Tres Leches Cupcakes

I found this recipe for Tres Leches Cupcakes on Slashfood a while back. Originally I made it for a party at work, and instead of cupcakes I baked a 13X9 cake. Luckily for me the boss was okay with the small amount of coconut rum involved. It came out fantastically delicious. Fair warning, however - this is a very messy and delicious recipe.

The basic idea of tres leches cake is to make a sponge cake, then poke holes all over it and soak the cake with a mixture of three milks (tres leches). You can also add some rum or any kind of liquor you think tastes good. My choices on hand were either burbon or peach schnapps, so I opted for the schnapps. You can leave out the alcohol for a kid friendly version, of course.

With all that liquid being soaked up, you can imagine how sticky and oozy these cupcakes are. But they are totally worth it.

Tonight I decided to make it again, and I wanted to make cupcakes this time. Also, I had this extra package of strawberry cake mix laying around, so I decided to use that instead of the sponge cake recipe. As if that weren't enough fiddling with the recipe, I happened to have no rum on hand, so I went with peach schnapps.

Here's how I made mine:


Ingredients:



For the cupcakes/cake:

1 Pkg strawberry cake mix
(Prepare according to package directions for cupcakes or sheet cake, whichever you prefer)

For the milk mixture:

1 Cup heavy cream
1 Can evaporated milk
1 Can sweetened condensed milk
1/4 Cup Rum (I used peach schnapps)

Method:



Prepare the cupcakes according to package directions. As you can see, I used the stand-alone foil cupcakes liners, as I have no muffin tin. My arrangement of trying to stuff in one extra cupcake was a mistake (as you will see later), and I think I'm going to ask the hubby for a proper pan before I try to make cupcakes or muffins again. I'm pretty sure I also overfilled them, which I think just made things worse, but no less tasty.



While that's baking, mix up the milks and your chosen booze, if you chose to include it. I put the sweetened condensed milk in first since it's so thick, then slowly added the evaporated milk, whisking as I went. After that was all in, it was easier to mix in the cream and liquor.

I have pictured here the mixture on the right, and two samples on the left so I could try one with burbon and one with the schnapps. The burbon would have been fine, but I decided on the schnapps because it blended in better with the other flavors.



A slight disaster occurred during baking, as you can see. What happened is due to my pushing and squeezing the liners around in order to fit one extra cupcake on there, I bent a few of the liners and during baking they just kinda toppled, making irregular triangle shapes. The others, due to being squished, developed a square top and there was batter dripped out onto the cookie sheet below.

I did not let this deter me, however. I just poked holes all over them (gently! don't want to make holes in the foil and let all that milk leak out) and started the long and slightly agonizing process of soaking the milk mixture in. When I made the cake previously, it was a lot easier to just more or less dump the milk over it and let it sit for a few hours until it soaked up. Having cupcakes, the process is messier and more time consuming. You have to gently spoon the mixture into the holes and over the cupcake, and the first few times the milk spills over the edge (especially on my irregular shaped cupcakes here). But after it starts soaking in, it becomes a bit easier and a bit faster. Just try to be patient and evenly distribute the milk between the cupcakes.

Afterward, top with whipped cream and eat on a plate with a fork or over the sink. Emphasis on the messy here, but they make up for their messiness in flavor.



Thanks for reading!

Tote Made From Plastic Grocery Bags (In Progress)

I found this website on knitting from plastic grocery bags and became intrigued. We have recently started using reusable cloth grocery bags, but we still have a few plastic ones lying around that hadn't yet made it into the recycle bin at the grocery store. So I decided to give this a try. It wasn't hard to cut the grocery bag up into strips for the "yarn", the only problem I really came into was when I tried to separate the two layers of plastic. They had gotten static and tended to cling together. As you can see from the picture above, the process of the actual knitting is simple. Just cast on for the width you want (I casted about 50 stitches onto size 7 needles), and garter stitch until it's twice as long as you want it tall... Because you're going to be folding it then stitching the sides together to make the tote. Then you just recast, make some handles, and stitch them on too.

There is also another method for cutting the bags into "yarn", which is easier to do and yields a bulkier, double-layer yarn. I'm using this technique to crochet a tote, and see which of the two is better. I chained as many stitches to make the bag the width I wanted using size M hook (I just held it up to a reusable tote and matched the width. Then you just single crochet until, again, it's twice as long as you want tall, chaining one at the end of the row. At least I think that's pretty much the jist of it. I'm still pretty new to the crochet world. There's another article here with more complicated instructions and how to change colors if you want to.

Thanks for reading!

Pickled Grapes from Smitten Kitchen

I just recently came across Smitten Kitchen, and boy I'm glad I did! The first (and only) recipe I've tried from this site so far is one for Pickled Grapes. I was intrigued by them, the husband turned his nose up at the idea. But during an impromptu 1:00 am grocery shopping trip, I decided to give them a go. I had most of the ingredients on hand, I just needed to get grapes and mustard seed. Oh, and I also used ground cinnamon. If/when I make this again, I'll have to try it with the cinnamon bark as described on SK, but making it with ground came out good too.

So here is the recipe from Smitten Kitchen, which was adapted from A Homemade Life, where it was adapted from a Susan Kaplan recipe. (Boy, that's a mouthful):

Ingredients:

1 lb seedless red or black grapes
1 Cup white wine vinegar
1 Cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons mustard seed
1 teaspoon whole black peppercorns
1 - 2 1/2" cinnamon stick, cut in half (I used maybe a Tbsp or so ground cinnamon)
1/4 teaspoon salt (I omitted the salt)

Method:

(I don't have pictures of the process, but it really is very easy)

Rinse the grapes and cut the stem end (SK calls this the "belly button") off, leaving a bit of the inner flesh exposed. I divided my prepared grapes into two pint jars.

Combine the rest of the ingredients into a saucepan and bring to a boil. At this point I let the mixture cool before pouring into the jars. When pouring I tried to make sure the peppercorns and mustard seeds were evenly distributed between the two jars.

Stick in the fridge and let sit for eight hours or overnight, and serve chilled.

Apparently you can pour the mixture in while it is hot for a softer, more intensely flavored grapeickle (grape-pickle, get it? Ha! Sometimes I think I'm so clever), but I was definitely seeking a more mild flavor, and cooling the solution first yields a milder, crunchier grapeickle.

They came out really good, and the flavor is a little hard for me to describe. They are sweet but not too sweet, mildly vinegary but not overpoweringly so, and have subtle but noticeable hints of spiciness from the pepper and cinnamon. I hope the husband likes them. He has yet to taste them but I think when he heard "pickled grape", he probably imagined a dill pickle with grape, which these are definitely not. They are their own animal, and fairly cheap especially if you can get grapes on sale. And they are pretty easy and quick to prepare. I'd say they are worth trying. SK suggested having them with a cheese platter, and I can certainly see how they would work well there. I think they are also good straight out of the jar.

Thanks for reading!