Guest Post at love.bug. -- Salted Caramel Coconut Macaroon Cupcakes

Today you can find me over at love.bug. with another extravagant cupcake creation: Salted caramel coconut macaroon cupcakes. Amy and I have become photography buddies and now that I've discovered her beautiful blog I'm sure we'll be great blogging buds too. She's like me in that she tries to eat healthily most of the time but believes there's room for a little indulgence now and again. Usually in the form of lots of sugar and butter!

I know, I know, I've been neglecting my own blog but jump at the chance to do a post for someone else's blog. Sometimes my logic defies me. I promise to be back soon with a proper post about everything I've been up to. I don't suppose claiming I was abducted by aliens is enough of an excuse. Instead I'll tell you I am in the CIA and was sent away for a super secret mission researching a recent spate of alien abductions. Yeah, that's more plausible.

Zero Bar Hi-Hat Cupcakes

You may have noticed by now that I tend to use any major and minor holiday as an excuse to indulge. Valentine's Day is no exception and because the only presents my husband has on his wish list are big ticket items we skip giving each other gifts and I bake him something sweet every year instead. This year I got my inspiration when he bought a few of his favorite candy bars a couple of weeks ago. Many of you probably have no idea what a Zero bar is. Understandable. They're one of the few white chocolate candy bars out there so, like me, you probably pass them up in favor of something more, well, chocolaty.

(Source)

Candy Blog described the essence of the Zero bar far better than I ever could. "It looks like a bar of the future. Something that robots would eat. Or maybe robots would bring them to us. They’d enter the room through the shooshing automatic door with a tray full of snacks that we munch on while watching TV beamed directly into our optic nerve." It's a white fudge-coated bar filled with almond, peanut, and caramel in some sort of nougat-like configuration. Not bad but wouldn't those flavors be even better as a cupcake? A cupcake covered in a ridiculous amount of frosting and then dunked into chocolate? Heck, wouldn't anything be better with that particular treatment?


Thus was born the Zero Bar Hi-Hat Cupcake: Light and fluffy almond-flavored cake filled with both peanut nougat and caramel, a blend of white chocolate and peanut butter frosting piled high on top, then dipped into a white chocolate coating. Even I thought I was going a little overboard with this one.

Despite being a bit of a Herculean task to eat one of these cupcakes the flavors all shine through nicely. I had to interrogate my husband to see if it was at all reminiscent of a Zero bar and he confirmed that it is. Mission accomplished!

As a side note, I noticed while mining previous blog posts for frosting recipes that many of the cupcakes I make are absurdly complicated. To the point where they probably put off most of you readers from ever attempting any of them. I think I should point out that if you're not feeling as ambitious as I you could usually make substitutions to save a few steps. For example, with these cupcakes there's no reason why you couldn't use store-bought caramel or even just stick a piece of a chopped up Zero bar into the middle of each cupcake instead of making the filling. Believe me, there are plenty of recipes I look at online and think I would never be skilled enough or want to put that much time into baking something. I don't want my recipes to be the kind that get ignored for that reason.

Almond-Flavored Cupcakes
Recipe adapted from King Arthur Flour

1 cup granulated sugar
1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons soft unsalted butter
2/3 cup milk, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon almond extract
2 large eggs

1) Preheat the oven to 350°F.

2) In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the sugar, flour, baking powder, and salt.

3) Add the butter and beat with an electric mixer at low speed, until the mixture looks sandy.

4) Combine the milk, vanilla, and almond extract and add, all at once. Mix at low speed for 30 seconds, then increase the speed to medium and beat for 30 seconds. Scrape the bottom and sides of the mixing bowl.

5) With the mixer running at low speed, add 1 egg. Increase the speed to medium and beat for 30 seconds. Add the second egg, again beating for 30 seconds.

6) Scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl, and beat briefly, just until smooth.

7) Scoop the batter by heaping 1/4-cupfuls into the prepared muffin tin. A muffin scoop works well here.

8) Bake the cupcakes for 23 to 25 minutes, until they've domed, and are a light golden brown around the edges. They'll spring back when pressed gently on top, and a toothpick inserted in the center will come out clean.

9) Remove the cupcakes from the oven, cool in pan on a rack for ten minutes. Then remove cupcakes from pan and cool completely on the rack.

Caramel Filling:
Recipe adapted from Sprinkle Bakes

1/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cubed
Pinch of salt
1/8 cup plus 1 1/2 teaspoons heavy cream, at room temperature

1) Melt the sugar over medium heat in a large pot. With a wooden spoon, stir the sugar as it melts and cook until it becomes a deep amber color.

2) Add the butter and salt and stir it in until melted.

3) Pour in the heavy cream (mixture will foam) and whisk until you get a smooth sauce. You may have some lumps but keep stirring until they have melted. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.

Pseudo Nougat Filling:
Recipe adapted from Cake Central

1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/4 cup shortening
1/2 cup marshmallow cream
1/4 cup malted milk mix
1 teaspoon vanilla
2-3 tablespoons heavy cream or milk
1/4 cup chopped peanuts

1) Cream butter, shortening, and marshmallow cream together. Add malted milk, vanilla, and cream or milk and continue to cream until well incorporated. Beat on high for a minute until fluffy. Fold in the chopped peanuts.

2) Using the cone method fill each cupcake cavity half with caramel and half with nougat filling. Be sure to trim the excess cake off the bottom of each cone and replace just the top portion to cover the filling.

Peanut Butter Frosting
Recipe from 125 Best Cupcake Recipes by Julie Hasson

2 cups confectioner's sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
2 tbsp heavy cream or milk

1) In a bowl, using an electric mixer, beat together confectioner's sugar and butter until creamy. Add peanut butter, beating well. Add milk and beat until smooth and creamy.

White Chocolate Buttercream
Adapted from BBC Good Food

90 grams white chocolate, chopped
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/2 to 2 cups powdered sugar

1) Melt the chocolate over a double boiler, stirring often. Cool.

2) Beat the butter and powdered sugar until creamy. Beat in the chocolate and continue to beat at medium-high speed until fluffy.

3) Using a spatula "paint" white chocolate frosting on one side of a piping bag and peanut butter frosting on the other side. (I found that my frostings kind of blended together despite this method working with other recipes in the past, so there's really no need to be precise here. You won't be getting that two-tone effect anyway from the frosting so feel free to just jam it all in there.) Pipe onto cupcakes using a large round tip in a tall spiral pattern.

4) Put the cupcakes in the freezer while you make the white chocolate coating.

White Chocolate Coating
Adapted from Martha Stewart

2 cups white chocolate, chopped
3 tablespoons canola or vegetable oil

1) Combine chocolate and oil in a medium heat-proof bowl set over a medium saucepan of barely simmering water; stir until melted and smooth. Transfer to a small bowl, and let cool about 15 minutes.

2) Holding each cupcake by its bottom, dip cupcake in the chocolate to coat frosting, allowing excess to drip off. Transfer to a baking sheet fitted with a wire rack. Spoon more coating around edge of cupcake and any exposed frosting; none of the frosting should show. Let cupcakes stand at room temperature 15 minutes before eating.

Browned Butter Caramel Banana Bread

I'm always on the search for finding ways to use up overripe bananas in a more creative way than plain ol' banana bread. Banana and chocolate? Done it. Banana and peanut butter? Always a winning combination. This weekend I brainstormed and came up with a new combination to try: banana and caramel.

I had so many leftover bananas that I knew I'd have to make a loaf of banana bread based on my favorite recipe from a friend. The recipe uses an overabundance of bananas to create a super moist and flavorful loaf. The secret trick is to leave some of the banana chunks intact for surprise bites of banana goodness. Starting with that as my base I brainstormed ways to incorporate caramel flavor. My first plan was to make some caramel syrup and swirl it into the batter, but that alone didn't seem indulgent enough. Raiding the cupboard I found some Heath milk chocolate toffee bits to mix into the batter. OK, that's a step in the right direction but what's next? Then I remembered how the browned butter chocolate chip cookies I made a few months back had a distinct caramelized flavor thanks to that browned butter so I decided to brown the butter called for in this recipe. A genius idea, if I may say so myself.

The banana bread is definitely a step up from the usual. The caramel flavor is subtle, which makes it all the more fun when you hit a toffee bit or a bit of the caramel swirl and get a real burst of flavor. I'm very happy with what I came up with and even happier that I finally got rid of those nasty-looking bananas on my counter.

Caramel Filling
Recipe adapted from Sprinkle Bakes

1/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cubed
Pinch of salt
1/4 cup plus 1 1/2 teaspoons heavy cream, at room temperature

1) Melt the sugar over medium heat in a large pot. With a wooden spoon, stir the sugar as it melts and cook until it becomes a deep amber color.

2) Add the butter and salt and stir it in until melted.

3) Pour in the heavy cream (mixture will foam) and whisk until you get a smooth sauce. You may have some lumps but keep stirring until they have melted. Remove from heat and let cool while you make the banana bread.

Banana Bread

1 cup of sugar
1 stick butter (1/2 cup)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs whisked
1 1/2 cups self rising flour
4-7 whole bananas (overly ripe and mashed up with a few un-mashed chunks left in)
3/4 to 1 cup chocolate-covered toffee bits (optional)

1) Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease a loaf pan with butter or spray and lightly flour.

2) Heat butter in skillet over medium-high heat until melted, about 2 minutes. Continue cooking, swirling pan constantly until butter is dark golden brown and has nutty aroma, 1 to 3 minutes. Remove skillet from heat.

3) Combine sugar and melted butter in a large mixing bowl and whisk to combine. Add vanilla extract and stir.

4) Mix in eggs and stir until thoroughly combined.

5) Add the flour in three additions and the mashed banana in two additions, beginning and ending with flour. Stir until just combined. Fold in optional toffee bits.

6) Pour batter into prepared pan. Drizzle caramel on top and swirl into batter with the tip of a knife. Bake 50-70 minutes. The more bananas you use the longer it will take. Test bread by inserting a butter knife into the center to see if batter sticks. Continue to bake until no batter sticks to knife.

7) Cool completely in pan on rack. Once cool, invert onto rack and serve.

Snickers Fudge

I scribbled the recipe down years ago after seeing it on some talk show and it's been a feature of our family Christmas for the better part of ten years. My little brother demands a fresh batch every year and I'm only too happy to oblige. It wouldn't be Christmas without our traditional tray of the stuff. All of the flavors of a Snickers bar are there but somehow they taste fresher, smoother, and better in this version. It's easy to make, produces enough to feed a crowd, and tastes divine.

My only change to the recipe is one I thought of last year after spending what felt like ages hacking away at the finished product trying to liberate the pieces from the pan. My first step is to line the pan with enough parchment paper to cover the bottom, sides, and jut over the top edges so I can lift the entire block of fudge out and cut it on a cutting board. Still not the easiest cutting process but it's easier to get leverage and I don't have to worry about scratching up my baking pan.

Next time you want to impress a crowd give this winner a try!

Snickers Fudge

Bottom Layer:
1 cup milk chocolate chips
1/4 cup butterscotch chips
1/4 cup creamy peanut butter

Combine the ingredients in a small saucepan; stir over low heat until melted and smooth. Line the bottom and sides of a 9 x 13 pan with parchment paper leaving some extra over the edge. Spread chocolate onto the bottom of the pan. Refrigerate until set.

Filling:
1/4 cup butter
1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup evaporated milk
1 1/2 cups marshmallow creme/marshmallow fluff
1/4 cup peanut butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups chopped salted peanuts

Melt butter in a heavy saucepan over medium-high heat. Add sugar and milk. Bring to a boil; boil and stir for 5 minutes. Remove from heat; stir in the marshmallow creme, peanut butter and vanilla extract. Add peanuts. Spread over first layer. Refrigerate until set.

Caramel Layer:
1 14 ounce package caramels
1/4 cup whipping cream

Combine caramels and cream in a saucepan; stir over low heat until melted and smooth. Spread over the filling. Refrigerate until set.

Top Layer:
1 cup milk chocolate chips
1/4 cup butterscotch chips
1/4 cup creamy peanut butter

In a saucepan, combine chips and peanut butter; stir over low heat until melted and smooth. Pour over the caramel layer. Refrigerate for at least one hour.

Lift entire piece of fudge out of the pan using the parcdment paper. Remove paper and place fudge onto a large cutting board. Cut into 1-inch squares. Store in the refrigerator.

Peach & Caramel Frozen Yogurt

It seems that every time I make a new batch of ice cream I manage to decrease the cream and fat content little by little. At this rate I'll be feeding my husband a bowl of ice and trying to convince him it's a delicious homemade frozen delicacy within the month. Only joking, although one of my main motivations for breaking down and buying an ice cream maker was so I could make lower fat versions of ice cream. I'm always on a quest to find ways my husband and I can eat more healthily while still indulging in dessert. The first batch I made was delicious but it was also far too full of cream and fat. A good way to christen the ice cream maker but not something I intend to make regularly.

When I discovered that I not only had a bunch of ripe peaches on the counter but also a large container of plain yogurt near expiration I began searching for the perfect peach frozen yogurt recipe. I found a few that looked promising and eventually settled on the simplest one involving only peaches, yogurt, water, and sugar. To make it even easier on myself (ok, ok, and because I didn't read the directions closely enough) I wound up dumping everything into a saucepan, heated until the peaches were soft enough to mash, and didn't bother blending the mixture in a food processor for smoothness. I'd prefer to have chunks of peaches visible and even left the skins on the peaches because I actually like that fuzzy covering. Because I used fat free yogurt I substituted half and half for some of the water and because I had some peach simple syrup left over I poured that in and decreased the sugar a bit to compensate.

I also had some caramel left over so I poured that in while I was transferring the frozen yogurt from the ice cream maker to the container. I know my husband well enough to predict that he'd never remember to add the caramel sauce himself to each bowl so better to mix it in. That way he can't miss it!

The end result is tasty but surprisingly hard. My husband may have to invest in a chisel to get his next serving out of the freezer. Not sure if this is what one should always expect to get with homemade frozen yogurt or if it's all due to my fat-free yogurt substitution. I'm not ready to go with full fat yogurt but next time I'll try upping the fat content a little and maybe even try the trick of adding a dash of vodka to the mix since alcohol doesn't freeze. It's still edible but requires a little planning ahead since it needs to sit out to soften.

Peach Frozen Yogurt
Recipe adapted from The Perfect Scoop

Makes about 3 cups

4 medium peaches, roughly chopped (skins on or off)
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup half and half
2/3 cup sugar
4 teaspoons peach simple syrup (optional, if you omit use 3/4 cup sugar above)
1 cup plain yogurt

Dump all of the ingredients in a medium saucepan and cook over medium low heat, covered, stirring occasionally until peaches are soft, about 5 minutes. Thoroughly mash with a potato masher or fork and continue to cook another 3-5 minutes until cooked through. Remove from heat and cool in refrigerator overnight.

Freeze the mixture in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions. When transferring churned frozen yogurt from ice cream maker to freezer container, drizzle caramel between layers.

Caramel
Recipe adapted from Sprinkle Bakes

1/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cubed
Pinch of salt
1/8 cup plus 1 1/2 teaspoons heavy cream, at room temperature

1) Melt the sugar over medium heat in a large pot. With a wooden spoon, stir the sugar as it melts and cook until it becomes a deep amber color.

2) Add the butter and salt and stir it in until melted.

3) Pour in the heavy cream (mixture will foam) and whisk until you get a smooth sauce. You may have some lumps but keep stirring until they have melted. Remove from heat and cool completely.

Peach Simple Syrup
Adapted from Cook's Recipes

1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup water
1 tablespoon light corn syrup
1 small peach, roughly chopped

In a saucepan combine sugar, water, corn syrup and peach pieces. Heat over high heat, and once the peaches are softened a bit mash with a potato masher or fork. Heat to a boil, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Simmer syrup, undisturbed, 2 minutes or until slightly thickened. Pour syrup through a fine sieve, pressing on solids. Cool at room temperature.

Note: This recipe makes much more than you'll actually need. Syrup keeps, covered, in the refrigerator for weeks.

London Calling

Since I'm considering giving up the local Iron Chef Cupcake Challenge meet-ups I was pleased to find a similar online contest that I could participate in instead. This way I won't have to drag my husband out of the house, sometimes driving quite a way to get to each competition. The online contest can all be done from the comfort of my own home without frittering away any of my precious baking budget on petrol.

The idea of a Mystery Box Cupcake Challenge intrigued me right off the bat because a different ingredient will be featured every month and it will hopefully lead to the sharing of everyone's wonderful recipes. This month's ingredient is tea, something I adore in its unadulterated state and something I've experimented with in baking before. But it wouldn't be a challenge if I didn't try to one-up myself (and the competition, of course) so I've been brainstorming trying to come up with something more creative and intricate than plain old chai cupcakes with white chocolate frosting. Good, but I've been there, done that.

After dismissing a few ideas for not being innovative and exciting enough, I got the brilliant idea to draw inspiration from the fancy afternoon tea my brother and I had while on vacation in London last year. He was there for the scones and decadent pastries (and to keep me company) but I was excited by the wide variety of teas they had on offer. One in particular stood out: a green tea with coconut, caramel, and ginger flavorings. Man, oh man was it good and unlike anything I'd had before. Even my non-tea drinking brother had a few sips and declared it to be "bearable" after I'd added a few extra sugar cubes for him. High praise, indeed.

Trying our darndest to act prim and proper

The best part is that I happened to already have the perfect teas in my stash to help me recreate those flavors in cupcake form. This made the frugal girl in me quite happy! I did a test batch of tea combining Celestial Seasonings' Vanilla Ginger Green Tea and Sweet Coconut Thai Tea to be sure they'd blend well. Let's just say I finished my first cup and was on my second before I'd even started making breakfast. You'll find that the Vanilla Ginger Tea is discontinued, which clearly puts me into the category of "tea hoarder." I can't deny this, alas, but at least my hoarding practices aren't so bad that I won't willingly share when friends come over. The good news is that if you want to try this recipe at home you should have no trouble finding a comparable substitute out there. Or just stop by my house and I'll gladly help you out. I've got plenty, after all.

In keeping with the London theme, check out the Paddington Bear fabric I used as a backdrop. I knew all that fabric I keep buying on impulse would come in handy one day!

I hunted down a coconut cake recipe that uses shredded coconut and coconut milk. Although some revamping of the recipe was required, I liked that it called to heat the coconut milk, perfect for steeping the tea. So I dropped in three tea bags at the start and ended up with an extremely flavorful milk by the end.

Check out the action shot of butter melting! Go, butter, go! The before pic:


And after heating for five minutes it turned this lovely caramel color:

Because the ginger in the Vanilla Ginger Tea was so strong I used only one tea bag of that flavor but two of the Sweet Coconut Thai Tea for an extra kick of coconut flavor.

Once cooked and cooled, I made a batch of caramel and, using the cone method, filled each cupcake with a dollop of sugary goodness.



Now here's where it gets weird. I'd planned to make plain old ginger cream cheese frosting, delicious with diced candied ginger and ginger powder to boot. But this is a tea-themed competition, isn't it? How could I stop at just making the cake tea flavored? Only trouble was the frosting recipe didn't call for any liquids and I didn't want to risk having to overcompensate with more sickly sweet powdered sugar if I tried adding some. Instead I improvised. Taking a Vanilla Ginger tea bag I carefully dampened it, not enough to drench it but enough to get the tea and spices activated. Then I rolled it around in the softened cream cheese, applying pressure with the back of a spoon and stirring. I rewetted the tea bag about five times and repeated the process until I could definitely smell the tea in the cream cheese. Just don't get carried away and taste it yet because I can tell you from first hand experience that it doesn't get good until the rest of the ingredients are added. Be patient! The end result is worth it. It's even worth the painful blister I now have on my index finger that's making it difficult to type this. Since I'm dispensing advice left and right I'll also take the time to warn you that it's a very bad idea to stick your finger into the caramel dripping off of your spoon as you're heating the molten hot sugar. Then again you probably knew that because you have something called common sense. But I digress...

I'm so pleased I got this recipe right on the first try! As I've mentioned before, I'm a bit leery of experimenting and straying from the recipe that's printed on the page but this challenge has certainly made me push myself. Not only creatively but also technically in making sure I don't alter the consistency of the cake with any of my changes. This one couldn't have turned out better if Martha Stewart had written the recipe, if I may say so myself. The end result is a light cake with plenty of spicy tea flavor, crunchy coconut, oozing caramel, and a tangy ginger frosting with a hint of tea. I'm glad I'm forced to blog about this if only so I can be sure to get the recipe down while it's still fresh in my mind. I'll definitely be making these babies again!

Please go vote for me! Voting's open until July 26 so hurry on over!
http://www.sweetestkitchen.com/2010/07/mystery-box-tea-roundup/

Sweet Coconut Tea Cupcakes With Caramel Filling and Ginger Cream Cheese Frosting

Cupcakes:
Recipe adapted from My Kitchen in the Rockies

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
1/2 cup plus two heaping tablespoons canned unsweetened coconut milk (stir well before measuring)
2 tea bags Celestial Seasonings Sweet Coconut Thai Tea
1 tea bag Celestial Seasonings Vanilla Ginger Green Tea
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into two pieces
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Heaping 1/4 cup shredded coconut (unsweetened or sweetened)

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 11 cupcake wells with paper liners.

2) Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together. Set aside.

3) Pour the coconut milk into a small saucepan, add the tea bags and butter, and heat until the milk is hot and the butter is melted. Reduce heat to low and simmer 3-5 minutes until mixture has turned a nice caramel color. Remove pan from heat and remove tea bags, squeezing as much liquid back into the pan as possible.

4) Working with a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the eggs and sugar at medium-high speed until pale, thick and almost doubled in volume, about 3 minutes. Beat in the vanilla. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the dry ingredients, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed and stopping just when the flour disappears.

5) Keeping the mixer on low, add the coconut, mixing only until it is blended, then steadily add the hot milk mixture. When the batter is smooth, stop mixing and give the batter a couple of turns with a rubber spatula, just to make certain that any dry ingredients that might have fallen to the bottom of the bowl are incorporated. Pour the batter into the prepared cupcake pan and bake for 18-21 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pan for five minutes, then remove from pan and cool completely on a wire rack.

Caramel Filling:
Recipe adapted from Sprinkle Bakes

1/2 cup sugar
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, cubed
Pinch of salt
1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon heavy cream, at room temperature

1) Melt the sugar over medium heat in a large pot. With a wooden spoon, stir the sugar as it melts and cook until it becomes a deep amber color.

2) Add the butter and salt and stir it in until melted.

3) Pour in the heavy cream (mixture will foam) and whisk until you get a smooth sauce. You may have some lumps but keep stirring until they have melted. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.

4) Cut a small round piece out of the tops of each cooled cupcake and pour in approximately one teaspoon of caramel. Replace the cake piece and set cupcakes aside.

Ginger Cream Cheese Frosting:
Recipe adapted from 125 Best Cupcake Recipes by Julie Hasson

1 tea bag Celestial Seasonings Vanilla Ginger Green Tea
Water to dampen tea bag
4 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
1/4 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 1/4 cups confectioner's sugar sifted
1/4 cup finely chopped crystallized ginger
1 tsp ground ginger
Pinch of salt

1) Dampen tea bag in a small amount of water. Add to bowl with softened cream cheese and press gently with the back of a spoon. Flip tea bag over and press again with a spoon. Remove tea bag and stir cream cheese. Dampen tea bag again and repeat five times or until there's a distinct tea scent coming from the cream cheese. Remove tea bag and discard.

2) In a bowl, using an electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat together cream cheese and butter until creamy. With mixer on low speed, beat in confectioner's sugar 1/2 cup at a time. Increase speed to medium-high, beating until light and fluffy. Add crystallized ginger, ground ginger and salt, beating until well mixed.

3) Pipe or spread onto cupcakes and top with additional diced crystallized ginger if desired.


Just so you know what's at stake here, the winner of July’s Mystery Box Cupcake Challenge will receive prizes from:

• Bake It Pretty; $5 electronic gift card


• Beanilla; Tahitian vanilla fleur de sel & 3 organic Indonesian vanilla beans


• Rishi Tea; the new Tsuki tea pot and 2 tins of tea


• Soapylove Glycerin Soap Design; a Soapy Pop


• Sweet Cuppin Cakes; a prize pack worth $25

Thank you to all the prize sponsors! Wish me luck!


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