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To Bake With Teflon or Not! Mint Chocolate Ganache & Grand Marnier Cupcakes Say "Yes!"–Giveaway, Too.

Christmascupcakes

If you celebrate Christmas, how was it!? Was it filled with happiness, gifts, food, peace and more importantly, baked goodies?

I have to apologize. Well, actually I don’t, but I extend an itty bitty desolé to you fabulous bakers that pulled out your bakeware, your Kitchen Aid mixer (even vintage Sunbeam ones, as one friend did), your icing tips and debated over what flavor cookies, cupcakes, cakes and pastries you’d make.

In my last post, I mentioned being un poco tired of seeing so many cookie blog posts, but, honestly,  it was only because I wish I had the patience to participate in the 12 days of cookies event or even time to write everyday.

That being said, this post is a multi-purpose one. Not a redemption on the “I’m tired” comment, rather on how baking can be hassle-free through the use of Teflon non-stick bakeware and a delicious mini cupcake recipe my sis and I made last year for a Christmas party I hosted.

I suppose there will be continued baking going on through the New Year, especially by those that received all kinds of kitchen tools and gadgets, therefore this bit of knowledge on Teflon® is right on time! And, I’m giving an entire set away, courtesy of Dupont.

Dupont Teflon® has released a new line of products with non-stick properties for the purpose of making cooking and baking easier and and cleaner, thus more efficient. I personally prefer and use a lot of non-stick cookware because I hate scrubbing, one of the wonderful benefits of the coating!

This is Dupont has to say about their new coatings:

  • DuPont has recently introduced new Teflon® non-stick coatings made with technology that has significantly improved the durability of all of our non-stick coatings. We believe that more durable, longer lasting non-stick coatings increase the functional life of non-stick cookware, which results in the need for fewer replacement pans. Fewer pans produced means less waste, which offers consumers a more sustainable cookware option and a better cooking experience.
  • DuPont and third party kitchen and restaurant testing indicate that Teflon® coatings are more durable and have better food release than the coatings used on GreenPan®. This means that the effective non-stick life of the GreenPan® is significantly shorter than that of Teflon® coatings.

How could you NOT be into cooking with non-stick, if it means ditching aluminum scrubbers and stinky cleaning agents to get all that gook off your pans?

How many times have your cakes or bread or even scrambled eggs been glued to the pan because it was stainless steel (dumb move, anway)? I’ve done it, no lie. But it’s been a looong time! Plus, I’m not really a baker, like my sis, looking so clichéish below!

Last year, while visiting me in Atlanta, she got excited with my new Kitchen Aid mixer and decided to bake mini cupcakes for my party. At that time,  I was all into and insanely obsessed with mint chocolate ganache and Grand Marnier. Those two ingredients were making it into just about everything I was making! She objected to spiking the entire batch, so she split it.

Using my non-stick mini cupcake pan, she made hers using good ol’ Betty Crocker cake mix (oh yes she did!), having added the ganache and GM to half and left the other half, plain.

bakersis

cupcakemixer

I had festive paper cupcake molds in stock, which she chose to use, but with the non-stick pan, they really weren’t necessary. Yes, we all use them because it makes it fun to hold while munching, but for all intents and purposes, the coating would have sufficed and her little cakes would have slipped out just fine!

Fillingpapercups

(see the little scrappling cooked batter in the middle cup? With non-stick, it’ll come right off with a flick of a finger!)

cupcakes

The cupcakes were done and delicious! The mint choco ganache gave them the perfect Holiday aroma and taste, while the Grand Marnier offered a nice kick. She smothered those with the same smooth spread, while the other ones were plain Janes with a splash of Grand Marnier and cheesecake frosting! Uhm, Uhm good!

She got sassy and decorated them with green icing and spelled out Merry Christmas! Entirely too cute!
Christmascupcakes2

HOLIDAY GIVEAWAY!!

So, for you BAKERS, my friends at Dupont have been kind enough to allow me to give away a nice baking set that will make your Holiday baking easier and cleaner! Leave the scrubbing for the other type bakers and save those freshly manicured hands for holding a Nogtini or shaking the hand of that fine man that will twirl you on New Year’s eve and kiss you to bliss!

The set includes a cooling rack, an OXO brand spatula, a bread and loaf pan (great for rum bread pudding) and a cookie sheet!

Dupontbakingset

What you have to do: Leave a comment telling me your worse Holiday baking nightmare! If you want an extra entry, tweet it and include my Twitter name @brenherrera! Let your Daring Baker blogging friends knows, too! I’m sure they’ll love it! A random winner will be chosen on Jan 5th using a random number generator! GO!

HOPE YOU AND YOUR HAD A BEAUTIFUL CHRISTMAS, HANUKKH OR KWANZA! AND HAPPY BAKING!

Sis’s Mint Chocolate Ganache and Grand Marnier Mini Cupcakes!

Ingredients:

  • 1 box of your choice white cake mix
  • 3 eggs
  • 1 1/4 cups water
  • 1/3 cup vegetable or canola oil
  • 1/4 cup Grand Marnier
  • 2-8 oz jars of Chalmer’s Mint Chocolate Ganache, parted (room temperature)

Method:

Heat oven to 350F. Add cake mix to large bowl, if not using a professional mixer. Beat in eggs, water, oil, on low speed for 45 seconds. Slowly add Grand Marnier and 1 jar of chocolate ganache. Beat on medium for 2-3 minutes. Pour batter into your mini-cupcake non-stick pan. If you like, you can use your choice of paper cup and pour batter into them. Bake according to box instructions and depending on what size pan you use. Remove from oven and let cool on cooking rack. Cool completely before frosting with extra ganache.

Yields 24 cupcakes! Enjoy!

Eat well, love unapologetically, pray with true intention, and take care of yourself.

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Bren Herrera
Bren Herrera is a multi-talented chica with an endless passion for all things art. She cooks for cool people, always eager to teach her clients and students a life skill in the kitchen. Her affair with the world has taken her to over 30 countries. With shots of espresso in hand. She believes cooking and sitting at the dinner table can save families and humanity. Website: http://HouseofBren.com

53 thoughts on “To Bake With Teflon or Not! Mint Chocolate Ganache & Grand Marnier Cupcakes Say "Yes!"–Giveaway, Too.”

  1. worse baking …when I baked an Alamaba Lane Cake for a party and had it stick to the pans and litterally go into pieces 40 min before the party.My youngest scaped it together into a bowl, tossed in the filling and gave it a swirl and called it Ohio Lane DUMP cake.We won’t talk about her wedding cake that slide into 2 sections when they went to cut the first slice.She caught it and held it into place…sigh..

    still baking cookies and sending them thru Operation Thank You for deployed soliders

    have a Blessed day Bren

  3. I was making carrot cake for Christmas. It was only the second time I’d made it. Decided to make some substitutions from the first time. Needless to say, soft and moist went to hard and chewy in no time flat. Cream cheese frostings and a little oj or rum will cover a multitude of sins.

  4. Bren, hope you had a fabulous Christmas! My holiday baking was relatively stress free this year except for one batch of cookies: thinking I had powdered sugar in the pantry I went on to prepare the recipe until i realized it was a bag of pancake mix i had put in a ziploc. ooops!

  5. Girls, you don’t even want to know what my worst baking nightmare is! WHOA! How embarrassing, but I managed to cover it up and feed everyone. Julia might have witnessed it, but I won’t even remind her!

    Glad all of your Holiday’s were great and stress-free! Have a fabulous New Year and good luck on give-away.

    B-

  6. Happy New Year to you Bren!! 🙂

    It has been very busy time for me but I survived, kids are happy and that is the most important. Now I need some rest and exercise after all those Christmas dishes. I’m also trying to make up with blog posts and replying to emails before new decade will start…

    Posted some new photos of “mini you” on FB.

    Hugs & kissessss!!

  7. My Christmas baking this year seemed to be wrought with mishaps. I invited friends for lunch and ended up serving couer la creme puddles with fresh raspberry sauce.

  8. Wow!!! my worse holiday baking… when I first started baking cakes a long time ago….the first cake i baked wasn’t cooked all the way through like i thought and batter oozed out like pancake batter….so i put it back in the oven…. bad mistake… well I definitely learned since then….now my cakes are DE-LISH!!!!!

  9. I was a new mom with good intentions of making the holidays special…but just, plain TIRED, TIRED, TIRED!! So, I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when after biting into my just-out-of-the-oven giant oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, my husband asks, “where are the chocolate chips … and oatmeal?” HA! Answer: Right there in bags where I left them!

  11. Baking has never really been my strong point…from the rock hard brownies I baked back in Jr High that cracked a friend’s tooth to the beautiful special occasion cake I was making that went flat the minute I took it out of the oven-I seem to be cursed, lol. Funny thing is, I love to bake and love the smell of fresh baked goodies in the kitchen. While my baking may never be perfect, I am adventurous and willing to try new things. So I continue on, seeking out recipes on the internet and admiring others wonderful photos and blogs… I figure one day one of my creations will be featured on my blog…heck, the family can’t live on no bake cookies forever! Glad I found your site!

  13. I was at this party last year. I’m not a big cup cake fan, but I had to try them only because of the Grand Marnier got thrown in the mix. I probably had like 5 of those joints! Good job BEE!

  14. Ooh great giveaway! Am currently condo-hunting (think I’ll be making an offer next week, yay excited!) so I’m in desperate need of cooking supplies to fill up my new kitchen.

    I’ve had countless kitchen misadventures and holiday baking fiascoes. To name a few: dropping an entire roast pumpkin on the floor, catching my oven mitt on fire when it accidentally pressed against the element (and I didn’t notice at all except for the burning smell for a good ten seconds), forgetting to turn the oven on when baking cookies (my friend will NEVER let me live it down that we sat there watching the raw cookies for about an hour before I figured out that I’d forgotten to turn it on), trying to healthify a pumpkin bread recipe by eliminating/reducing a bunch of ingredients so that it turned out burned on the outside and completely raw on the inside, chocolate pudding that turned into soup after I removed it from the stove, burning vegetable chips in the dehydrator… that’s just a few of my cooking nightmares 😉

  15. Bren my sweets baking has been fairly successful after learning from such great chefs as yourself at Cooks Warehouse, however, I still struggle with baking biscuits. Both attempts have resulted in flat rocks. So I went back to the can. LOL. Best wishes to you in the new year. Hope to see you at Cooks very soon.

  16. I don’t know if I have a baking disaster to share, just that I’m a mediocre baker in general. I don’t like to measure which is a problem in baking.

  17. Baking – can I say that this holiday season was the craziest baking season for me *ever* and, quite frankly, I’m developing a knack for it 🙂 Never thought I’d see the day.

    However, my worst baking nightmare was making holiday biscotti for gifts and, thankfully, I took a taste of it prior to wrapping it up and about spit it out. It was HORRID! Don’t know where I screwed up the recipe but thank god I caught it before I gifted them. Instead I made another batch of Mexican Chocolate Cookies and called it a day.

    Hope you had a great holiday!

  18. Happy New Year!

    I once had my kitchen sink drain clog up as I was preparing Christmas Eve dinner. I tried to clear it with Drano but it didn’t work. So I had to call a plumber on a holiday who LOVED that I’d filled the sink with Drano! But he did get it fixed 🙂

  19. Definitely cranberry orange bread disaster!! The recipe called for the dry ingredients to be sifted ( a step I forgot to do) which resulted not in cranberry orange bread but a rectangle of SUPER heavy, dense cranberry orange goo!! Guess I’ll remember to sift next time!!

  20. I was very young starting to bake and making a cake I use powder sugar instead or flour! plus I didn’t read the recipe correctly so I use a T instead or t of baking soda, you can imagine the favor of this cake! out of this world!!

    Great site!, I just found you through twitter,

  21. Oh! The cupcakes look delicious…fluffy…I made blueberry muffins that refused to rise…still cannot figure out what went wrong…since then I am afraid to bake blueberry muffins 🙂

    Bren, I got your teas, but did not have a chance to try them due to the craziness of the Holidays, but will definitely try them soon…thank you so much 🙂
    Juliana

  22. hhm.. my worst baking nightmare.. this ought to be good.. there are so many how could i possibly choose the worst… let’s see.. how about the time i burnt everything i made (cupcakes, cookies, brownies, cake, pies) that i’d made for a work even because i didn’t realize the oven was on broil and not on bake?? yeah.. not so cool… it wasn’t until i was literally on my third batch of cupcakes and cookies (i’d given up on the cake and pies at that point) that i realized what was going on… i think i can still hear the smoke detector ringing to this day.. LOL!! Or perhaps it was the time that i tried to make a cheesecake (or so i thought) and i was totally reading the wrong recipe to begin with, but finished with the correct recipe (can we say i need a page holder) and needless to say.. it did not turn out to be a cheesecake.. LOL!!! seriously i could go on.. i’ve had my share of bad experiences.. don’t get me started on the ones that ended in burns… yikes!! LOL!! but i’m much better now and I LOVE LOVE LOVE To bake!! great post by the way and those little cupcakes look DELISH!!! Hope you had a great Christmas and Happy New Year!! Can’t wait to see what the new year brings to FBE!

  23. Mi peor experiencia tiene que ser cuando cocine carne de puerco por primera vez.. se me olvido hecharle sal, no le heche suficiente adobo, y estaba muy seco, se pego ha la bandeja y hasta se quemo un poco. Tenia un sabor horrible y mas seco que el desierto… mi pobre esposo e hijos se lo comieron por no hacerme sentir mal, pero se les veia en la cara que la comida estaba malisimo. jaja!!

  24. Uhm , dear sister… did you really have to put me on blast on your “blog” (with a spanish accent). I look terrible in that picture OH MY…. anyhow.. those cupcakes were fun and quite the treat at the party that night!! YAY US!! I didn’t make any this year.. oh well.. let’s see what else i’ll make this year! Hm, and while I’m here let’s talk about my worst baking experiences.. well… i once decided that i ROCKED and could do anything.. so.. i made a homemade apple pie.. or so i thought. when it went in.. it looked a mess, and came out looking a disaster.. HAHAHAHA!!!! too many apples, too much dough, the shapes i thought i’d created in the dough weren’t so cute when cooked… LOL!!!, uhm.. i burnt the crust, and as if it couldn’t get any worse.. it just didn’t taste right.. it sure looked pretty in the trash though.. right where it belonged! So i went and consulted with Mrs. Smith… she was kind enough to show me how to prepare a proper apple pie!!

    ok ok… i’ve made one again since that horrible experience and it actually came out really good.. i stuck to traditional instead of getting fancy.. but it’s a new year.. and time to step my baking skills up!!! maybe i’ll share my adventures with you!!! 🙂 minus any evidence of me looking like i did in that pic above.. goodness gracious. what a dork….

  25. Teflon…I use it. But you better be sure I use the old school method of being sure to safeguard my stuff so it comes out with ease!

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