Sundae in Guadalajara- Ice Cream Cupcakes

You really have no idea how many great blogs are out there! Or do you?.......Well lately I've had a chance to blog surf and have found some really great ones not only with yummy looking recipes but

also with admirable photographs. If you didn't already know along with latin culture and baking, photography is yet another one of my hobbies. I get almost as much pleasure from seeing what I

baked all "bonitafied" on a plate, as I do standing behind the camera lens taking photos of it.  Okay back to the blogs......a couple of weeks ago I came upon the Cupcake Project Blog and saw that they

were having a contest where you had to come up with a recipe using cupcakes and ice cream. Oh my, my, my that sounded like something I definitely wanted to be a part of, just the idea of it got my

creative juices all flowing.  Well after a few weeks I finally found the time to settle down, think about what yummy recipe I wanted to concoct then get it all down on paper for everyone to enjoy. In any

event I came up with a cupcake/ice cream dessert twist which I call "Sundae in Guadalajara". Many of the ingredients used in this dessert have a Spanish influence in one way or another. Actually

almost 6 years ago I had the chance to spend 3 weeks in Guadalajara studying Spanish abroad but never made it. The truth be told at the time I was a little nervous about the flight, silly I know, but

now I am over it and ready to go and visiting Guadalajara has now moved on to my bucket list, well that along with making the trek to Machu Picchu in Peru. Either way when I do go I imagine it being

so caliente that I must purchase something to cool me down from the hot Mexican sol, as I'm walking along the cobblestone streets I see a senora with a pushcart serving up these heaping creamy cold

scoops of Mexican helado (ice cream) strawberry and dulce de leche unto fluffy plantain cupcakes. Each scoop is dripping with alternating drizzles of Mexican chocolate syrup and creamy homemade dulce de leche, then sprinkled with chunks of sugar cone pieces and colorful sprinkles.

A swirl of vanilla buttercream and a tangy yellow and a plump red cherry tops it off. And there you have it my "Sundae in Guadalajara" ice cream/ cupcake LOVE ♥  Oh and if ice cream is what you crave I found a cute little blog called Scoopalicious that is dedicated to everything ice cream!

Plantain Cupcakes

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter
• 1/4 cup shortening
• 4 large eggs
• 2 cups superfine sugar
• 2 3/4 cups cake flour
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 cup warm milk
• 1 very ripe plantain (mostly black)

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions

Preheat the oven to 345 degrees F. Line a 24 count jumbo-size cupcake pan with cupcake liners.

In a heavy-duty mixing bowl, cream together the butter and shortening on medium speed. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, until completely combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Add the superfine sugar with the mixer set to low speed. Once combined, set the mixer to medium speed and mix for 5 minutes.

Sift together the cake flour, cinnamon, salt, and baking powder. Begin to add the sifted dry ingredients to the batter, alternating with the warm milk. In a separate bowl, blend the plantain with a hand mixer. Add the vanilla and the blended plantain to the batter.

Fill the cupcake liners 3/4 full. Bake until the cake bounces back when you touch it, about 20 minutes. Remove from the pan and place onto a wire rack to cool.

When the cupcakes are completely cool place them on a plate or even a ice cream sundae dish would be really cute. Top the cupcakes with either strawberry or dulce de leche ice cream or both would be delicious, I used Haagen -Dazs for both flavors.

Drizzle the cupcakes with dulce de leche and Mexican chocolate syrup, I found both of these at my local Mexican market. Dulce de leche may also be found in your local grocery store easier than the Mexican chocolate syrup may be. But you can make your own syrup by taking a cup of regular chocolate syrup and adding a tsp of  Mexican canela or cinnamon.

Sprinkle crushed sugar cone pieces and colorful sprinkles on top of the ice cream, then swirl with your favorite homemade or canned frosting a few more colored sprinkles and top with cherries!

Justin Bieber is Mas Caliente Than Kevin Bacon

So last week was my daughter Bianca's 9th birthday and every year I make a special delivery to her class

with whichever treat her little heart desires.  Now my Bianca is a huge Justin Bieber fan and she has

been dedicated to loving Justin for almost 3 years now.  Unfortunately, 3rd grade children being who

they are some of the children in her class not only
do not care for Justin Bieber. They dislike him with

the same amount of passion that forces my daughter to practically beg me on her hands and knees to

purchase every single magazine that has Justin's face gracing the cover. So I was shocked when she

said she wanted me to make the cupcakes that I added to Chica Chocolatina menu 2 years ago to

show our love for Justin Bieber ( yes, yes I did say OUR LOVE), I think he is a very cute, determined and talented little kid). It is a vanilla-maple bacon

infused cake, swirled with rich maple butter cream ( since Justin is from Canada and Canada is famous for its maple syrup we actually found pure maple syrup straight from Canada to use in the

butter cream. The Canadian maple butter cream is than infused with Justin's favorite color, purple. A crispy piece of maple bacon is dipped in milk chocolate than placed on top of the cupcake with royal

purple sprinkles. Trying to find a name for this cupcake was a little tricky at first, I thought calling it a Justin Bieber bacon cupcake was just too plain and didn't give any justice to the extraordinary taste

of a maple-bacon cupcake or even the exceptional talent or the person that this cupcake was dreamed up for.  So after some time it just clicked as a young girl "Footloose" was my absolute favorite movie

and I was totally obsessed with Kevin Bacon, well actually it seemed like everyone was at the time. Anyway I felt like my childhood obsession with Kevin Bacon was similar to the way my Bianca felt

about Justin Bieber (his last name also played an insy winsy part, lol).  Even though I think Kevin Bacon has aged beautifully and is still sexy as hell! But I'm sure all those preteen Justin Bieber

loving girls would profoundly disagree and decided that I should accept that a new generation has taken over and respectfully named this the


Justin Bieber is Mas Caliente Than Kevin Bacon Cupcake ♥ And just because I know that some little 9 year olds can be relentless with their teasing and distaste for someone or something that

they don't like. I made a few cupcakes with plain white butter cream, royal purple sprinkles and the chocolate dipped bacon. I couldn't stand to think that they would ruin Bianca's special day by

possibly throwing away the cupcakes just because Justin Biebers face was on them. What those kids don't know is that no matter the decoration a little bit of Justin Bieber is baked in side each little

cake, because me and Bianca had so much fun stirring, mixing and pouring all while Justin Bieber was blasting through our kitchen the whole entire time♥

Te Quiero Mucho, Cupcake

This is another one of my cupcakes created last week during my baking frenzy, I didn't have a chance to post it until now. I had dulce de leche leftover from my Nuevo Banana Splits and Latin Elvis cupcakes and thought to myself what else would be great with dulce de leche ? What else? Chocolate! This is a rich and moist chocolate cake filled with creamy dulce de leche filling, I made my favorite chocolate ganache recipe but this time I mixed in Dulseda which is a creamy dulce de leche liquer that gave the ganache a rich caramel bite.

Next, I dipped the tops of my cupcakes in the ganache and let them cool. Once cooled I warmed the dulce de leche so that I could drizzle a little on top of the cupcakes.

At first bite of these cupcakes I was in love!! The chocolate cake was so rich and moist and the dulce de leche within the cupcake was so creamy and gave just the right sweetness to the cupcake. The dulce de leche chocolate ganache gave this cupcake a smooth and perfect chocolate and caramel twist.

My oldest daughter and I were sitting at the table and in between bites I was telling I her I think that this is my new favorite cupcake! I then asked her what should we call it ? And she replied, we should call it "Te Quiero Mucho, Cupcake" which in Spanish translates to I want you so much, Cupcake! I told her once again that she was brillant and that was a perfect name,and so here it is the "Te Quiero Mucho, Cupcake"!