Millionaire Cupcakes
Maybe you’ve heard of Millionaire Pie? My mom used to make it when I was a kid, and I always remember it being delicious. If you’ve never had it, it’s a no bake pie made with whipped topping, pineapple, and maraschino cherries in a graham cracker crust. I’ve been wanting to do a cupcake inspired by these flavors, and with a little help from my mom, I finally did. (Thanks for the recipe, mom!)
When Dylan and I went to the store today to pick out a beer to go in these cupcakes, we weren’t quite sure what we were going to use. Then we found a beer called Mana Wheat, from the Maui Brewing Company. It’s a wheat beer and it’s brewed with pineapple juice! I can’t see there being another beer that would be better suited for this cake. The beer is light bodied with a crisp pineapple taste to it, and not in an overpowering, or overly sweet kind of way. I’ve got another can in the refrigerator waiting for me, it’d be perfect on a bright sunny day.
The cake is basically a yellow cake with crushed pineapple added to it (and beer, of course). The crushed pineapple keeps the cake moist, and I think the beer flavor comes through really nicely in this one. My original plan for the frosting was to make the pie filling, like my mom used to make. Since we’re going to be offering samples of this cake tomorrow evening at the foodie tweetup (are you going?), I wanted a frosting that wouldn’t melt after being out of the refrigerator for a short time, like a whipped topping might do. I used a cream cheese frosting instead, and flavored it with pineapple juice. It turned out delicious! After frosting a bunch of mini cupcakes, and a few full size ones, each is topped off with a dusting of graham cracker crumbs and half a maraschino cherry.
(On a tasty side note, there was leftover frosting and I may have eaten a spoonful or two covered in graham cracker crumbs. It tastes like cheesecake.)
We are looking forward to seeing you at Launchpad on Monday evening for the tweetup! We won’t be there right at 5 pm when it starts (have to work the day job until 5 pm), but we’ll see you soon after.
– Jackie & Dylan
Coconut Porter Pineapple Cupcakes
I will always remember these cupcakes, not only because they were amazingly addictive and delicious, but also because my boyfriend asked me to marry him just after I finished baking them! I promise this post will be about the cupcakes, but I just had to share.
If you didn’t already know, coconut beers aren’t exactly easy to come by. A couple weeks ago Dylan and I discovered this amazing beer store in Spokane called JB’s bottleworks. From the outside it just looks like your average convenience store, but inside there were aisles & coolers full of many beers that I haven’t found anywhere else.
A couple weekends ago we bought a few beers from here, one of them being Maui Brewing Company’s CoCoNut Porter. This beer is delicious! It’s smooth, creamy and highly drinkable. I knew after having that can of beer that I had to come up with a recipe to go along with it. So this past Saturday I found a can of it at Huckleberry’s (for $3, a bit spendy but SO worth it). Just for added fun we ran over to the liquor store and bought a sample sized bottle of Malibu Rum to add to the frosting, a most excellent idea!
In the spirit of creativity, I thought it would be really fun if the cupcakes had a jelly filling. We went to Michael’s and bought a frosting/filling injector to test it out. The filling turned out really tasty, but there were crushed pineapple bits in it and we had trouble getting it to squeeze out of the injector without blowing up the cupcakes. After blowing up a couple cakes we gave up on it and just frosted the cupcakes as usual.
This recipe was interesting in that it doesn’t have baking soda or baking powder in it (a rising agent). The original recipe that I found called for lemon-lime pop and I think (and I’ve read) that carbonation used in recipes helps the batter rise. This must be what was going on, as I only used 1/2 cup of beer in the recipe, and they rose up just like any other one. The batter was pretty sweet (in a great, addicitve way) and you could taste the beer in it, which was nice. I was a little surprised that the cupcakes didn’t turn out a darker color than they did, this beer is seriously dark.
We finished these off with my favorite frosting, cream cheese, with an addition of Malibu rum to get in some extra coconut flavor. I also had some coconut flake in the pantry, so I dipped half of the finished cupcakes in that. What can I say, I love coconut! I think the next time I bake these I’ll find a way to make the filling without the pineapple chunks so I can get them in the cupcakes easier. Despite how deformed the ones I injected looked, they tasted sinfully delicious. I won’t be posting pics of the duds, besides, I already ate them, but I hope you enjoy the pictures of the keepers!
Next week I’m thinking of doing something a little different, as in, I’m going to post my recipe so you all can give these a try. I mean, I don’t want to give away all my prized secrets just yet, but I think you deserve a recipe to try out! Is that a good idea? Would you want to make them? I don’t really know what kind I will make yet… I suppose if anyone had a request, I’d look into it too!
– Jackie
Sweet and Stout 