Seven Up Guava Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting

When I was a kid, a family friend taught my mom a simple recipe for mussels.

All you need to do buy a potfull of mussels (which are abundant in my hometown, Pangasinan) add 250ml of Seven Up and cook until the liquid dries out. Of course make sure to clean the mussels first. There isn't really a standard mussels to Seven Up ratio, just experiment on what works for you.


That first taste was heaven. Sweetness combined with that seafood taste that is unique to mussels. This dish is perfect as an appetizer or with a glass of beer to be shared with friends but I prefer it with rice and a glass of Coke. 


That's when I decided when I grow up, I would put up my own restaurant and all the dishes we'll serve will have one secret ingredient - you guessed right, Seven Up. I have that much faith on Seven Up. It's like the solution to all food concerns, thought the kid in me.

Anyway, now I don't have a restaurant as I have switched to dreaming of owning my own cupcakery. And no, it won't have Seven-Up as a secret ingredient to all the cupcakes (it won't be a secret anymore since I already declared it to the whole universe) I will sell but it wouldn't hurt to experiment on a recipe with it as the main star. And that was when Seven Up Guava Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting was born. 


I adapted the recipe from Magnolia Bakery's Vanilla Cupcakes. Substituting the milk for Seven Up and cutting down on sugar by half a cup since Seven Up on own is sweet already. 


Do you have a recipe that calls for Seven Up? Care to share? Here's mine.

Seven Up Guava Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting

350F

24 cupcakes

Ingredients

Cupcakes: (adapted from Magnolia Bakery's Vanilla Cupcakes)

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

3 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

1 1/2 cups sugar

4 large eggs, at room temperature

1 cup Seven-up

1/2 cup guava jelly

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

(1) Cream butter and sugar

 (2) Add eggs one at a time

 (3) Combine all dry ingredients. 

 (4) Add the dry ingredients in 3 parts, alternating with the milk and vanilla

 (4) Fold in the guava jelly.

 (5) Carefully spoon the batter into the cupcake liners, filling them about 3/4 full. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into the center of the cupcake comes out clean.


Italian Meringue Buttercream
Makes 4 1/2 cups
from MarthaStewart.com

Ingredients
1 1/4 cups sugar
5 large egg whites
Pinch of cream of tartar
1 pound (4 sticks) unsalted butter, chilled
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

 Directions

(1) In a small saucepan over medium heat, bring sugar and 2/3 cup water to a boil. Continue boiling until syrup reaches 238 degrees on a candy thermometer (soft-ball stage).

(2) Meanwhile, place egg whites in the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, and beat on low speed until foamy. Add cream of tartar, and beat on medium-high speed until stiff but not dry; do not overbeat.

(3) With mixer running, add syrup to whites in a stream, beating on high speed until no longer steaming, about 3 minutes. Add butter bit by bit, beating until spreadable, 3 to 5 minutes; beat in vanilla. If icing curdles, keep beating until smooth.

 (4) For every 2 cups of Italian Buttercream, mix in 1/4 cup peanut butter. 

To jazz it up a bit, I grated dark chocolate over the frosting. Guess I can't stay away from chocolate after all.

How to Make Leaning Tower of Pisa Cupcakes

Hey guys! Are you ready for another tutorial?

By the way, if you have any requests, leave a comment, say hi, or if you are my neighbor, just holler :) I have a few ideas up my sleeve but I'd like to hear from you also :)

After the Eiffel Tower Cupcakes Tutorial, I thought I'd make a tutorial of another famous landmark, The Leaning Tower of Pisa. I remember Cake Boss making a ginormous cake version of the tower with a couple riding a Vespa and I thought, hmmmm.... how about we make  a cupcake topper version?

I made this topper using the same technique as the Eiffel Tower Cupcakes, I call it the Google and Trace technique. You know, find an easy to copy clip art on Google, trace it on a tracing paper and transfer to gumpaste. Then following it up with details using royal icing. This technique works well if you have want to create a two dimensional topper like Eiffel and this one. I find this a very useful (and inexpensive too) technique since not all shapes are readily available as a fondant cutter. 

So here it is! hope you guys like it!

What we need

Cupcakes (of course!)

Buttercream in Electric Green (with some in a piping bag with a grass tip)

Leaning Tower of Pisa Template (I just googled "Eiffel Tower Clipcart" and copied the simplest image I can find and tranfered it to a tracing paper)

Knife

Gumpaste (I use Country Kitchen's Gumpaste Mix)

Royal Icing tinted Chocolate Brown in piping bag with a #1 tip

Slim popsicle sticks

Here's How:


(1) Using an offset spatula, spread some of the buttercream into the cupcakes. Make sure to just spread thinly as we'll be adding another layer first. Consider this a "primer coat"

(2) Pipe the grass on the cupcakes.

(3) Roll out gumpaste and cut out the Leaning Tower of Pisa(s) using the template. Let it dry overnight

(4) Here's the template I used along with the cut gumpaste version.

(5) Using the Royal Icing in piping bag with a #1 tip, pipe the outline of the tower

(6) Then proceed piping the inside details of the tower. Let it dry (... again) 

(7) Assemble towers on top of the cupcakes with popsicle sticks for support. Make sure to make the tower lean a little bit on the right. It wouldn't be the Leaning Tower of Pisa if it doesn't lean, yeah?

Cupcake Decorating 101: Frosting - Butter or Shortening?

I got a lot of favorable response from the Cupcake Decorating Tips post I decided to follow it up with another interesting topic - when making buttercream, shall we use butter or shortening?

I have been asked many times so I thought I'd decicate a post about it. We won't be tackling the nutritional value of shortening or butter in this post but mainly pointing out the difference between butter and shortening in terms of cupcake decorating purposes.


Butter is roughly 80% milk fat, 18% water and 1-2% milk solids. It's basically made by churning cream or milk. Resulting butter has a pale yellow color. 

Vegetable shortening is 100% fat, snow white in color and doesn't require refrigeration.

Using the Basic Buttercream Recipe and a clear extract, let's see how butter and shortening will fare side by side. The following images will show buttercream made from purely butter (on the left) and purely shortening (on the left).


(1) Color
Buttercream made from purely butter will have a slightly yellowish tint while buttercream made from purely shortening will have a snow white color.

(2) Piped Frosting
When using butter, when piped into a cupcake it will look soft and heavy and will form a beautiful pointed soft tip on top once you release the frosting. When using shortening, piped frosting will be light and fluffy and will basically hold its shape. However, it will not form a beautiful pointed tip on top.

(3)  Tinted Frosting

When tinted with a hint of soft pink gel food coloring from Americolor, I'm not sure if you see it but the butter frosting has a slight yellowish tint bordering on orange while the shortening frosting shows a "just right" soft pink color. When using pure butter, you will probably have problems when using tints as pink (it might slightly look orange-y), red (will also look orange-y) and blue (it might look greenish) but you'll have no problem tinting it with yellow, purple orange or green. When using shortening, since your color base is purely white, any tint added will just pop out nicely.

If you ask me what I use, I always use 100% butter basically because I love the taste of butter. It adds a certain depth of buttery goodness to the frosting even when you layer it out with other flavors like lemon, mint, chocolate or cream cheese. But an advantage shortening has is that it heightens the flavor you put into it. Vanilla is more vanilla-y, lemon is more lemony or mint is more mintly without the buttery flavor getting in the way.

Now, this is a question I am always asked. How do I keep butter from melting especially that we live in the the always sunny Philippines?

There is a process called crusting. The longer a frosting sits, it will eventually form a crust or an "outer layer skin" that hardens and protects the rest of the frosting. So as long as I don't pipe my cupcakes very near an operating oven, frosted cupcakes should be fine. This has always worked for me. 

But if you're not particularly confident using purely butter, you can always try and experiment with a butter to shortening ratio that could work for you, 50% butter / 50% shortening, 25% butter / 75% shortening or 100% shortening. It's basically up to you. 

If you want to use pure butter but not quite confident that it'll hold it's shape especially during transporting cupcakes to your location, you can always add more powdered sugar (or if you don't wan't it too sweet - substitute it with powdered milk).

I'd love to know your thoughts on this. Are you a butter or shortening user? Or a combination of both? How do you keep your frosting sturdy till it reaches its destination?