Blood Orange Chocolate Chip Cupcakes
Blood Orange Chocolate Chip Cupcakes
With Blood Orange White Chocolate Buttercream
& a Chocolate Buttercream Dollop
Halloween has to be one of the most wildly satisfying days of the year - you can be whoever you want, eat as much candy as you want, and scare yourself silly. My sisters and I used to go trick or treating from door to door dressed as beatniks – daddy-o can you dig it? My mother was fascinated by the culture of Greenwich Village and its creativity and this was a quick and easy costume fix for 3 girls. Red lipstick, hoop earrings and a beret did the trick for the sisters - we had to get in the mind set as really cool cats. My poor brother just put on his raccoon cap and went as Daniel Boone.
Costumed with imagination, we tried our best to fill our brown paper shopping bags to the brim. We marched up and down steep stairs of brownstone and brick houses in the city and came home with our sacks overflowing and feeling very accomplished. That night we were allowed to eat as much of our plunder that we could stomach.
One of my favorite stops was a neighbor who made hundreds of cupcakes. We all knew her, so there was no fear and trepidation eating an unwrapped snack. This lady went all out, she even dressed as a witch, but more importantly - she didn’t skimp on the frosting, she mounded it nice and high. Obviously, she was a good witch.
Since cupcakes hold such a happy memory for me, for this year’s Halloween Party I have planned an exciting taste sensation - blood orange cupcakes with white chocolate buttercream. The one little trick to give them a stunning appearance is to go bold with the color of the icing. Orange food gel, rather than the drops, mixed with a small amount of red gel, gives them that blood orange look. Blood red didn’t seem very appetizing, but the blood orange color screamed Halloween.
Alas, I am not planning to be a beatnik this year, but will be a fairy princess spreading happiness by cupcakes to live my unfulfilled dreams for a day. Regardless of your costume choice, set a spooky stage for your presentation. I love this material with witch heads for a special effect. I have placed witches, lights, pumpkins, ghosts galore and spiders all over to set the stage.
Happy Baking!
And Remember
Always Stay in Touch with Inner Goddess!
Fresh squeezed Blood Orange juice is more red and spookier than regular orange juice!
Ingredients
Blood Orange Chocolate Chip Cupcakes
½ pound Butter Softened
2 cups Granulated Sugar
4 Large Eggs at room temperature
2 teaspoons Orange Extract
2 teaspoons Vanilla Extract
Zest of Two Blood Oranges
½ cup Freshly Squeezed Blood Orange Juice (2-3 Blood Oranges)
½ cup Milk at room temperature
3 cups All Purpose Flour
3 teaspoon Baking Powder
½ teaspoon Baking Soda
½ teaspoon Salt
1 cup Semisweet Chocolate Chips (regular size, dust with flour and use another tip to keep them from sinking)
Instructions
Blood Orange Chocolate Chip Cupcakes
Heat oven to 350 degrees.
If cupcake papers are not foil lined, double them so the design is not lost while baking.
Measure out all your ingredients.
Wash and zest your oranges and make sure to bring butter, milk and juice to room temperature.
Combine dry ingredients.
Cream butter.
Add sugar and beat until creamy.
Add eggs, orange and vanilla extracts and fully incorporate.
Alternately add dry ingredients and milk and juice.
Toss chips by hand with two tablespoons of batter and dust with 1 tablespoon of flour to keep chips from sinking.
Add two tablespoons of batter into each cupcake paper to also keep chips from sinking into the batter.
Fold in chocolate chips into remaining batter.
Bake 19 – 22 minutes, check with a toothpick until it just comes out with a few crumbs, but is not wet.
Remove cupcakes from oven immediately and cool on rack.
After only 5 minutes, remove cupcakes from tins and let cool completely.
You must recite the following while you are baking,
the cupcakes will be much more delicious.
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and caldron bubble.
Filet of a fenny snake,
In the caldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Alder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting,
Lizard’s leg and howler’s wing
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and caldron bubble.
Cool it with a babbon’s blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.
William Shakespeare in Old English from Macbeth
My little pretties!
Ingredients
Blood Orange White Chocolate Buttercream
3 ounces White Chocolate
1 pound (4 sticks) Lightly Salted Butter
Zest of 2 Blood Oranges
½ cup Juice from Blood Oranges
1 tablespoon Pure Orange Extract
8 cups (2 pound boxes) Powdered Sugar
Red Food Coloring
Orange Food Coloring (or yellow for a less intense color)
Chocolate Buttercream for Dollop
1/3 cup Unsweetened Cocoa Powder to be added to reserved frosting. See directions below.
Instructions
Blood Orange Frosting
Melt white chocolate in microwave on low power, check and stir every 15 seconds until chocolate is almost melted. Remove and stir.
Cream butter.
Add blood orange zest and juice and pure orange extract
Add melted white chocolate and incorporate thoroughly.
Beat in powdered sugar.
Add food coloring until desired color is achieved.
Use a bit more yellow than red if working with drops. (I used the gel and it comes out much brighter.)
*Remove 2 cups of frosting and add cocoa powder.
Set aside.
Chocolate Buttercream Accent
*Add cocoa powder to remaining 2 cups of frosting and incorporate thoroughly.
And finally …
Frost cupcakes blood orange frosting. I used a 2 tablespoon scoop to dollop on the frosting and then spread it with a small offset frosting spatula.
If you want to make the blood orange frosting shiny as I did with one batch, just use a hair dryer on a low setting.
Top with a dollop of chocolate accent frosting. I just used a smaller scoop.
Hauntingly Delicious!
