Napolean himself wouldn’t lay claim to these!

Most people remember three things about Napoleon Bonaparte:

1.  French Emperor and solider

   possibly the most popular portrait of Napoleon astride Marengo

2. The infamous battle of Waterloo
3. He was short and none too happy about it!

But what most people may not know much about is his horse, an Arab stallion named Marengo. It was the horse who spanned his entire military career, carrying Napoleon through the shouts, gunfire and orchestrated chaos of the battlefields during the Napoleonic Wars and the horse whose skeleton is on display at the Army Museum in London. It is even said that during the Battle of Marengo, Napoleon stole food from a local farmer which his chef used to make a meal for Napoleon after the battle was won, and he enjoyed the dish so much that he named his horse after the battle and had his chef create this dish, Chicken Marengo, after every victory thereafter. So how does it come to pass that a French Emperor who loved his horse dearly has a name confused with a type of ice cream whose roots are Italian?

Neapolitan ice cream is a favorite among children, even as far back as I can remember! We would hope for Neapolitan ice cream or the orange and vanilla swirled ice cream cups with the short, flat wooden spoons at special school picnics or events – and for family “movie” nights or any other special family event where my brother and I were allowed to pick out the ice cream flavor.

Must be the pronunciation! Either way, it is delicious, and most people – hearing the incorrectly pronounced, “Napoleon ice cream” understand that the enquiring individual is after the ever popular block vanilla, chocolate and strawberry ice cream called “Neapolitan” ice cream.

So where did Neapolitan ice cream come from? Glad you asked!

The 1988 edition of Larousse Gastronomique defines it as:

 ”Neapolitan Slice. A slice of ice-cream cake made with a mousse mixture and ordinary ice cream, presented in a small pleated paper case. Neapolitan ice cream consists of three layers, each of a different color and flavor (chocolate, strawberry and vanilla), moulded into a block and cut into slices. Neapolitan ice-cream makers were famous in Paris at the beginning of the 19th century, especially Tortoni, creator of numerous ice-cream cakes.”

Neapolitan ice cream seems to be a 19th century phenomenon and were included in both European and American cookbooks; recipes calling for fancy molds or bombes that included a brick of  vanilla, chocolate and strawberry – or sometimes pistachio ice creams. It was basically any combination of three flavors.  It was called Neapolitan after the people of Napoli who are credited for introducing this particular gastronomic delight to the people of the world. Pressed molds of ice cream were especially fashionable and the best of the lot were made with Neapolitan ice cream. It is thought that Neapolitan ice cream was modeled after spumoni which was tri-colored and flavored as well with cherry, chocolate and pistachio; however vanilla and strawberry were substituted as they were deemed the most popular flavors of ice cream in America during the 19th century and thus Americans called it “Neapolitan” based on its spumoni roots.

So why do, my reader, care? Because I attempted to make birthday Neapolitan cupcakes for a dear friend.

While Mei and I were back home, visiting family recently, her grandmother made a variety of cupcakes for a baby shower they threw in her honor – and among the selection was one I picked out, the Neapolitan cupcake! Decorated with swirled pink and white vanilla ice cream frosting, one bite tasted like childhood! The sweet, sticky mess that would dribble down my palm, forearm and inevitably my clothing sitting on the stoop after a rather rambunctious summer day of playing with friends and the countless hours of scheming with my brother in the backseat of the car – plotting all the different ways we could get two cartons of ice cream home to devour.

A few weeks ago, I had picked up shiny silver cupcake liners and rainbow jimmies in the event that I would want to make these cupcakes again for some summer event or just a sunny afternoon down memory lane with my sous chefs, Mei and Patella – and just such an occassion came along! This morning I awoke, as usual, late in the morning – nearly afternoon, slipped out of bed so that Mei could sleep and took Patella out to start her day and logged onto Facebook as if it were just another morning, to find that it was a friend’s birthday the next day! I had already planned to make the buttermilk fried chicken later that day in preparation for a delicious feast that I intended to share with another friend and her amusing children and of course thought, what the heck! I’ll make a cake also!

After Mei woke up, ate and we had played with Patella some, I bundled her up and off we went to the store to get the rest of the ingredients necessary to make a Neapolitan birthday cake! During the short drive to the store, I began plotting what this cake was going to look like – I imagined a standard circular cake, with the vanilla, chocolate and strawberry layers and it would be slathered in the vanilla ice cream frosting. This time, I wouldn’t swirl pink and white frosting together, due to the upgrade from a humble, unassuming cupcake to a full-on cake, but it would have the little swirly cushions of frosting which I would adorn with a fresh cherry, the largest of which would be in the center. The top would have a generous sprinkling of jimmies and I contemplated sticking sliced almonds around the exterior of the cake to jazz it up a bit, wondering if that would take away from the appearance of an oversized cupcake. In a frenzy, we gathered the things we needed - plus a couple of items that we simply couldn’t do without that we of course, forgot to “put on the list,” before we left the house and headed home to create the cake.

Mei immediately fell asleep when I got her home, which left me free to imagine away the ultimate end decoration of the cake and to begin on the three different flavored batters. I used the recipe that my mother-in-law used, adding an extra ounce of chocolate to bring out more of the chocolate flavor that the cupcake version was just a tad shy on. Once I had the batters prepared, Mei woke up and sat in her Bumbo chair on the counter, watching me, teetering on a dining chair, practicing my act for Cirqu du Soleil, reaching to the back of the highest cabinet, where we stored the least popular baking pans in our arsenal, fingers searching for the 8″ round cake pan. My fingers came up empty! This was not a good start! The late afternoon sun was beginning to settle on my bowls of batter, threatening to spoil them if I couldn’t get them into a pan and baking or at least, out of the sun’s reach and I began having palpitations. I could refrigerate the batters, begin making dinner – for my young guests that would arrive hungry within the next two hours, or I could cut things close and run out to the store to buy a cake pan!

yumminess!

I was temporarily distracted by the sudden realization of the location of my former cake pan – movers. The moving company that packed up my kitchen managed to misplace two boxes, one of them labeled “small kitchen appliances” that held our glass mixing bowls and the missing cake pan! Then it hit me, cupcakes! This recipe after all was designed for a novelty cupcake and I was designing the cake to look like a cupcake, so why not? It was a little more work than I had originally intended to put in, but it would solve the crisis and was manageable in the time I had left before my dinner guests arrived… so out came the cupcake pans and liners and I set to work, layering the batters!

This is when the crisis hit. But I would remain unaware that there was a problem until I peeled back the paper of the first cupcake, while having dessert with my guests.

The cupcakes we made before for the baby shower were somewhat imperfect, with layers that went all loosey-goosey, but had clearly, somewhat even layers of vanilla, chocolate and strawberry, but these turned out with a thin, thin lining of strawberry, a heafty layer of chocolate and medium top of vanilla. The tops were not rounded and “perfect” but baked, sloshed to one side or forming a type of hill that turns into a cliff – similar to those you often see storybook princes running to the end of. These were cupcakes worthy of a Mad Hatter Tea Party, but not the vision I had in mind for a friend’s birthday. At least we enjoyed the cupcakes after dinner – the kids smeared vanilla frosting all over their faces, arms and the seats of the chairs they were sitting in (still havent figured that one out… hmm….) and once they left for the night, I cut into several cupcakes, trying to decipher what had gone wrong??

see how the strawberry is all loosey goosey?...ugh.

The strawberry batter went in first, then the chocolate on top of that, followed by the vanilla – but it seems that the chocolate layer pushed the strawberry into the sides and up out of the cupcake liner completely (in most cases), or moved it so that there was chocolate on bottom, a small layer of vanilla, a line of strawberry and more vanilla. It was certainly not what we had made before and not what I had intended for these little gems.

at least this came close! ...

Although the recipe works, the method I use to layer the batter needs tweaking and I also need to infuse the strawberry flavor a little better into the strawberry batter. I used a half cup of strawberry preserves into the third of the batter reserved for the strawberry layer – but I think I will be using one whole cup in the future. I did use two ounces of melted chocolate, which needs a little pat of butter to keep it from solidifying and becoming heavier and I put in an extra tablespoon of cocoa powder, after thinning it out with a bit more vanilla batter. All things considered – since this is a cake box recipe, I will be buying one box of chocolate cake mix and two white cake mix boxes so that I don’t have to spend as much of my energy trying to equally divide the batter to get the flavors intense enough, in the future.

This just means that practice makes perfect and I will be making this one again, once I acquire a round cake pan. For now, you can “admire” my somewhat failed attempts. Although delicious, these cupcakes failed my vision. Do keep in mind that if you make these and decide to give them away, the ice cream frosting must be kept cool until you are ready to eat it, or it will melt a bit and not hold the piped design – or stay on top of the cake.

Ingredients:

• 1, 2-layer size package of white cake mix
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 TBsp unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 oz semisweet/bittersweet chocolate, melted
• 1/4 C strawberry preserves
• 1 recipe of Ice Cream Frosting
• red food coloring
• Jimmies, or other sprinkles

First, line 22 – 26 muffin cups with paper bake cups, although I like to make a few  less cupcakes while filling them 3/4 – 2/3 full.

Then pre-heat the oven to 350F and prepare the cake mix according to the directions on the box. Divide the cake batter evenly among three bowls. Stir vanilla into batter in one of the three bowls. Stir in the cocoa powder and melted chocolate into the batter in the second bowl. Stir in the strawberry preserves and enough red food coloring to turn batter in the third bowl pink.

Spoon one tablespoon of strawberry batter into the bottom of each prepared muffin cup. Add one tablespoon of chocolate batter on top of the strawberry, then top each muffin with one tablespoon of vanilla batter.

Bake for 15 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool the cupcakes on wire rack for at least five minutes and remove the cupcakes from the cups and cool completely.

Ice Cream Frosting:

Ingredients:

• 8oz cream cheese

  what it looked like last time we made it

• 1/3 C butter, softened
• 1/4 C vanilla ice cream (softened for ten mins at room temperature)
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 5 1/2 C powdered sugar

In a large mixing bowl, beat cream cheese and butter on medium speed until fluffy. Beat in the vanilla. Then beat in powdered sugar. Beat in ice cream or substitute ice cream for 1/4 C whipping cream until it reaches piping consistency. Chill for at least thirty minutes or until ready to use.

Tint half of the ice cream frosting pink with red food coloring, spoon pink and white frosting side by side into a pastry bag fitted with a star tip. Pipe the frosting over cupcakes to look like soft serve ice cream, decorate with jimmies – or however you like. Chill until you are ready to serve.