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Mint Chocolate Cupcakes

by Emilia on June 10, 2009

I haven’t been making cupcakes in such a long time, but this all changed the other evening when I felt a passionate cupcake craving raising its head; I felt like I needed to bake and also I needed to have something with chocolate and mint.

Initially it started because I remembered one of the desserts I ate at Näsinneula restaurant, which was voted as the 8th best restaurant in Finland some time ago. The restaurant is located inside Näsinneula tower and so the dining is rather interesting because you have fantastic panorama views all over Tampere and the lakes surrounding the city. It was actually scary at first because it is so high and I could feel the tower moving a bit, but after a while I got used to it and could focus fully on the food. We ordered the Ninth Heaven menu and thus we got to taste some really good gluten-free chocolate cake with a milk chocolate mousse, ice cream and a truly fantastic mint sauce. The mint sauce was so good with the dark chocolate cake that I needed to try making something at home with those same flavours and I ended up with trying out these mint chocolate cupcakes.

The gluten-free part was no problem at the restaurant and I can highly recommend it to anyone wanting a lovely dinner when visiting Tampere - which a city in the south of Finland. Usually eating gluten-free here in Finland is always easy, but the staff at Näsinneula took it to another level with their care and professional manners. The food itself was just really so good, with all the different elements melting together into a perfect and very balanced mixture of tasty local flavours. The menu had nine different elements in it - green asparagus with hollandaise, scallops served in two ways, jerusalem artichoke soup, pike perch,  blackcurrant sorbet, Finnish Charolaise beef served in two ways, local cheeses served with some cloudberry jam, chocolate cake and finally the meal ended with some local strawberries. The pike perch, the asparagus and of course the chocolate cake were so fantastic that these have stayed in my mind afterwards rather hauntingly.

The other night was one of those times when I remembered the chocolate cake with the mint sauce and couldn’t take it anymore without baking something; I started to go through a Finnish blog called Kinuskikissa -which is by the way very beautiful- and found a cupcake recipe which used cocoa powder and mint chocolate as flavourings. I didn’t have many ingredients at home, no quinoa flour for example, so I decided to use almond meal and white rice flour and it worked out well; the cupcakes weren’t exactly as good as the dark rich chocolate cake with a fresh and tangy mint sauce at the restaurant, but they were nonetheless very tasty.

After the baking I have been wondering if I should use more white rice flour; the flour behaved so well and the cupcakes were delicious. I used a chocolate candy called Pätkis, which is basically a chocolate mint truffle, in the cupcakes, but I am sure that any kind of mint chocolate would work here. The frosting is just regular unsweetened whipped cream;I don’t think that buttercream would be very good here.

Gluten-Free Mint Chocolate Cupcakes

-140 grams/5 ounces mint chocolate

-150 grams/5,2 ounces soft butter

-1dl/ 1/4 cup sugar (or more depending on the chocolate, use more if the chocolate is darker)

-2 eggs

-1,5 dl/ 0,6 cup milk or cream (I used full fat milk)

Dry ingredients:

-2 dl/3/4 cup almond meal (ground almonds)

-1,5 dl/ 0,6 cup white rice flour (0,6 cup means a little bit over half a cup)

-2 tsp (gluten-free) baking powder

-2 1/2 tbls cocoa powder

Preheat an oven to 170 C/340 F.

Chop half of the chocolate into really small pieces and leave half of it as bigger pieces which will later be inserted into the cupcakes.

Mix all the dry ingredients together. Cream the butter and the sugar until they are pale and light. Add the eggs one by one. Add the milk and then mix the dry ingredients into the batter, remember not to over mix. Finally gently fold in the finely chopped chocolate.

Line a cupcake tin with cupcake papers, or grease the tin. Start adding the batter one spoonful at a time, when you have added one small spoonful of batter into the tin, then place a piece of the chocolate which was not chopped so finely into the batter, and finally place another spoonful of the batter on top of the chocolate piece.

Bake for 15-25 minutes, this depends on your oven. Let them cool before serving.

Serve with some whipped cream.

Popularity: 38% [?]

A Gluten-Free Restaurant Review

by Emilia on September 5, 2008

Imagine you could go into a restaurant, as someone who is celiac, and all of the desserts were gluten-free except for one. This is what happened to me the other day when my boyfriend and I had a day off and we decided to visit Porvoo; it was an ex-tempore kind of thing which ended up with a great meal and lots of dessert choices.

I did not plan on writing anything about this trip, but I was so surprised with the quality of the food and most of all of the gluten-free choices that I felt like I had to share this.

Our choice of destination was Porvoo, which is a 30 minutes drive from Helsinki. The old part of Porvoo is really the reason why I like visiting this place; it is steeped in history and it has still maintained much of the old buildings and historic places. It was established as early as 1380, and it is somewhat of a tourist attraction - for good reason that is.

The restaurant were we ended up is called Timbaali; and I was not really expecting all that much, except for the escargots which this place is famous for. It is located in the middle of old Porvoo in a house which was built in 1730, this of course makes for a lovely dining environment.

We started off with ordering some garlic escargots, which were just delicious. They add parmesan to the escargots which gives them a nice full flavour. I used to be a total escargotholic before I was a vegetarian and escargots served with garlic are one of my all time favorite dishes; this was the first time I ate escargots since I went back to my carnivorous ways.

And their escargots were certainly no disappointment.

I had a hard time choosing the main dish, but finally decided on the roasted guinea fowl, pistachio chicken pâté and lemon sauce. The dish was perfect, there was total harmony between all of the flavours and this created a fusion that was above the ordinary; one their own the flavours would have been too subtle, but together they worked well. The meat was also cooked perfectly.

My boyfriend ordered the roasted veal, tomato puree and parmesan mousse which were all good and worked well together, but veal itself is not a favourite. I do not know why it is thought of so highly since it in reality does not have much taste. Maybe because it is so soft, but then again something soft that is lacking of flavour reminds me of baby food and I am a little bit too old for that.

When the time came to order desserts I was almost sure that the only thing I can have is some cheese and a coffee, but the waitress said, quite happily I might add, that all except for one of the desserts are gluten-free, even the crown cake.

I was surprised to say the least.

My choices included a milk chocolate pannacotta with coconut sherbet, the classical crown cake with rhum raisin parfait, the crème brûlée with lemon glazed strawberries and finally some Finnish and European cheeses.

I was in such a shock that I just decided on the cheeses, my boyfriend ordered the crown cake with a rhum raisin parfait. The cheeses were good, but the crown cake was so, so good with the rhum raisin parfait. Please, do try this if you ever eat at this restaurant.

All in all this is one of the best restaurants were I have ever eaten in Finland, and I can say that I was pleasantly surprised going in there not expecting all that much. The staff also deserves a special mention, the service was excellent - Finland is not exactly known for the service - but the waitresses we had that evening really knew what they were doing and their professional and friendly manner made our evening all that much better.

If you are ever visiting Finland and want to eat a great gluten-free meal, do visit this restaurant.

I am sorry for the lack of food pictures, these were just snapped quickly after we ate, I was not planning on doing a post about this, so that explains why I did not take any pictures during our dinner.

I will be back next week posting recipes in a regular manner.

Popularity: 5% [?]