Neapolitan Cupcakes

So baking 60 different cookie recipes in 23 days isn't really as bad as it sounds, but it is pretty exhausting! I've learned so much about baking cookies, like how very important it is to give cookies their "space" on a baking sheet, which is at least 2 inches apart when the dough has 1 1/2 tsp of baking powder/soda. Here's another discovery (well, it's more like validation for my previous baking-with-butter claims), sometimes you really don't need to use 1 1/2 sticks of butter when baking 2 dozen cookies.

I know I've posted a few cookie recipes on the blog that call for as little as 2 TBSP of butter, but it seems that I can even cut down on the butter when I'm not making up the recipe; I'll still have a buttery-enough ball of cookie dough afterward. Most of the time, cookie dough needs to be chilled for so long because of the large amounts of butter that make it slippery and difficult to work with. I've found that decreasing the butter amount by up to 30-50% can make the baking process go a lot faster...and speed matters when you have less than a month to bake more cookies than you've ever eaten or even seen in your life!

After baking 20 batches, I think I have a pretty good "feel" for cookie dough, literally and figuratively, so now it's a lot easier to add the butter a few spoonfuls at a time until I get the right texture - even if the amount I end up with is significantly less than what the recipe calls for. Oh, but enough about cookies! (After the cookie extravaganza comes to an end, I will definitely post the best cookie recipes out of the 60 I baked.)

Let's talk about cupcakes! I had a fantastic cupcake at a Vegan bakery here in Austin a few weeks ago, it was a heavenly strawberry shortcupcake from Dhaba Joy! I think it's the best cupcake I've ever had, which definitely says a lot considering there weren't any eggs or sticks of butter in this sweet treat. That weekend, I put together my own fun neapolitan cupcake recipe. It has a strawberry vanilla cream frosting and a vanilla with strawberries AND chocolate cakey center. I used a basic plain cupcake recipe from Key Ingredient as my template, then I added in a few special ingredients to create the two different batters that gave these cupcakes colorful and flavorful pizazz.

The Strawberry Top
2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsps baking powder
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup canola oil
3/4 cups sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup strawberry puree (fresh, blended strawberries)
2 TBSP strawberry jam

The Chocolate Bottom
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsps baking powder
1/2 cup milk
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup canola oil
3/4 cups sugar
2 eggs
3 TBSP applesauce (makes the cupcakes super moist!)
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa

Bake time 10-12 minutes at 350

I used mini muffin pans to make these little cupcakes. The chocolate and strawberry batters were prepared in separate bowls; I made sure to add the dry ingredients first and then fold in the wet ingredients. The nice thing about this batter is that it's thick, so when you pour the chocolate layer, then the strawberry/vanilla layer, they don't mix. One thing I found: it's best to add a little more strawberry/vanilla than chococlate batter, since the chocolate has a stronger taste. After the cupcakes baked and cooled for about 30 minutes, I decorated them with frosting.

As for the frosting, here are the ingredients (I don't have precise measurements for this part)
I used about
1/2 stick of butter
1/2 stick vegan shortening (non-hydrogenated)
1/2 TBSP strawberry jam
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp dried egg white powder
and enough powdered sugar to thicken the frosting at room temp.

These cupcakes taste great cold. Stick them in the fridge for a couple of hours and you'll find that they really do resemble the neapolitan ice cream they were inspired by!

Ohh...in case you're wonderin', this little cupcake picture features one from my first batch (I initially made a chocolate top, but I later found that the ones with the chocolate on the bottom tasted much better!).