Farewell Cooking Tour: Café du Monde Cupcakes

For my final Houston baking feat, I was going to have to return to the dessert that began it all- cupcakes.  Aside from raising the blood sugar levels of my coworkers, I was also hoping to give Minh a thank you for the awesome Bánh Mì Making Tutorial earlier in the week. The only logical solution was to turn Minh's famous Café du Monde Cake into convenient hand-held form.

Café du Monde Cupcakes
Modified from the Previously Seen Cake

Batter that doubles as coffee delivery system

Servings: 24 cupcakes
Time: 75 minutes

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup toasted hazelnuts, peeled and chopped well
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1-2 tsp Cafe du Monde coffee powder
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1 tbsp vanilla extract
2/3 cup brewed Cafe du Monde Coffee (you can add milk to get total volume)
1 Batch previously seen Chocolate Hazelnut Frosting
Nutella

It's clearly very important to be consistent with your Nutella scooping...

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F.
2. Whisk the flour, well chopped hazelnuts, baking powder, salt, and coffee powder together in a large bowl. Set Aside.
3. Beat the butter and sugar together in an electric mixer until light and fluffy.
4. Add in the eggs one at a time until well incorporated.
5. Mix in the vanilla extract.
6. Alternate adding in the dry ingredients and brewed coffee in 2-3 batches until just mixed.
7. Line muffin tins with cupcake liners.
8. Fill each ~ 1/3 full with batter.
9. Add in a spoonful of Nutella.
10. Top with additional batter so the liners are ~ 2/3 full.
11. Bake for 14-18 minutes until the toothpick test comes back clean (be careful not to hit the Nutella center).
12. Let cool on wire racks.
13. Make the amazing Chocolate Hazelnut Frosting. If you're using Nutella, stay on the light side of added powdered sugar, because it already has a lot. If you use the hippie Hazelnut Butter that I did err toward the high side.
14. Find a skilled cake decorator to make up for your cupcake tips being in a box halfway across the country.
15. Frost the cupcakes and garnish with hazelnuts.

Sadly, despite already having what is essentially frosting on the inside, they still require topping.

Using my vast scientific knowledge to construct a shrinking ray to bring the Café du Monde cake to its tinier form was a success. The use of gluteny flour definitely proved to be quite the step up from the gluten-free cake I had previously made, which had a weird, falling apart consistency (but still tasted damn good). Once again, this perfectly mimicked the Cafe TH original's flavor. Sure it may have lacked the traditional ice cream scoop accompaniment, but it more than made up for it with the Nutella center of awesomitude.

Michaela's piping skills are second to none

I was worried that the cupcakes were going to have to impress with their taste alone. The great move meant a lot of my baking supplies were either donated or already sitting in Charleston, and shockingly Kevin does not have a single piping tip of his own. Fortunately he has excellent taste in girlfriends/decorators, and Michaela was able to make the best out of a just a ziploc bag with the end cut off.

The Nutella tends to sink toward the bottom, but it magically always finds its way to your mouth.

Between these cupcakes and the amazing Snickerdoodle Nutella Cookie Cake, I think I helped cement my legacy in Unipixel company lore. My last day was full of free good-bye coffee and lunch, as well as careful monitoring of the rapidly depleting dessert supply in between siting with my feet up on my cleaned out desk. I may have been slightly hurt that no one grabbed my leg in an attempt to keep me from leaving, but it was a great 3 years of entering the real world. Now, it's time to scour my myriad cookbooks  as I make use of my abundant free time until employment begins anew.

Despite being my favorite cupcake and a wonderful self-portrait, my coworkers neglected this cupcake to last due to lack of frosting goodness.

Cafaux TH: Dessert- Café du Monde Cake

By this point, my picture taking and staging abilities had greatly deteriorated with tiredness and fullness.

Back in the original days of Cafe TH dinner specials before Minh hired a pastry chef, two desserts were frequently rotated in and out- Fried Bananas and Café du Monde Cake. These two brilliantly executed sweet treats actually managed to prove that you can never have too much of a good thing, as we never found ourselves tired of either. When it came time to choose the hammer to our evening of gluttony there was no discussion. Cafe TH's greatest, and longest lived dessert (which just so happened to callback to my New Orleans roots) was the clear choice.

Café du Monde Cake
Heavily Modified from Frappuccino Cucpcakes
Servings: 2- 9" cakes

Hazelnutty and coffeey batter

Cakes
2 1/4 cups all-purpose gluten free flour (or cake flour if not going GF)
1/2 cup toasted hazelnuts, peeled and chopped well
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp Cafe du Monde coffee powder
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1 tbsp vanilla extract

The greatest frosting in the history of fat

2/3 cup strongly brewed Cafe du Monde coffee

Chocolate Hazelnut Frosting
16 oz cream cheese, softened to room temp
6-8 tbsp chocolate hazelnut spread (I used Justin's Chocolate Hazelnut Butter)
2-4 cups powdered sugar
2 splashes of heavy cream
1 tbsp vanilla extract
Toasted hazelnuts, coarsely chopped

And now you can peel all of them!

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F.
2. Whisk the flour (use cake flour if possible), chopped hazelnuts, baking powder, salt and coffee powder together in a large bowl). Set aside.
3. Beat the butter and sugar together in an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment until light and fluffy.
4. Add in the eggs one at a time until well incorporated.
5. Mix in the vanilla extract.
6. Alternate adding in the dry ingredients and brewed coffee in 3 portions until just mixed.
7. Fill two, greased, lightly floured 9" rounds with batter. Bake for 16-20 minutes or until the toothpick test comes back clean.
8. Let cool on a wire rack.
9. Fail at removing the cakes from their pans and have 2, single layer cakes instead of a majestic double layer one.
10. Make the frosting in an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Beat the cream cheese well. Then add the chocolate hazelnut spread and mix well.
11. Add in the vanilla extract and powdered sugar (I used 4 cups because my hippie spread was lower in sugar than your usual Nutella, so adjust accordingly). Smooth out the frosting with a couple of splashes of heavy cream. Realize you have just created the world's greatest frosting and make up for the fact that you've been too busy baking to eat all day.
12. Frost the cakes and sprinkle on chopped toasted hazelnuts. Serve slices on top of a smear of extra frosting.

One lovely cake stuck to the pan!

Flavor-wise, this cake hit all the fondly remembered Cafe TH notes, and was, in my mind, the dish that most resembled its inspiration. The coffee and hazelnut melded together with perfect harmony in the cake, while the chocolate hazelnut frosting should have a patch to combat the addiction to it that you will develop. The only downfall of the cake was its overly crumbly nature resulting from the gluten-free flour (easily fixed by using super gluteny cake flour for those of you who want to try this at home). My inability to separate the cakes from their pans to make a two-tiered dessert behemoth turned out to be a blessing as there is no way that structure would have survived cutting.

The next iteration might just be a giant bowl filled with frosting

I don't know that Kevin and I have ever put more into a night of cooking than we did for this ode to Cafe TH (and that's saying something), but it was absolutely worth it as we had a night we'll never forget (and not just because we were too busy cooking non-stop to drink). As amazing as the night was, we sure are glad that next time it'll be coming out of Minh's kitchen.

After a long day of cooking, Kevin and I were able to enjoy the fruits of our efforts and look damn good doing it.

Chocolate Hazelnut Cookies

It's oddly difficult to figure out where one cookie ends and the other begins.

Following two days of my attempted Harry Potter Vacation Detox, I relapsed into a sugar and chocolate haze(lnut). Given the success of my previous foray into low ingredient count desserts, I decided to break up the lack of fictional wizard monotony of the work week with some 3-ingredient cookies. Naturally, I altered the recipe to include one more ingredient because I still just can't trust these minimal recipes fully.

Chocolate Hazelnut Cookies
Adapted from Chilly Frosting

Soon, I would assert my dominance on the hazelnuts

Servings: 12-18 cookies
Time: 60 minutes

1 1/3 cup hazelnuts
2/3 cup + 1 tbsp granulated sugar
2 egg whites
A pinch of salt
Semi-sweet or dark chocolate chips

I was still highly skeptical of this nut and sugar batter.

Double boiler!

1. Read ingredients and wonder why no one ever counts salt when they're making these "3"-ingredient recipes.
2. Preheat the oven to 350 F. 
3. Toast the hazelnuts in a single layer on a baking sheet for 13-15 minutes or until fragrant and lightly golden brown.
4. Remove the now loose skins and let cool.
5. Drop the oven temperature to 300 F.
6. Pulse the hazelnuts in a food processor to a coarse consistency.
7. Beat the egg whites using a stand mixer with the whisk attachment until stiff peaks form.
8. Lightly fold the hazelnut and sugar into the egg whites until a batter forms.
9. Drop the batter onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper in ~ tbsp sized amounts about 1- 1/2 inches apart.
10. Bake for 25-30 minutes until golden brown.
11. Let cool for 2 minutes on the baking sheet then carefully transfer to a wire rack. The cookies and bottoms may crack.
12. Melt the chocolate in a double boiler.
13. Dip the cookies in once they've cooled. Place them on parchment paper in the fridge for at least half an hour to let the chocolate set.

The cookies looked sadly plain...

For a recipe that involved so few ingredients, this was surprisingly labor intensive (peeling/shelling nuts individually continues to be my least favorite baking activity alongside zesting citrus). As expected, the rich toasted hazelnut taste and sugar dominated the flavor of this cookie (seriously, don't forget to toast the nuts). This combo resulted in a crispy outside and an intriguing soft, chewy inside. In an attempt to not be overwhelmed by the sugar bomb, I used some semi-sweet chocolate (but I would recommend darker varieties for full effect). This extra step was worth it because the chocolate really helped balance things out and made these plain cookies look even more amazing. If you wanted to make these simple cookies even more complex, I'd recommend incorporating some nutella or a hint of espresso into the chocolate dip.

...which chocolate always cures!

Luckily, I was able to stop myself after just two cookies and save the rest for my coworkers. Going cold turkey with candy just wasn't as successful as I had hoped.