Cookbook Review: The Butch Bakery Cookbook

 The Butch Bakery Cookbook

by David Arrick with Janice Kollar

Hardcover

192 pages

The Butch Bakery Cookbook is all about cupcakes.  Masculine cupcakes.  Cupcakes for grown men.  You won't find any frilly pink frosting or colorful sprinkles in this book.  Instead you'll find recipes for jumbo cupcakes named Beer Run, Triple Play, Tailgate, Camp Out, Side Car, and Jack Daniels Rush.  Manly cupcakes made with spices, bacon, nuts, liquor and beer.  This is not your mother's cupcake cookbook.

Chapters Include:

Introduction: Dessert for Dudes

Chapter 1: Working

Chapter 2: Play Ball!

Chapter 3: Touchdown

Chapter 4: Barbecue Season

Chapter 5: Couples' Night Out

Chapter 6: Butch's On-The-Go

To test out the cookbook I really wanted make the cover recipe, which is a maple cupcake with milk chocolate ganache and Butch's bacon bits (baked crumbled bacon with brown sugar and freshly cracked pepper).  However, everyone in the house kept eating up all all the bacon.  So I had to come up with another plan.  

Collectively, we decided on the New Yawk Cream Pie cupcakes.  The New Yawk Cream Pie cupcake is a yellow butter cupcake filled with vanilla pudding and topped with an easy chocolate glaze.  The recipe is from Chapter 6, Butch's On-The-Go.  While Chapters 1-5 feature rather intermediate homemade recipes, Chapter 6 features recipes using pre-made cake mixes.    

New Yawk Cream Pie Cupcakes

Adapted from The Butch Bakery Cookbook by David Arrick

Makes 18 jumbo cupcakes or 24 regular sized cupcakes

"A Yellow Butter Cupcake filled with Vanilla Pudding and topped with an Easy Chocolate Glaze.  We know that sometimes you want a cupcake, but time is of the essence.  So here's an easy way to cut out the middleman and get right to the nitty-gritty.  Choose the butter version of a boxed yellow cake mix for these cupcakes.  We've switched up the ingredients here so that you won't even know these cupcakes came from a mix.  Filled with store-bought vanilla pudding and topped with our super-easy chocolate glaze, you'll impress all of your friends, and no one will be the wiser."

For the Yellow Butter Cupcakes:

1 (18.25 ounce) package yellow butter cake mix

3 large eggs, broken into a small bowl

1 cup half and half

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted an cooled slightly

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

For the Vanilla Filling:

4 (4-ounce) containers store-bought vanilla pudding

For the Easy Chocolate Glaze:

1 (16-ounce) can store-bought chocolate fudge frosting

Make the cupcakes:  Place a baking rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350F.  Line three 6-cup jumbo sized muffin pans with liners and set aside (I used regular sized muffin pans).  In a large sized mixing bowl, add all of the cupcakes ingredients.  With an electric mixer on low speed, mix for 30 seconds to combine, and then beat on medium-high for 2 to 3 minutes more, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.

Fill each of the prepared muffin cups with no more than 1/4 cup batter, about 1/2 full.  Bake, rotating the pans halfway through, until the tops are just firm to the touch and a tester inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean, about 22 minutes.  Leave the cupcakes in the pan on a rack to cool for 5 to 10 minutes.  Transfer the cupcakes to the wire rack to cool completely before filing and frosting, about 1 hour. 

Make the Glaze:  In a small saucepan, heat the frosting until melted enough to run off a spoon.  Let cool slightly to thicken.

Cupcake Construction:  Using a small paring knife or melon baller, cut a 2-inch diameter hole in the top of each cupcake.  Reserve the cutout pieces.  Fill with pudding almost to the top of the hole, about 1 rounded tablespoon each, and then slice a piece from the reserved cutouts to cover the pudding.  Using a measuring tablespoon, spread 1 heaping tablespoon of chocolate glaze over the top of each cupcake.  Don't worry if it drips over the sides.  Cupcakes can be refrigerated for up to 3 days in an airtight container, or frozen for 1 month.

The Butch Bakery Cookbook is fun, unique, and creative.  It's definitely worth a sneak peek!