Blueberry Cupcakes with Toasted Meringue

Oh, hello there. Can we be friends again, please?!

July was one hell of a month—two of my friends got married, I spent over a week in Maine for my own wedding stuff, marathon training got really intense!! Just everything is happening in a beautiful 2-3 month period, and I can’t bring myself to chill for a sec and bake! I mean I did allow myself to binge read the new Harry Potter book in a couple of days—that’s as wild as I get!

I love when life is crazy busy and exciting, but like, hold up, can I have a day or two when I can think about nothing and just nap?! Maybe I’ll take a nice winter hibernation this year…

So, while being at my mom’s house, I forgot how much I absolutely love waking up every morning and picking fresh raspberries and blueberries from all of the bushes we have around the house! It doesn’t get much better than that—I mean maybe when I would bring my dogs with me to pick them and they would smush their faces into the berries, then leave them on the ground. I suppose that was pretty cute…even though they wasted so many beautiful berries…

ANYWAYS! That there is the inspiration for these moist, berry-filled cakes I’ve made for you. There is just something so satisfying about homegrown produce, and when you can bake with it, I mean, that is the ultimate! Oh wait, then I added some meringue on top—even torched it with my brand new flame! This has been on my “must have” list for like, a lifetime, and my friends were too kind to have gotten it for me!

And let me tell you, it does so much more than just torch meringue, it lights candles, it lights cupcake liners on fire, it makes fruit taste burnt, it’s just all-around fun!

When I stopped lighting nonsense on fire with my new torch, I actually toasted the meringue, and Oh. My. Gosh. Hi campfire on you gorgeous little blueberry cakes! If I hadn’t felt such a sugar high, I would have just torched ALL of the meringue and eaten it like that. The balance of the sugary meringue, the tart berries and the toastiness on top of it all—it’s one of the most perfect bites in my opinion!

I can’t get over it, clearly shown by all of my exclamation points in the last paragraph! And now!

Being at home, in Maine, means the ocean, the fresh air, the weird accents, bonfires, family, lots of dog snuggles, and, of course, fruit picking! Having a beautiful bowl of handpicked berries on the back patio on a cool summer morning is just beyond comforting and relaxing. While these cupcakes are not exactly that, it’s pretty damn close!—I give you yummy blueberries stuffed into cupcakes and topped with (way too much) toasted meringue!

It’s light, it’s happy, it’s summery, and it screams all things Katie! 

cake ingredients

Butter—2 oz, 4 TBL

Sugar—2.75 oz, or 1/3 C

Vanilla Extract—½ tsp

Eggs—2

Plain Yogurt—4 oz, or ½ C

Flour—5.5 oz, or 1 C

Oats—1 oz, or ¼ C

Baking Powder—½ tsp

Salt—½ tsp

Cinnamon—1 tsp

Blueberries—5 oz, or ~1 C

process

Preheat your oven to 350˚ F.

In a large bowl, combine the flour, oats, baking powder, salt and cinnamon.

In the bowl of your mixer, cream together the butter and sugar.

Once light and fluffy, add in the vanilla and eggs.

Scrape down the sides of the bowl.

Alternating between the yogurt (I prefer Greek!) and the dry ingredients, add about ½ of each at a time until you have finished both.

Fold in the blueberries.

In a lined muffin pan, fill each cup up about halfway with the cake batter.

Bake in your preheated oven for 15-18 minutes, until the top springs back just slightly.

Allow to cool completely before putting the meringue on top!

For the meringue, it is this recipe here, but I halved it to use for this recipe (you can even quarter it if you’d like). Also, torching the meringue is, of course, optional, but if you have a cute little kitchen torch, I highly suggest using it—adds for a great toasty flavor!

Bon Appétit!

Salty Chocolate Tart

Good morning, my wonderful baking friends! I have quite a confession to make, and I hope that you all will understand—this recipe below is amazingly quick and simple, I can hardly believe it myself. The dough has only 6 ingredients in it, and I know that they are in your pantry, and the chocolate ganache has 4 ingredients…yes, FOUR! I mean, I have made 3 of these tarts over just a couple of days, I promise that I have some sort of life outside of baking…

…which may be hard to believe, I know!

I made this recipe for a friend of mines birthday this week, whose love for baking is just about as crazy as yours truly. She is honestly all sorts of wonderful—an outdoors loving, musical obsessed, positivity radiating, lovely person, AND she was all about us blasting the Hamilton soundtrack at 9am at work the other day, sooo does it get any better than that?!

So to start with Miss Anna’s birthday chocolate tart, I used a simple pâte sucrée base (recipe found in my Lemon Blueberry Tart recipe!). It’s really just a sugar dough, it makes quite the vehicle for this type of tart, not the main star, but would totally win for best supporting role! ...And from there, a dark chocolate ganache. It is so simple to make, I don’t know why I haven’t made this (really) since school a couple of years ago.

Boiled cream—pour over the chocolate—stir to combine—add the butter—add the alcohol—put into baked tart shell—let set.

What I love is that while it is simple in steps and ingredients, the flavor is mind blowingly divine. You can play around with how dark you want your chocolate to be, but it’s going to end up so smooth and creamy, slightly sweet yet very rich, only a small sliver is required, or 3 small slivers if you’re me. Another fun addition you can do to this tart? For my friend’s, I added crushed up pretzels to the top of it, because I mean, duh, and the salty chocolate combination was undeniably delicious. Or you can just sprinkle coarse salt on top as well, and a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon or Carmenere goes a long way with this dessert as well!

This is certainly going to become a go-to for most dinner parties and celebrations, but it is also absolutely acceptable early on a Friday morning, dancing along to a little bit of Hamilton and enjoying for a birthday of a beautiful friend!

pâte sucrée ingredients and process

found here

chocolate ganache ingredients

Heavy Cream—10 oz, or 1 ¼ C

Dark Chocolate, roughly chopped—5 oz, ~10 squares if using a Ghirardelli bar

Butter, cubed—2.25 oz, or 4 ¼ TBL

Bourbon—0.5 oz, or 1 TBL

process

Set up all of your ingredients, as the heavy cream will boil very quickly.

Place the heavy cream in a small saucepot with the heat on medium.

While the cream is coming to a boil, put the chocolate in a medium heat-safe bowl.

Once the cream comes to a boil (watch out so it does not boil over!), pour it over the chocolate and allow it to sit like that for 3-4 minutes.

Using a wooden spoon, begin to stir the heavy cream-chocolate mixture.

Once it has homogenized, add in the butter.

Stir until melted and combined.

Add your alcohol of choice—in my case, bourbon, always!

Stir.

Pour into your prepared 10” tart pan.

Place in the refrigerator for about 4-6 hours or overnight so that the ganache can set.

To decorate: it is tasty all on its own, but sprinkling salt over top the entire tart really makes the chocolate pop; also, fresh fruit is always a great option as well!

Enjoy with a glass of red wine and good company.

Bon Appétit!