Miniature Mango Snack Cakes

Welcome to Tuesday, the appointed day of my weekly baking club, wherein we create one of Dorie Greenspan's stellar recipes and report back. Today's assignment: Mango Bread.

I know I like zuchinni bread, pumpkin bread, carrot bread, and banana bread, so even though I hadn't tried mango bread, I was pretty sure it would be cute and loveable. Except, I have one little gripe with these moist quick breads: they seem like health food and yet they call for vast amounts of fat. Now, I'll make donuts and cookies and not bat an eye, but in those cases you know exactly what you are getting yourself into. But doggone it, if something seems good for you, then it ought to be. Since this week's mango bread called for 3/4 cup of oil, I thought I'd shake things up a little. I made a 1/3 batch into little miniature "snack cakes," since portion control is vital with my eat-it-till-it's gone MO. Plus, I swapped a little of the oil for buttermilk to trim some of the fat. I also used dried mangos, because my parents had some in their cupboard across the street. I borrowed them last night when they were out to dinner wiwth friends. By the way Mom, can I borrow your dried mangoes? OK, thanks. And now that I have them, I think I want some in a salad, so you may not get them back right away. Thanks again. These snack cakes were really yummy. The mango flavor wasn't pronounced, but present. They tasted like little gingerbread spice cakes with a touch of the tropics. They'd be lovely for breakfast, an afterschool snack, or for a casual dessert like we had last night. Come on back tomorrow for a Max and Ruby raspberry fluff birthday cake.

Money Saving Tips: Keep a big bag of dried mangoes on hand from Costco. They're great for snacking and baking. It's especially cheap if you can take them for free out of your parent's cupboard. Ahem, thanks again, Mom.

Miniature Mango Snack Cakes

Estimated Cost: $1.50 for 24

1/4 cup orange juice

1/2 cup dried mangoes, chopped

1 egg

2 tablespoons canola or vegetable oil

2 tablespoons buttermilk or milk

3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons flour (I used half whole wheat)

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon ginger

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

pinch of salt

1/3 cup sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a small microwaveable boil, bring orange juice to a boil. Add mangoes and let sit for ten minutes. Line a mini muffin pan with paper liners and spray the top with cooking spray. In a small bowl, whisk together the egg, oil, and buttermilk. In a separate bowl, combine flour, powder, soda, ginger, cinnamon, salt, sugar, and brown sugar; mix until well combined. Add egg mixture to dry ingredients; batter will be thick. Stir in mangoes and orange juice. Pour mixture into prepared muffin cups and bake for 12-18 minutes, or until puffed and brown. They may rise up and fall back down, and that's OK. Sprinkle with powdered sugar if desired.

Coming Tomorrow:

Raspberry Fluff Cake

Irish Oatmeal Cupcakes with Broiled Brown Sugar Frosting

Top of the morning to you! Happy St. Patrick's Day. I wish I could just lean through the screen and give you all a pinch. I really don't care if you are wearing green or not. I would just pretend that I hadn't seen it yet. To me, March 17th is my big chance to pinch everyone; those who are wearing emerald hues are not exempt! Especially those lucky people, like my sister Michelle, who feel that they are above wearing green just because they happened to be born with gorgeous green eyes. Ha Ha, I'm coming to get you guys especially. So be on the lookout and be on the run. And looking cute and festive won't help you either. I would even pinch these guys.If you want to avoid my yearly squeeze, you'll have to be on the run so you may need a few extra grams of energy in the form of calories. These cupcakes, faith and begorra, they are so delicious, especially the crackly brown sugar icing. And while they aren't exactly Irish, they do have oatmeal, and oatmeal is Irish; so if A=B than the compound B will still retain the Irish qualities of A. So let it be written. Happy St. Patrick's Day and don't say I didn't warn you...
Money Saving Tips:

These cupcakes are simply a scaled down version of an oatmeal sheetcake with a broiled brown sugar frosting. They are made from inexpensive and common pantry ingredients, so you should have everything on hand, hopefully including some sale priced butter. If you've got a cup and a quarter of leftover prepared oatmeal in the pot, you can use that here.

Irish Oatmeal Cupcakes with Broiled Brown Sugar Frosting

Estimated Cost: $3.00 for 24 cupcakes
1 cup old fashioned oats

1 and 1/2 cups boiling water

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 cup sugar

1 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla

1 and 1/3 cup flour (I used half whole wheat)

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

Brown Sugar Broiled Icing:

1 cup brown sugar

5 tablespoons butter

4 tablespoons cream or milk

pinch of salt and cinnamon

Combine oats and boiling water in a small bowl. Let rest for twenty minutes. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a cupcake tin with paper liners. In a large bowl, cream butters and sugars. Add eggs and vanilla and beat well. Gently stir in flour, soda, cinnamon and salt. Stir in oatmeal mixture and combine gently. Pour a scant 1/4 cup into each of 24 muffin cups. Bake for about 20 minutes, or until top springs back and toothpick is clean. The tops will be flat and slightly bubbly looking. Let cool for about five minutes. Preheat broiler. In a small bowl, combine all of the icing ingredients. spread cupcakes with icing. Broil, WATCHING CLOSELY, until icing bubbles.
Today was also Tuesdays with Dorie and we made this.

But, we really didn't care for it very much and it didn't have any Irish oatmeal in it. Enough said.

Up Next:

Belgian Waffles with Whipped Cream and Strawberries for the First Day of Spring

Valentine X-O Cupcakes

Happy Valentine's Day to all of my lovely readers. I hope your day is filled with romantic, fraternal, puppy, friendly, sisterly, motherly, fatherly, platonic, or whatever kind of love that makes your heart sing. I'm filled with bloggerly love. Even though I'm here in South Dakota (see previous post) for Grandpa Bud's funeral, it fills me with pink and red warm fuzzies to share my recipes and my musings about real life right here on Prudence Pennywise. Thanks for reading and coming back and for making my recipes. Here's wishing much love and all of life's candy coated sweetness to all of you!

If it's not too late, here's some cute little cupcakes. I used a chocolate cupcake recipe (still not perfect-working on a getting it right to share) frosted with cream cheese icing. What makes them so cute, is the sprinkling of sugar. Hold a cookie cutter over the iced cakes and sprinkle inside the lines. I got my X-O cookie cutters from the dollar store. Swing by and pick some up. Or stay home and just look at the pictures. Either way...

Best wishes for a Happy Valentine Day to all.

Cupcake of the Month: Winter White Snowflake Cupcakes

I need food and shelter and oxygen, it's true. But I also, need cupcakes often, at least every month. They're not all for me. Although they could be, if I wasn't careful. Somehow, there's an occasion to bake a cupcake at least 12 times a year, evenly spaced into perfect calendar pages. This year, I'm going to take the time to make them memorable and as fun to look at as they are too eat. That sounds like a lovely resolution for 2009, so watch for a new cupcake of the month right here at Prudence Pennywise. Oh, I know it's January and we're pinching our inches as well as our pennies, but that's precisely why I love a good cupcake: portion control and share-ability.

You could use your own white cake recipe (I love Joy of Cooking's), or simply bake up a box from a mix. Promise not to tell. (Especially if you swap the oil for butter and and switch the water for buttermilk.) Next, frost the cupcakes with a smooth cream cheese frosting. I like to use about 4 tablespoons butter, 4 ounces cream cheese, and about 2 cups powdered sugar, with a little drizzle of vanilla and lemon juice. And to top it off, you need a sprinkling of coarse sugar and a purdy little snowflake. You could use melted white chocolate, of even easier discs of vanilla candy melt. (I use Wilton white candy melts, found at most craft stores.) Melt the discs CAREFULLy in the microwave in a little squeeze bottle or plastic bag. Line a cookie sheet with waxed paper and pipe some pretty white simple snowflakes. Put them in the fridge for a minutes to set. Perched on your all white cupcake, they'll be a snow white beauty that's not only good to look at but good enough to eat. Best of all, you'll save a bundle over bakery prices since you'll be making your own sugary magic at home. Coming Next:

Green Chile, Sour Cream and Cheddar Cornbread Mini Muffins

Holly Berry Cupcakes

I was planning to post these chocolate buttermilk cupcakes with chocolate butter cream frosting and candy holly today.

But it does seem a little late. After all it is Christmas Eve, and chances are, you already know exactly what you're making for dinner. And breakfast. And for dinner tomorrow. Etc. But I still wanted to wish you a very Merry Christmas and tell all of my readers how much I've enjoyed sharing my recipes and random ramblings with you. I have so much more that I want to share in the coming year. (Even in the coming week, and if the Quiet Man doesn't hold me back, even tomorrow.) Thanks so much for being my friends, for trying my recipes and for being interested in my sweet and savory minutia. It's no fun to be thrifty alone; I need my fiesty gang of penny pinchers here at Prudence Pennywise.

In the meantime, a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holiday to all! And in the words of Tiny Tim, God bless us, every one!

PS Happy Birthday to my Irish twin sister Michelle, the Christmas Eve baby that came home in a giant stocking. I was always so jealous of that big giant stocking. I still am. A little.

Still Coming: Christmas in Italy

Halloween Cupcakes

The clock is about to strike midnight. It's almost the witching hour. Sign up for Tuesdays with Dorie now, before you miss the chance to bake on the cheap with our rowdy crew of spirited bakers. Eerily enough, the deadline is Halloween. Egads, did I hear a thunder clap?

This week's assignment, from Clara at I heart Cuppycakes, couldn't have come at a more opportune time. I don't need extra reasons to bake chocolate buttermilk cupcakes with chocolate frosting, but it was actually my turn to bring cupcakes to the "young women" at church for the monthly "Cupcake Sunday." If you ever want to bake for a grateful crowd, choose teenager girls. I thought they might break out into a fist fight-in church, no less- over which cupcakes was whose, and whose cupcake was which, and who saw which one first, and which one had more of this and that. I sat on the back row grinning. You have to love food that inspires such heart felt irreverence. I spent Saturday churning out cupcakes, 36 to be exact. Exactly the number I need to bring to church, and not one extra. Not one. By Saturday night, my home was filled with chocolatey sadness and gooey jealousy. And it wasn't just me either. The Quiet Man and the little charges were also quite put out, not to mention their five visiting cousins. Even my mom popped by and asked if she might have a cupcake and I had to turn her down. Have you ever seen such cruelty? But at 9 PM, I cracked under the pressure. I made another batch, a fourth batch of Dorie's cupcake so that we could all enjoy a late night cupcake feast. Chocolatey sadness was replaced with chocolatey joy and gooey delight outshone the previous jealousy. We licked our candy coated wounds and went to bed completely content.

So head on over to Clara's and get this contentment-in-a- cupcake recipe for yourself. And make extra, because you'll be sure to have no shortage of takers.

Estimated Cost for my fellow penny pinchers: $5.00 for 12.

Notes: I used orange colored vanilla candy melts, melted into a squeeze bottle and piped onto waxed paper, for the words and letters.
Coming Tomorrow:

Halloween Supper Upper Upper