Ladybug Cupcakes: They are cute-sy but I love them!

Wanting to actually complete an entire cupcake, top hat and all, I did a lot of mixing and baking yesterday! After a quick trip to Michael's Craft Store for some Meringue Powder, Black Gel and Frosting Tips and another trip to CVS for M&Ms (dark chocolate so, of course, they are healthy!), Twizzlers Nibblers and Pretzel M&Ms (I needed these very badly to complete my cupcakes..my replacement snack in place of snacking on frosting and cupcake batter!), I was armed and ready.


I began with half a Meringue Buttercream Frosting recipe just for taste-testing purposes and playing with my new and old tips. The Meringue with the shortening has absolutely no appeal to my "delicate" palate so it is now a practice-only frosting stored in my fridge! Surprisingly, I actually quite missed the typical butter-y taste found in Buttercreams. The consistency was great though so maybe I will try a mixture of half shortening and half butter if I can drag myself away from the buttercream I am finally getting the hang of making!




Side Note: I am trying to form leaves with leaf tip #67 and it does not appear to be working! Every time I pull away to form the point of the leaf, the result is broken edges. How do I remedy this??




Wilton's Meringue Powder Buttercream Frosting Recipe

	(for flowers with upright petals)
1 teaspoon	Clear vanilla extract*
2 tablespoons	Water
1 cup	Shortening
1 tablespoon	Wilton Meringue Powder
1 pounds	Sifted powdered sugar (approx 4 cups)
	(for borders, flowers with petals that lie flat)
1 tablespoon	Additional water
	(for writing, making stems and leaves & frosting a cake)
2 tablespoons	Additional water

STIFF: MEDIUM: THIN: *Note: Clear butter & clear almond extracts can be included with or substituted for the vanilla. Flavorings can be up to a total of 2 t. DIRECTIONS: Sift the powdered sugar and meringue powder into a large mixing bowl and set aside. Cream shortening, flavorings and water. Gradually add sifted dry ingredients and mix on medium speed until all ingredients have been thoroughly mixed together. Blend an additional minute or so until creamy.

I baked 24 cupcakes using "My" Vanilla Cupcake recipe. While I thought this was a recipe I really enjoyed, it is not quite as moist the 2nd day while the original Magnolia Bakery Vanilla Cupcake recipe tasted the same to me over a period of days. I will have to go back to the drawing board on that one!

For the buttercream frosting, I used the same recipe I have been using as of late with a touch less than 1/2 teaspoon of almond oil as the flavor was a bit too strong last time. The consistency was nice and thick! I added green gel food coloring to the mixture and continued adding until I achieved a grassy green coloring.

For the ladybugs: Martha Stewart recommends tinted marzipan but I was in no mood to tint my fingers red so I played with red M&Ms and Twizzlers Nibblers. The Nibblers are almost square with no texture on top. I thought if I could round off the edges they would be the perfect ladybugs but then I realized an M&M already works perfect so why fix something if it "ain't" broke?!

Armed with black gel and red M&Ms, I closed my eyes and turned around 3 times then Voila! I miraculously had little red ladybugs. Be sure to do the ladybugs ahead of time so the gel can harden a little.


For the grass: I very lightly frosted the cupcakes before I began the grass to give the frosting something to grab onto. You do not have to do this, however, I found when I did not take this step, the "grass" sometimes did not adhere when I pulled away. Using Wilton tip #233, I formed grass after grass after grass and it was beautiful! Like looking at a green as green can be putting green. Place the ladybugs on the frosting quickly before it begins to set or they will not adhere or at the end you can add a few more pieces of grass and adhere the ladybugs.






I absolutely loved these cupcakes. While they are quite cute-sy and not very manly, I am a girl so I get to be girly. If you would like to place put your manliness on hold for just a moment, you are more than welcome to enjoy these Ladybug Cupcakes! Afiyet Olsun!

Buttercream Frosting: Try Outs Open Today

Tips:

• Sift powdered sugar before creaming with butter for a thick, consistent buttercream
• Separate eggs while cold for easy separation then allow egg whites to warm to room temperature (about 30 minutes) for a faster whip and better volume

While I may not have perfected the cupcake, I feel confident the Vanilla Cupcake I am currently baking is pretty tasty so I have moved on for a few days to frosting. Because really, what fun is baking if you cannot share with others and I am not so sure I can impress very many people with a bare cupcake. So frosting it is!

Friday it was full steam ahead. I whipped up a Meringue Buttercream, a Strawberry Meringue Buttercream and a Vanilla Buttercream.

Meringue Buttercream Frostings:

I whipped and whipped and whipped egg whites and granulated sugar over my home made broiler until the sugar dissolved and again I whipped until I had a nice sticky meringue with my handheld mixer. True, a handheld mixer, is not the best choice for concocting fabulous creations but it works in a pinch although I did have to take a break from time to time to let the mixer cool. I am unsure if this affected the frosting or not. I was never able to achieve "stiff" peaks in my meringue but it was nice and sticky and fairly thick so I began adding my cubed butter, 3 sticks of it! Needless to say, the frosting was very buttery and quite rich. Overall, I had a decent Meringue Buttercream Frosting even if it was too buttery for me.

Don't worry if your mixture begins to curdle upon adding butter! Continue mixing until you achieve a smooth consistency.

For the Strawberry Meringue Buttercream, I pureed 2 ounces of strawberries then mixed it with half of the already prepared Meringue Buttercream Frosting. The frosting was much better than the plain Meringue Buttercream as it masked the butter flavoring and it tasted like 100% real strawberries!





Side Note: Can anyone tell me if pureeing the Strawberries instead of simply chopping them up made a difference in the consistency of the frosting? The first time I added chopped strawberries to my first Buttercream Frosting, the frosting instantly took on a more liquid-y consistency. This time, with the pureed strawberries (resulting in a decently thick sauce), the consistency of the frosting did not change much. I do not know if this can be attributed to the ability of the Meringue Buttercream Frosting to hold up better or if it was the change in texture.

Meringue Buttercream Frosting Recipe (courtesy of http://www.perfect-wedding-day.com/buttercream-icing-recipe-1.html)

4 oz (1/2 cup) egg whites
8 oz ( 1 cup) granulated sugar
12 oz (3 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into cubes
Pinch of salt

1. Combine the egg whites, salt and sugar in a mixing bowl and place over simmering water.
2. Continuously beating with a whisk, heat until egg whites are hot and all the sugar is dissolved (~140 degrees). If the sugar is not completely melted, your final product will be grainy, so make sure!
3. Remove from the heat and place on the mixer. Whisk on medium speed until meringue is stiff, and the mixing bowl is cool to the touch. The meringue will be white with a bright sheen, and very sticky!
4. Switch to the paddle attachment, and on medium speed add the butter a few cubes at a time. Please note, if the meringue is not completely cool, the butter will melt instead of combining evenly.
5. Continue beating until all the butter is incorporated. At one point it may appear as if the mixture has “broken”, looking watery and separated like curdled milk. Continue mixing…it will all come together, I promise!
6. Increase speed to high, and beat until smooth.

Now for the real success story:

I now understand why you should sift your powdered sugar before attempting to mix up a buttercream. Your one pound of powdered sugar suddenly transforms to twice its amount and makes for a lighter, yet thicker buttercream. I can only hypothesize that my frosting came out better because there were absolutely no clumps in my powdered sugar and every last bit was able to smoothly mix with the butter while in the past, without sifting, the powdered sugar and butter never creamed together so well possibly due to tight balls of sugar in the mixture. With the sifted powdered sugar, the buttercream blended so well, my mixer was on the verge of losing the mixing fight. At one point, I had to take a break before the mixer overheated because of the nice, thick consistency of the buttercream.

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
1 pound powdered sugar, sifted
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon milk, if necessary

I did not need to add milk.


Taste Testing:
Finally, with the help of Soner, I was able to taste test my various frostings with cupcakes I baked earlier that day! While Soner liked the consistency of all the frostings and for the most part the taste, the Meringue Buttercream had way too much butter for him and the Vanilla Buttercream had too much almond oil. He enjoyed the Strawberry Meringue Buttercream but found the texture a bit odd. I believe if the frosting had been piped, he would not have had a problem with texture. Myself, I loved the Vanilla Buttercream, that nice kick of sweet Almond Oil along with its thick, creamy consistency. I am not a big fan of the Meringue Buttercreams but who knows what the overall taste, texture and consistency would be if my egg whites had formed stiff peaks as they should have.

Butterscotch Frosting.. A success.. Thus far!

And breathe out... Whew! I can finally breathe an excited sigh of relief. I think I just held my breathe for the duration while "whipping" up some Butterscotch Frosting,... holding,..holding,...holding,... did it work?! It did!

My plan today was to give White Chocolate Frosting another go but I am down to my last two ounces of white chocolate chips and 1/2 a stick of butter. I googled White Chocolate Frosting and decided on the first easy recipe I could find and set to work. I substituted Butterscotch Chips for White Chocolate chips since it was the only 4 ounce thing I had on hand (4 ounces on the dot I was meant to make Butterscotch Frosting obviously!) and got to work. My recipe:

4 oz. white chocolate
3/4 c. confectioners' sugar
Dash salt
2 tbsp. butter
1 tsp. vanilla

Melt chocolate; blend in confectioners' sugar, salt and butter, 1 tablespoon at a time, beating thoroughly after each. Stir in vanilla. (For more, use 1 cup confectioners' sugar and 4 tablespoons hot water.)

I substituted butterscotch chips for the white chocolate and melted in the microwave. The butterscotch were melted but definitely not liquid-y. I decided this probably worked best so my frosting would be thicker. While still warm (to keep the butterscotch from re-hardening), I added the confectioner's sugar, salt and butter. The frosting tasted great with those ingredients but was quite lumpy so I threw in the 1 tsp of Vanilla and Voila! A smooth, creamy Butterscotch frosting was made!

I frosted frozen Magnolia Bakery Vanilla Cupcakes I made last week and now we will wait and see how the frosting sets. Until then, feast your eyes on yumminess!

If at first you don't succeed, throw it all away!

Tips:

• Dust chocolate chips, blueberries, chopped strawberries, etc. with flour to prevent sinking in batter.
• Separate your eggs when cold but allow the egg whites to reach room temperature before beating to achieve more volume and stiff, firm peaks.

I have these great aspirations for cupcakes so good you cannot eat just one which may defeat the purpose of these individually portioned treats but isn't it nice to have goals? It all started Friday when I thought to myself, "Wouldn't white chocolate filled vanilla cupcakes topped with strawberry buttercream frosting be delicious, like a flavor packed White Chocolate Covered Strawberry?" These were my exact thoughts,.. too bad my cupcakes nor the frosting were receiving my well thought out ESP signals. Instead they took on a mind of their own. The perfect little Vanilla Cupcake basically spit out my idea of a white creamy chocolate-y middle and sunk my chocolate every time I tried, tried again even after I dusted them with flour to keep the chocolate suspended within the batter. I tried placing two melting chocolate disks pushed down in the middle of the batter, placing a grouping of white chocolate chips in the middle of the batter and finally sprinkling as many white chocolate chips as the cup would hold on top of the batter in high hopes that even if the chocolate did sink, there were so many chips, they would be scattered throughout the cupcake. Finally, success! I cut open a fresh still warm from the oven cupcake and my white chocolate chips came oozing out of the bottom middle... 5 minutes later...poof! The chocolate hardened into a crunchy state. Not exactly my idea of white chocolate tastiness but I digress.

On to my fabulous buttercream.. or it was until I added 1 cup of chopped strawberries turning my once stout buttercream to a creamy mess. At first I thought I added too many strawberries, which I did, 1 cup to 1 lb of confectioner's sugar is not an even match but even after adding another pound and counting, my perfect buttercream was destroyed. The only saving grace is it was definitely tasty when paired with my Vanilla Cupcakes (with the crunchy white chocolate floating around the bottom) but in the end it all met its doom in my trash can. I could not handle constantly cleaning up drips from the counter top with every bite I took.

Monday I took another stab at Strawberry Buttercream frosting, white chocolate cupcakes and a new recipe for White Chocolate frosting. My thinking being, if I cannot succeed at Strawberry Buttercream this time, I have a fall back because I know I cannot mess up icing with an egg white base.

Wow, have the mighty fallen! Strawberry Buttercream Frosting... FAIL! Still a creamy mess! White Chocolate frosting ...FAIL! Everything was going great until I added the butter and white chocolate then it became a lumpy creamy mess! White Chocolate cupcakes...FAIL! This time I added 10 ounces melted white chocolate chips to the recipe trying to replicate the addition of white chocolate chips from another recipe I read online but using my Vanilla Cupcake recipe. This actually was not too disasturous. Because I had leftover yolks from the White Chocolate frosting debacle, I thought I would replace two out of the 4 eggs in my Vanilla Cupcake recipe with egg yolks to try to obtain the denser texture everyone seemed to love in the yogurt version of the Vanilla Cupcakes. I added a couple tablespoons of water to offset the liquid. The taste of the cupcake was Vanilla Cupcakes. I added a couple tablespoons of water to offset the liquid. The taste of the cupcake was quite delicious, however, it seems there was not enough "binding" in the batter to hold the cupcakes together so while very moist and great texture, the cake, out of the cupcake wrapper fell to pieces.




I look forward to the day when I will get it through my thick skull to make only one change at a time to a recipe. Maybe if I had left the recipe and eggs alone and simply added the chocolate, I would be sitting here today raving about my great cupcake skills! Maybe if I had only adjusted the eggs and not added any chocolate, I would also be raving about my great cupcake skills. Instead, I am defeated and overly sugared up with a trash can full of cupcakes and frosting.


On a more positive note, I have purchased Shirley Corriher's book Bakewise: The Hows and Whys of Successful Baking and will soon be learning everything I can about why I use baking powder in some recipes and baking soda in others, why my cupcakes sink and how to make them more moist. Crossing my fingers, it will be a good investment.






Strawberry Buttercream Frosting from Southern Living


Yield: Makes 2 1/2 cups
Ingredients

* 1 cup butter, softened
* 2 (16-ounce) packages powdered sugar, sifted
* 1 cup finely chopped fresh strawberries

Preparation

Beat butter at medium speed with an electric mixer 20 seconds or until fluffy. Add powdered sugar and chopped strawberries, beating at low speed until creamy. (Add more sugar if frosting is too thin, or add strawberries if too thick.)

White Chocolate Buttercream Icing from eHow
Step 1
First you need to make sure you have White Chocolate that has "Cocoa Butter" as one of the first two ingredients on the package.

Step 2
Take the chocolate and place it into a bowl and place the bowl over a pan of simmering water. Be careful not to let any water get into the chocolate or it will bind up. You may also place the chocolate into a microwave safe bowl, cover it with plastic wrap and microwave for 10 seconds at a time. Removing it after each 10 seconds and stir.

Step 3
Take the egg whites and beat till soft peaks form. Now start to gradually add the sugar a little at a time. When all the sugar has been incorporated beat on high till stiff peaks form.

Step 4
Add the butter a little at a time.

Step 5
Now add the melted white chocolate while beating slowly and then beat till smooth. You're done.

This will make about 6 Cups of Icing.

I did it! Buttercream-y delicous-ness!

I did it! I created buttercream frosting and it tasted fantastic! I was shocked, awed and I couldn't wait for Soner to come home to exclaim, "You did it! Congratulations! World's best frosting! just like Will Ferrell in Elf. So maybe it wasn't that great but it was a pretty monumental moment for me. Too bad I ruined it when I dumped a cup of chopped strawberries into it this morning. A little too over zealous. I guess I should have been happy with one milestone at a time.

One piece of advice, purchase a food scale. It will be the best decision of your life! Maybe I am being a bit dramatic but you can purchase one for $30 and finally take the guess work out of over-packing the flour or under packing the brown sugar. You can also eliminate the need to dirty up all of your measuring cups. Place the bowl on top of the food scale, turn it on and the scale will automatically eliminate the bowl and whatever ingredients you already have inside and start at "0." It is genius especially when I want to add sugar to the bowl already containing butter.

Next week I will begin tweaking the Magnolia Bakery Vanilla Cupcakes and taste test any other winning recipes people send my way. Til then, I look forward to my next sugar induced coma!

Here's the buttercream recipe a friend gave me:

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
1 pound powdered sugar, sifted
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon milk, if necessary

Tastes like summer.. The beginning of summer cupcakes!

So we have been back in the US for over 2 months now and its been quite a whirlwind. Unpacking, repacking, driving long distances and short and losing luggage, all the exciting things of life! I am finally getting settled in Glenville, NY..a short distance between Saratoga Springs and Albany and am completely shocked at the humid weather we are having! I try to stay indoors as much as possible partly because the moving sidewalk in Denver's airport and I had a bit of an altercation... (the sidewalk won and two weeks later I still have two beautiful blue-purple reminders on both my knees) and mostly because its so humid I mistakened it for Louisiana one day and had to run back inside and try to wake myself up from this miserable dream!
So all traveling and cleaning aside, I am working on baking beautiful and surprising cupcakes. Blogging and cupcakes seem to be the one constant I can do with all this moving around! Everyone likes cakes and sweets no matter what country they are from or language they may speak! With the help of "What's New, Cupcake?" I am becoming inspired and trying to reach into my creative side! So far I have created the Charcoal Cupcakes from "What's New, Cupcake?" (People were left scratching their head as to why I sent them photos of hamburger meat until I finally wondered what was up a few days later, why had no one emailed to say how cool they were??), Ice Cream Cone cupcakes I saw while watching Cupcake Wars and yesterday I made chocolate cupcakes with marshmallow creme filling, green icing and "wind turbines" made from chocolate for the topper for a lunch my boyfriend had at GE today. Now that I am conquering "grass," I am excited to see what else I can do...
I am having a bit of trouble with homemade frosting, mine always tastes like a stick of butter with a little sugar in it, so any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Hopefully I can start baking every week, that is if I can get my boyfriend past the embarrassment of carrying a cupcake carrier to the office everyday! If anyone has any suggestions on a more "masculine" way to get the cupcakes into the office and in front of those sweet-craving GE employees, please let me know.