That's right, I have made homemade whipped cream a few times so far in my blogging world but never have I ever made homemade chocolate and coffee whipped cream! This really put the icing on the cake (ha get it?) of my last under 200 calorie dessert. I know it is bad to lick the beaters once finished baking a delectable dessert; however, I somehow always break this law of Baking 101. Ever since I was younger, I was told that raw eggs are bad for you and you should NEVER EVER lick the cookie dough batter out of a mixing bowl or off of the beater. Somehow, my mom would still continue to let me do so :)
But that law doesn't exist when there are no raw eggs in the batter. In this case, I definitely licked the beaters clean (and the spatula) once I was finished whipping up my own version of chocolate coffee whipped cream.
Homemade whipped cream is THE BEST because all you need is a pint (depending on how much you need to frost) of whipping cream, 2-3 tbsp of sugar, and 1 tsp vanilla! All I had to add was a tsp coffee extract and some unsweetened cocoa powder based on my judgement. I whipped it up, tried it a few times to make sure it was delish, and VOILA!
Ever made angel food cake from scratch?? You would think it was a huge pain in the butt but actually, if you use egg whites from the carton, it is a piece of cake! (HA!) I adapted this recipe from someone's blog (she is an amazing blog writer) who tried angel food cake cupcakes. I cut the recipe in half.
12 large egg whites (1 1/2 cups)
1 1/2 teaspoons cream of tarter
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups sifted powdered sugar (sift before measuring)
1 1/8 cups sifted cake flour (sift before measuring)
1/4 teaspoon salt
Let egg whites sit at room temperature for about one hour before beginning. While eggs are resting, measure out powdered sugar and flour, then sift powdered sugar, flour and salt together. Set aside. Line a cupcake tin (or two) with cupcake liners.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and place rack in the bottom third of oven.
Using an electric mixer, beat egg whites until frothy. Once frothy, add in cream of tarter, then beat at medium speed until soft peaks form. This took me about 5-6 minutes. Gradually add granulated sugar with the mixer still on medium speed, continuing to beat until egg whites thicken a bit more with opaque, soft, droopy peaks. Once there, beat in vanilla extract.
Remove the bowl from the mixer and sprinkle 1/4 of the dry ingredients over the egg whites. Fold gently with a spatula until combined completely. Continue with the rest of the dry ingredients – I did this in three increments.
Once batter is smooth, use a 1/4 cup measure to pour heaping scoops of batter into each liner. Bake for 18-19 minutes, or until tops are golden brown. Let cool completely, then frost as desired. I frosted mine with a simple fresh vanilla whipped cream, using 1 pint of whipping cream, 2 tablespoons of sugar, 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract, and beating until thickened.
What is important to do: When making homemade angel food cake and reading other people's comments/concerns of the general recipe (not just on this blog), I discovered that folding in the flour, powdered sugar, and salt mixture is probably crucial. Some recipes that I saw, it didn't mention folding in this mixture, but rather just blending it with the hand mixer (or big blender if you have one). I read how some people's cakes didn't rise and turned out completely flat. Folding in the dry ingredients doesn't take long and makes for an easy clean up! Oh and don't leave out the cream of tartar as this ingredient is used as a thickener and helps things rise. Also, I've read that you must use cake flour--yes, this is much different than all purpose--since it is much more fine.
What I changed and added: Since this was a mocha angel food cake, I added coffee extract and unsweetened cocoa powder to the batter. Next time, I would probably leave out the vanilla extract in this recipe if I am going to use another extract. The batter was a little thin since I had both extracts in there. I discovered that using already prepared egg whites was SO MUCH easier than cracking and separating 12 large eggs themselves.
What I will do next time: Next time, instead of adding the unsweetened cocoa powder to the dry ingredients and then folding this mixture into the egg white mixture, I will add it to the egg white mixture which gets blended with the hand mixer. Since it wasn't blended in, there were little chunks of cocoa powder in the finished batter product. This didn't matter once baked, but it's something I recommend doing if you make this recipe :)
Angel food cake cupcakes are so great, light, and surprisingly healthy. Not to mention they just melt in your mouth. You can pop 'em in your mouth like munchkins! I could have put more batter in each liner--my ongoing flaw to making cupcakes :(-- which would have made them bigger but the cool whip on top made up for the extra space. These HAVE to be just or less than 100 calories each (especially the way I made them). How can you pass something like this up!?
Ya can't.
P.S. I am going to make all 8 projects in my very first cake decorating book that I purchased from Barnes and Noble! I will bake these over the next couple of months so stay tuned!
Cheers!
