Guest Post: Diana – Neapolitan Cupcakes

The most recent winner of the Diced! competition is Diana. While we are waiting for the second round of the current competition (first full week in January), check out Diana’s blog at Food N Thought Peddler and her new guest post below….

Winning the last round of Diced!  was awesome and it came with a huge sigh of relief. Don’t get me wrong, the road was fun and exciting, but there’s something about finally completing the task and learning the results, whatever they may be, that brings a resolution and closes the chapter and moves you onto some other wonderful things to try.

Ending or not, I still had work to do, that is to thank my family, friends, their friends and all other people who voted and rooted for me. Of course I thanked a lot of people personally, via various social media outlets, but nothing beats an old-fashioned notion of actually “returning the favor”, and I could do it the only way I could, I baked!

Out came, and was very handy, one of the cool prizes I got, Bake Stack by Youcopia. Owning it though makes me realize, I need another one, or two of these, to fit in all my baking things.

The next challenge was to try and satisfy all the requests and preferences for baked goodies favorites. No small task I tell you, and I’m sure there were some who’d rather I baked donuts or cookies or whatever it was they wanted, but since you can’t ever satisfy them all, and nobody actually complained, I say the task was a success! 🙂

In my quest to please most of them, I thought the cupcakes would make more sense for the occasion and they are definitely more festive than donuts or cookies,  plus I’m kind of known in my circle as a “cupcake girl” so it was a natural choice I guess. Choosing the actual flavor was a bit more difficult than I thought, I deliberated between making a couple of batches of different ones or make something more elaborate and maybe even alcohol spiked (to celebrate), but at the end I think I came up with a perfect compromise.

Below is a cupcake for the “undecided”! You can actually have it all! 🙂

Neapolitan Cupcakes

You can use any vanilla and chocolate cupcakes recipes you already like, or you can try the ones I used. This batch makes 24 cupcakes. I made a couple of batches to thank everybody.

Chocolate dough:

1  1/2 cup flour (I used King Arthur gluten free flour mix plus 1tsp of xanthan gum)

1 cup of sugar

1/3 cup of baking cocoa

1/2 cup cold brewed coffee

1/2 cup canola or melted coconut oil

2 eggs

3 tspoon apple cider vinegar

3 tspoons vanilla extract

1 tspoon baking soda

1/3 tspoon sea salt

Vanilla dough:

1  1/4 cup of flour (I used King Arthur gluten free mix)

1 cup of sugar

2 eggs

1/2 cup of unsalted butter, melted

1/2 cup of milk (I used unsweetened almond milk)

1/4 tspoon of salt

1 1/2 tspoon of baking powder

1 tspoon of vanilla extract

Strawberry frosting and garnish:

2 sticks of unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup of shortening (I used Spectrum organic shortening)

8 oz of cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup of seedless strawberry jam

1   1/2 – 2 cups of powdered sugar (more or less, depending how sweet the jam is)

1 tspoon of vanilla

24 chocolate kisses

12-24 pieces of candied fruit for garnish (depending on size)

For both dough recipes, first beat the eggs, then cream together with butter/oil and sugar, add the rest of the wet ingredients and combine. Mix together the flour with the dry ingredients and gradually add into the wet ingredients, combine well. Line the cupcake pans with 24 liners, add chocolate dough in each to make just a bit more than 1/4 full, insert a chocolate kiss in a middle and then top with the equal amount of the vanilla dough.

Bake at 350 degrees in a pre-heated oven for about 15-20 minutes or until the tops become golden. Cool completely before removing from the pans and frosting.

In a mean while make the frosting, first cream the butter until it’s fluffy, then add shortening cream cheese and then strawberry jam and beat it all again. Add vanilla and gradually add powdered sugar, you may need more or less so taste as you go along.

Decorate the frosting as desired and top each cupcake with candied fruit to make it look like a true Italian feast.

Don’t forget to try one too!

And in case you have some of the strawberry frosting left, and you’re still in a baking mood, make Neapolitan cookies too. 🙂

Enjoy and share with those who support you!