Trials!!

I have my first big order coming up this weekend.  She was very open to a variety of flavors so I thought I would try different combinations to see what would work and what wouldn't.  So, I whipped up a batch of my chocolate cake recipe then insert....anything. 

First I want to say, my daughter had us over for dinner a couple weekends ago.  She asked us to stop and pick up a few things, one of them being Zane and Zack's Honey Chipotle sauce.  YUM!  That was the first product I used in the batter.

Now one of my big problems is that I go by sight on a lot of the ingredients.  How much did I put in?  Ummm, I don't know?  To taste, raw, it was great.  When it was baked?  OMG!  It was delicious but hot!! 

Next, my husband pulled chipotle peppers out of the cupboard and said, "here, try this."  Okay.  I added a few to a separate bowl with batter, looking at it thinking, o  It wash that's not enough.  I added a little more.  Well the pepper flakes floated to the top.  Problem.  Couldn't really taste it too well in the raw form.  Baked?  OMG!  Even hotter!!  Then the flakes were chewy.  Not good.  If I were to use that one again I would need to grind that up to a finer texture and definitely use less. 

Now what?  Let me think.  Oh...I had some Pumpkin Maple Butter.  I swirled some into another bowl with batter.  After it was baked it was moist and you could tell there was pumpkin and maple in the cupcake.  Not bad.  Note to self... keep for future ideas.  Maybe a light ginger buttercream!  Hmmm.

Oh well I have a great peanut butter filling, how good would that be to have peanut butter swirled into the delicious chocolate batter?  My son flipped for this one!!  AND it was my youngest daughter's favorite.  She ate two of the cupcakes WITHOUT icing.  My daughter is an icing F.R.E.A.K!!  This is saying something.  Keeper!

Running out of ideas.... Bananas!  Mashed up some bananas, mixed into batter.  Eh just ok.  Not a keeper. 

Bananas and peanut butter in the chocolate!!  How could that go wrong?  Again, eh, just ok.

Orange extract!!  Orange and chocolate.  Well, let me say the extract that I have was soooo strong.  What this one taught me was I need to use an orange zest with natural orange flavoring from juice.  Maybe a little extract for a boost. 

Next up....Raspberry chocolate.  Not bad.  Just need to add fresh raspberries into the chocolate, puree some, maybe a little extract.  Keeper. 

You can see the flakes of pepper in the one cupcake about middle of the picture on the right.  HOT!  I used different colored cupcake liners to tell the difference.  What I really needed was a notepad to write down everything I did and MEASURE everything!!  Oh well, next time.