric markers while I began reciting the litany of safety rules.

You might remember these sorts of safety rules from the Home Economics classes of your youth. They cover important things such as not sticking metal objects into electrical sockets, re-washing your hands if you sneeze all over them, and resisting the urge to dance around with knives.

The kids snickered at a few of the most obvious ones, but also learned a few things they may not have realized. I noticed them all look down sheepishly at their flip-flops when we got to the “closed-toe shoes” rule. I held up my own flip-flopped foot and shrugged: “We’ll just be really careful that no one loses a toe today.” Oh, the hazards of holding a cooking class in summer . . .

Finally, we were ready to get our hands on some cupcakes! I’d prepared some moist chocolate cupcakes, easy pistachio mousse, and a rich, stiff chocolate buttercream to teach the girls how to fill and frost a cupcake. They set to work using the Cone Method (my preferred technique for filling cupcakes) to create a cavity in each little cake.

I love the Cone Method. If you stick a pastry tip into a cupcake and squeeze without creating a cavity first, you usually (depending on the density of your cake) end up with a disappointing pittance of cream. Filling needs space to fill! You could just cut a big hole in the top of your cupcake, fill it, and frost over it, but depending on your frosting type, that might not end up too neat or pretty.

With the Cone Method, however, you cut an upside down cone out of the top of your cupcake by cutting in a circle with a knife held at an angle (much like you’d hull a strawberry). You then cut the tip of the cone off leaving just the “lid.” Fill the cavity with as much filling as you can, replace the lid, and frost like usual. The Cupcake Bakeshop has lovely photos of this method on this post.

We filled our cupcakes with a simple mousse I’ll brag about tomorrow, frosted each one, and topped them with pale green pistachios. Elaborate Elizabeth crusted hers with a thick layer while some of the other girls created a sparse design.

When the first day of camp was drawing to a close and each camper had assembled their own unique cupcake, we went outside and spread a blanket on the grass for a cupcake picnic. The girls devoured their handiwork with exuberance, and these moist, creamy, salty and sweet cupcakes remained one of their favorites all week long!

Chocolate Pistachio Cream Cupcakes


Recipe by: Willow Bird Baking, adapted from Hershey’s and Wilton
Yield: About 16-18 cupcakes

Cupcake Ingredients:
1 cup sugar
7/8 cup all-purpose flour
3/8 cup cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup boiling water

Mousse Ingredients*:
1 cup milk
1 cup heavy cream
1 (4 serving) package of Instant Pistachio Pudding Mix (not Cook & Serve)

Frosting Ingredients:
1/2 cup solid vegetable shortening
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
3/4 cup cocoa
1 teaspoon clear vanilla extract
4 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar (approximately 1 lb.)
3-4 tablespoons milk
pistachios, chopped, for topping

Directions:
*Note: This recipe makes twice as much mousse as you need for filling the cupcakes. If you want to use half the pudding pack and save the rest for later, just measure it out and do so. Or use the extra mousse for another project (you know, like eating it with a spoon).

Line two muffin tins with paper liners. Preheat oven to 350°F. In a large bowl, whisk together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla. Beat the mixture with a mixer set on medium speed for 2 minutes. Stir in the boiling water and then pour mixture into a measuring cup with a pour spout to help you fill the paper liners (the batter will be very thin).

Fill cups just a little over 1/2 full with batter (be careful not to overfill, because these cupcakes get wonky if you do). Bake 12 to 15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out with just a few moist crumbs. Cool completely.

To make the pistachio mousse, combine milk, cream, and pudding mix in a medium bowl. Beat with a mixer until you reach soft peaks, or a thick whipped cream consistency (this takes a few minutes). Refrigerate mousse until you’re ready to use it.

To make the frosting, cream shortening and butter together in a large bowl. Mix in cocoa and vanilla. Add in the sugar one cup at a time while beating on medium speed and scraping down the sides of the bowl often. Add milk and beat until the frosting is light and fluffy. Cover the bowl with a damp cloth until ready to use.

Now you’re ready to assemble the cupcakes. To fill the cupcakes, use the Cone Method: cut an upside-down cone out of the top of each one. Cut off the tip of the cone (and eat it, if you wish) leaving just the “lid.” Fill the cavity with pistachio mousse using a piping bag or zip-top bag with the corner cut off, and then replace the “lid” to give you a relatively smooth surface to frost. Use a piping bag or zip-top bag to pipe on the frosting. Top cupcakes with pistachios.

All Cupcake Week Recipes:
Day One: Chocolate Pistachio Cream Cupcakes
Day Two: Banana Split Cupcakes and Cake Pops
Day Three: Creamsicle Cupcakes
Day Four: Strawberry & Cream Cupcakes and Cake Pops
Day Five: Apple Cinnamon Cream Cupcakes

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–Follow Willow Bird Baking on Twitter
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Coffee Mousse Filled Double Chocolate Chunk Cookie Sandwiches

Last weekend I spent 48 hours with 14 of my seventh graders. At camp. Doing campy things (pun intended).

That probably sounds like a unique form of teacher-torture, but it was actually a fantastic experience, and one I’m planning on telling you all about. For now, though, I just want to tell you about highs and lows.

Highs and lows is a game we played while sitting in one of those kumbaya campfire circles you may remember from the summers of your childhood. Each student listed a high from the day — some accomplishment or moment of frolicking they particularly enjoyed — and a low — something they would change if they had fancy superhero rewind powers.

This may sound strange, but listening to them recite their lows was encouraging. If you’ve ever been close to a seventh grader for a prolonged period of time, you know that they can lapse into sarcasm and negativity about as quick as you can say, “Do your homework.” At other times, though, they can be pretty special little people to be around.

I heard a few people say, “I can’t think of any lows.” A couple commented on minor annoyances like bugs or pollen. One was sad his team didn’t get to float their raft because of the rain, but even that was qualified with, “but I really enjoyed the process of building it anyway.” What cool kids.

Their highs were even better. They were proud of how everyone had worked as a team, enthusiastic about spending time with their classmates, excited that one team’s makeshift raft had made it to the dock and back without disintegrating. All in all, the circle was a sweet, s’more-punctuated time — even without joining hands or braiding daisies into each other’s hair (though that would’ve been fun).

I’m a thoroughly reflective person — a trait happily amplified by my profession — and there’s been quite a lot to digest in my life beyond the campgrounds lately. Perhaps that’s why my thoughts turned today toward the highs and lows game — mountains and valleys, waterfalls and mud puddles. I’ve been trying to revisit the campfire in my mind to catalog and categorize recent events.

My lowest low this week was disconnecting from a good friend. I’ve been seeing a boy for awhile now who was special to me during my own middle school years, but I realized recently that things weren’t going to pan out. I’m trying to be all Joy-the-Baker about this and say, “Oh, boys come and go like brownie recipes,” but I think you must need curly hair and adorable freckles to pull that off, ’cause it’s not working for me. I guess I’ll stick to unattractive moping.

There are other, more mundane lows. My basil plant is looking droopy. The weather’s been rainy and chilled. A cloud bank today on the horizon reminded me of unreachable mountains, somber moments.

But:

-Today my sweet friend and coworker Ashley brought me a happy hippo.
-I just bought two of the sweetest sundresses ever from Target.
-I literally own at least 5 jars of On the Border salsa at this very moment.
-My family is healthy.
-I’m watching a bit of Kings of Pastry each evening.
-I found out a local cupcake truck is selling a version of one of my cupcake recipes, which they’ve named after the blog.
-Flippin’ SAVEUR listed Willow Bird Baking as one of the “50 More Food Blogs You Should Be Reading.”

Such soaring highs! I’m so grateful for those.

Another sorely needed high came in the form of these sweet little sandwich cookies. Driving home with Ashley, who bravely co-chaperoned the camping trip, I started brainstorming ways to use the coffee mousse I’m now enamored with. We thought of a gorgeous roulade, filled cupcakes, and lots of other things, but then Ashley mentioned how she loved to invent new cookie recipes. Cookies are so simple, so quick, so satisfying — everything I needed after a rough and tumble couple of days.


Mom’s hydrangea bushes are blooming — another high!

They’re also delectable, particularly when the words double chocolate are involved. These little sandwiches turned out rich and indulgent, with the perfect balance of flavors (sweet chocolate combined with the bitter, matte flavor of coffee) and textures (voluminous cream between chunky cookies).

For me, there’s also something simple and childlike about the experience of eating a cookie sandwich. It reminds me of pulling an Oreo or an Oatmeal Cream Pie like a treasure from a Care Bears lunchbox. And if that sort of memory isn’t a high, I don’t know what is.

What are your highs and lows lately?

Coffee Mousse Filled Double Chocolate Chunk Cookie Sandwiches


Recipe by: Cookies adapted from Cathy Lowe, mousse adapted from coffee pastry cream by Rebecca Franklin
Yield: About 48 cookies or 24 sandwiches

Cookie Ingredients:
2 1/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 sticks butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 large eggs, beaten
1 tablespoon vanilla
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup bitterweet chocolate chips (I love Ghirardelli)
1 cup chopped pecans (optional)

Coffee Mousse Ingredients:
1 ¼ cups whole milk
2 teaspoons instant coffee granules
3 egg yolks
5 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup whipping cream
1 teaspoon gelatin

Directions:
Make the cookies: Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Whisk together flour, salt, and baking soda in a medium bowl. In a large bowl, cream the butters and both sugars together for a couple of minutes until fluffy. Add egg, vanilla and cocoa and mix. Gradually add flour mixture and mix until combined. Add chocolate chips and pecans, stirring until they’re evenly distributed.

Drop the dough by tablespoonfuls onto a greased baking sheet or one covered with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat. Bake for 8-10 minutes and cool on the pan for a few minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.

Make the mousse: While cookies are baking and cooling, make the mousse. Whisk together the egg yolks, sugar, flour, and cornstarch until the mixture is completely smooth and set aside. Place the milk in a saucepan and sprinkle gelatin over it. Let it soften for 2 minutes before adding the coffee granules and setting the saucepan over low heat. Heat until it’s just hot enough to steam, stirring the gelatin in to dissolve.

Once the milk is steaming, add half of it, whisking constantly, to the egg mixture to temper the eggs (this ensures they won’t cook when you add them to the hot mixture). Add the milk and eggs back into the hot milk and continue stirring, and heat it for 1-2 minutes, until the custard reaches 170 F on a digital thermometer and is very thick. Remove from the heat, stir in the vanilla extract, and set the pan in a bowl of ice water, stirring every few minutes. Cool completely in this manner.

In the meantime, whip the cream in a chilled bowl until it holds stiff peaks. When the coffee mixture is cool, mix about 1/3 of the cream into it to loosen and lighten it. Then fold the rest of the cream in gently. Chill the mousse for at least 30 minutes before using.

Assemble the sandwiches: Turn half of the cookies upside down on the cooling rack. Pipe or dollop a good amount of cream onto these cookies and place the other cookies on top of them. Serve immediately or refrigerate in an airtight container.

P.S. One of my high school cooking students had the idea to try this coffee mousse with bacon and it was fantastic! Have I mentioned that I love my students?

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pies and tarts

Chocolate Mousse Pie

It was a warm Friday in May, and I left school in a hurry after teaching my last class. I swung through the drive-through of Arby’s, ordering a sandwich as large as my head and then wondering why I’d just ordered a sandwich as large as my head. No time to worry about that!

I barreled down the interstate with a quick stop at the UPS processing center to grab the package that should have been delivered to my apartment (sigh) but wasn’t. No time to wait for them to correct the problem — I would need the contents of this package in a matter of hours. I ripped it open to unveil the apron I’d just had printed:

To my great relief, there were no spelling errors, egregious or otherwise. Can you imagine handing an apron to Ree Drummond that said, “WILLOW BIRD BAKING <3 PINEER WOMUN." Actually, now that I think about it, she might've liked that.

That’s right, I was on my way to meet P-Dub herself at her Charlotte booksigning. Now, I’m not really fanatic about celebrities. I was in love with Isaac Hanson for about 2 weeks in middle school before realizing he was never even going to know I existed. So I snapped out of it, went about my business, and didn’t bother with this “fan” silliness anymore.

That being said, I love Ree Drummond. She’s warm, hilarious, genuine, and probably more deserving of her fame than any of the Hollywood crowd. And last time I mentioned her in a post, I got hate mail! From real, live, professional trolls! You know someone’s really “made it” when they have their own little official hate squad following mentions of them around the internet. Cool.

She was as lovely as I expected when I met her in person, but for me, it was one of those Christmas Story experiences. You know the Christmas Story movie, right? The one with the leg lamp? In the movie, little Ralphie stands in line for hours to meet Santa with one goal echoing incessantly in his brain: to ask for a Red Rider BB Gun. That gun is all he wants, and all he’s been able to think about for weeks. He rehearses his lines to perfection. Finally, he reaches the front of the line and stares up into the face of a jaded department store Santa. It’s time to ask for his dream! He musters the strength to speak and . . . he panics. He chokes. He stares. He asks for a football.

Thankfully, I didn’t ask Ree for a football. What I did do is shuffle about, hand her the apron shyly, sort of mention Willow Bird Baking, and then give a dazed grin to the camera. Suddenly we were walking out of the building and I thought about turning around to scream, “No! I wanted a Red Rider BB Gun!” Somehow I don’t think that would have helped.

Anyway, despite my stagefright, Ree was charming and interested in each and every one of the hundreds of people who came to see her. I hope she’s enjoying her apron, and I dedicate this big ol’ heaping Chocolate Mousse Pie to her.

Well, okay, I sort of messed that up too. But not too badly.

The pie was tasty: a buttery, flaky pie crust embracing a thick mess of pillowy, indulgent chocolate mousse and topped with slightly sweetened, loosely whipped cream and chocolate curls. There aren’t many things that taste better than that crust + chocolate combination, in my opinion. It reminded me of the French Silk pies I used to love at Perkins — anybody out there still have a Perkins in their town? Eat a slice of that French Silk for me, please.

But there was an issue; namely, my mousse was grainy. Two or three other commenters on P-Dub’s site had the same problem, but most obtained smooth mousse. I think it comes down to creaming your butter and sugar. Make sure your butter is room temperature, thoroughly softened, and that you cream the sugar in until it’s really dissolved and fluffy.

Regardless of the slight sugar crunch, the pie was a rich, luxurious treat. My Sunday school class got ahold of it and left an empty pie plate in its place — and if that’s not a good sign, I don’t know what is!

Chocolate Mousse Pie


Recipe by: Adapted from Pioneer Woman, crust by Willow Bird Baking
Yields: one 9-inch pie, serves about 8-9

Chocolate Mousse Ingredients:
4 ounces unsweetened baking chocolate
1 cup salted butter, softened
1-½ cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 whole eggs (since they will be raw, you may want to use pasteurized eggs, and/or avoid serving this recipe to older or pregnant guests)

Pie Crust Ingredients: (you can use a prepared pie shell if desired)
2 cups flour
1 teaspoons salt
1/4 cup cold lard (non-hydrogenated if available)*
1/2 cup cold butter, chopped
3-4 tablespoons ice cold water
1 egg and 1 teaspoon heavy cream for egg wash
*you can substitute vegetable shortening here if you wish, but I highly recommend the lard!

Whipped Cream Ingredients:
2 cups heavy whipping cream
4 tablespoons confectioners’ sugar
1 teaspoon gelatin
3 tablespoons cold water
1 tablespoon hot water

chocolate curls, if desired, for garnish

Directions:
To make the crust, pulse flour and salt together to combine. Add scoops of lard and pulse into the mixture has the texture of coarse sand, about 10 seconds. Add in chunks of butter and pulse until butter pieces are no larger than small peas, about 10 pulses. Add minimum amount of water and pulse on low. If dough remains crumbly and doesn’t come together, add another tablespoon of water. Add as little as is required to enable the dough to be rolled into a ball. Form the dough into a disk, wrap in plastic, and refrigerate for 20-30.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. Roll disk of dough out to around 2 inches larger than your pie plate and transfer it, situating it in the plate. Fold the excess dough around the edges and crimp, trimming where necessary. Cover the dough with parchment paper and fill with pie weights or dried beans, pressing to the edges. Bake for around 20 minutes. Remove weights and paper, egg wash crust, and bake 5-10 minutes more, until golden brown (you won’t be baking it again, so make sure it has good color — shielding edges with foil if they begin getting too dark). Let crust cool completely.

In small microwave safe bowl melt 4 ounces of unsweetened baking chocolate until stirrable (about 45 seconds on high). Set aside to cool.

To make the mousse, in a large bowl with an electric mixer beat 1 cup (2 sticks) of butter (I used unsalted and added a dash of salt) and 1 ½ cups of white sugar until fluffy (about 2 to 4 minutes). NOTE: make sure butter is very soft and at room temperature, and beat until sugar is entirely dissolved, or the chocolate mousse will be grainy. When melted chocolate is cooled, drizzle it over the butter/sugar mixture. Add 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract. Beat the mixture thoroughly until combined (on a Kitchen Aid mixer, you will be using the whisk attachment).

Turn your mixer to a medium speed and over a period of 15 to 20 minutes add in the four eggs, one at a time, leaving about 5 minutes between each egg addition. Once the pie filling is well mixed, pour it into the baked pie shell, scraping every last speck of it out of the bowl. Smooth out the pie filling and place pie in the refrigerator to chill for at least two hours (preferably longer).

To make whipped cream, soften gelatin on 3 tablespoons cold water for about 2 minutes. Add 1 tablespoon hot water and stir to dissolve gelatin. Let cool while you mix other ingredients in a bowl to soft peaks. Add gelatin mixture to whipped cream and fold in gently. Pile whipped cream onto top of pie and refrigerate. Garnish with chocolate curls if desired.

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