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.

Cotton Masquerading as a Cupcake

We did a little cupcake tasting this past weekend. The thinking being, we should try bakery fresh cupcakes to see what my cupcakes may be missing. Major letdown, it was a seriously colossal FAIL! I have never tasted terrible cupcakes. I have tasted dry cupcakes, undercooked cupcakes, old cupcakes, fresh cupcakes, super moist cupcakes and many in between but I have never tasted just plain terrible cupcakes.

I assumed since Bettie's Cupcakes was located on the highly traveled Broadway Street in Saratoga with many people streaming in and out, the cupcakes would be quite tasty and I would wonder how I would ever be able to achieve such simple decadence. Unfortunately after trying 5 mini cupcakes and 1 regular cupcake, it was a definite fail. Of the 6 tasted, Red Velvet, Mai Tai, German Chocolate, Peanut Butter Cup, Chocolate and Vanilla, the Mai Tai and the frosting on the Red Velvet cupcake were decent. The chocolate barely had even a hint of chocolate taste and the only thing signaling the cupcake was "Red" Velvet was, in fact, the red of the cake. We thought surely, the Vanilla Cupcake would be better than the minis as who can mess up Vanilla, right? Upon cutting the cupcake in two, the texture was similar to that of Angel Food Cake but the taste was anything but sweet, moist yumminess. Instead it was bland and tasteless and while I thought I could at least finish my half since we paid for it, I could not make it past the second small bite. I should have trusted the article from the Saratoga Cupcake Competition stating Bettie's Cupcakes' Vanilla Cupcake with Chocolate Frosting was "mealy and flavorless cake and bitter frosting."

I still two days later cannot get over the lack of taste in Bettie's Cupcakes. Surely the people running in and out all day could taste, or rather not taste, any flavor. Maybe they were all unknowing tourists like us, lured in by the 50s decor and prettiness of the cupcakes. This I can only hope as anyone who is a repeat customer should be schooled on what a true cupcake tastes like. I am not one to bash someone's creative talents because maybe I simply do not understand their talents, however, I know cake. I live to eat cake. I crave cake when I do not have it and I am one of those who will go to lunch at a bakery/deli just to eat the cake. This experience has taught me to always strive to be better and never, no matter how much effort I have put into them, serve sub par cupcakes as that will be the impression my friends take home with them.

They look so tasty, don't they?

Not so good..we ate bits and pieces of the minis and gave up on the regular size cupcake.

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

Cupcake Experiment #3 using Magnolia Bakery Vanilla Cupcake Recipe

This cupcake decision was quite literally and surprisingly, a piece of cake! I am literally devouring a Magnolia Bakery Vanilla Cupcake right now as we speak because they are so tasty! Who would have guessed. Sure, the thousands of people who are fans of Magnolia Bakery but what about everyone else who actually take the time to taste the cupcakes. As I said before, most cupcakes are a lot of hype that many people buy into because a famous person has eaten there or they saw it in a movie. I was prepared for the worst with these cupcakes and what I got was the best of the three cupcakes I have taste tested in the last three days.

Most famous bakeries, I'm sure, begin with a great recipe. Then, the masses come and they come, and they come and pretty soon the bakeries are so overwhelmed with customers they have to become more efficient with their processes thus the end of bakery fresh, straight from the oven taste and the beginning of a commercialized taste that is only a bit better than a cupcake from a plastic wrapper. Take Sprinkles for example. I have read about Sprinkles in all the tabloids, how wonderful they are, how fabulous they look and how just the other day Paris Hilton was seen inhaling one. I finally tasted one and I began wondering why the little cupcake bakery in Houston I have frequented a few times isn't famous and even more so than Sprinkles. Maybe it was my agitation at how rude the employees were or maybe it was the actual taste but needless to say, I will not be frequenting them again. I prefer instead to find small undiscovered bakeries who are still willing to put in the time and effort to make gorgeous AND tasty cupcakes.

Imagine my surprise when I baked the famous Magnolia Bakery Vanilla Cupcakes and they turned our scrumptious! I devoured every last crumb. I actually forgot this was an experiment at one point and just kept eating. The Magnolia Bakery Vanilla Cupcake was hands down the best cupcake out of the three tested, out-tasting Martha Stewart's Yellow Buttermilk Cupcake and JoyofBaking.com's Vanilla Cupcake. The cupcake recipe was also completely different than the previous two and much easier to mix, completely eliminating salt and baking powder for self-rising flour. I baked two half batches of the Magnolia Bakery Vanilla Cupcake, one original and one Greek Yogurt infused batch. I expected the yogurt infused batch to be tastier and more moist like the past experimental batches but I was surprised yet again. The original recipe was far tastier than the yogurt infused batch. Our apartment landlords were around at the time of tasting and they also both agreed the original tasted far better than the yogurt infused, however, the texture was better in the yogurt infused.
This recipe may be the recipe I play around with and tweak, adding less yogurt, maybe more vanilla, changing the eggs from whole eggs to yolks, etc. If you have a cupcake recipe you absolutely love, send it to me. I'd love to compare the flavors.

My experimenting must come to an end for this week as I have yet to make a batch for fun and am looking forward to finally being able to decorate all of my hard work. Unfortunately before I begin, I must play around with the buttercreams! Not a task I enjoy. My buttercream always tastes like a stick of butter with a little sugar added in so cross your fingers for me today and let the decorating begin!

Magnolia Bakery Vanilla Cupcakes

Ingredients

Cupcakes:

• 1 1/2 cups self-rising flour
• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 2 cups sugar
• 4 large eggs, at room temperature
• 1 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Line 2 (1/2 cup-12 capacity) muffin tins with cupcake papers.

In a small bowl, combine the flours. Set aside.

In a large bowl, on the medium speed of an electric mixer, cream the butter until smooth. Add the sugar gradually and beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the dry ingredients in 3 parts, alternating with the milk and vanilla. With each addition, beat until the ingredients are incorporated but do not over beat. Using a rubber spatula, scrape down the batter in the bowl to make sure the ingredients are well blended. Carefully spoon the batter into the cupcake liners, filling them about 3/4 full. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into the center of the cupcake comes out clean.

Cool the cupcakes in tins for 15 minutes. Remove from the tins and cool completely on a wire rack before icing.

A Successful Finish

Spectacular! That's how I would describe the afternoon. The Magnolia Bakery Cupcake Recipe was a complete success, drastically better than the previous two AND I received a brand new dishwasher to replace my other non-washing brand new dishwasher. Last year Soner bought me a dishwasher in France, a rarity in French apartments, and I was estactic! No more handwashing.. This time it is almost as good except that I expect to have a decent working dishwasher when I move in to an apartment, not two months and 20-30 loads of semi-clean dishes later. I could only be happier if they tossed in a KitchenAid Standing Mixer in red! Hmm, I should definitely look into apartments fully equipped with that essential! I wonder if there are apartments out there set up to accommodate people who bake and cook as their primary hobby instead of making their bathrooms so large?? Too bad we are moving to another country in 4 months and counting so it makes no sense to purchase a shiny new standing mixer. I am however the proud new owner of maroon curtains that will hopefully aid in blocking my neighbors loud discussions on the porch as well as keep their nosy eyes out of my house. We had a fly infestation last week but I am not sure which was worse, our neighbors who lay in wait every night for us to come home to grill us about everything we did and went or the little flies buzzing around. All in all, the day has been a success and I am eager to post my opinions of cupcake experiment batch #3!

Cupcake Experiment #2 using Martha Stewart's Yellow Buttermilk Cupcakes

Well, I am kicking myself in the butt a little right now as I literally two seconds ago as I wrote the blog title, realized I made Yellow Buttermilk Cupcakes and NOT Vanilla Cupcakes as my intent. The Martha Stewart's Cupcakes book does not seem to find the plain 'ol "Vanilla Cupcake" quite worth its page space so instead they feature the Yellow Buttermilk Cupcake. Although the Buttermilk Cupcake is quite similar, it does in fact, have buttermilk. But anyway, close enough for the time being. Can anyone tell me what the major difference in taste would be between Martha Stewart's Vanilla and Yellow Buttermilk Cupcakes? Recipe-wise it seems the Buttermilk recipe calls for more eggs, more cake flour, buttermilk and a little less butter. Will this drastically change the overall taste or only provide a different texture?

On to the experiment, I divided the recipe in two this time for an original batch and a Greek Yogurt infused batch. I set out all of my ingredients including milk, eggs and butter to warm to room temperature and prepared my egg yolks while they were still cold as I read this will allow the yolk and whites to separate easier. Then you know, I kind of shook things up, did a little dance, walked around a bit, jammed to music, got my heart pumping and prepared for another day of tasting batters and cupcakes while not adding to my "sleek" figure.

Cupcakes are a funny thing. They always look mouth watering delicious and scrumptious but a lot of times they don't pass muster. Sometimes the frosting is too overwhelming to taste the cake or the cake cannot pull its own weight as part of a team (the cake and the frosting) but since our eyes play a major part in the experience of a cupcake, we are tricked into believing a beautifully decorated cupcake is delicious as well. I probably cannot count the number of truly great cupcakes I have had on one hand but I can tell you the frosting always looks pretty.


I mixed my cupcakes per the recipe instructions and added 1/4 cup Greek Yogurt to one batch, roughly 15 cupcakes. The bake time for the yogurt infused cupcakes was 2 minutes longer than the original batch as to be expected. Upon completion, the Greek Yogurt infused Martha Stewart Buttermilk Cupcakes held their "cupcake" shape a bit better than the yogurt infused JoyofBaking.com's Vanilla Cupcakes. Overall, both the original and yogurt infused Martha Stewart Buttermilk Cupcakes felt a little heavier and a bit more dense than the JoyofCooking.com's Vanilla Cupcakes. The yogurt infused JoyofBaking.com's Vanilla Cupcake on left and yogurt infused Martha Stewart Yellow Buttermilk Cupcake on right.

In a taste test, the original Buttermilk Cupcakes had a sweet corn bread like taste and similar texture in my opinion while the yogurt infused Buttermilk Cupcakes were more moist. However, while the texture was fairly similar to the original, the exterior of the cupcake was thicker and not quite as easy to cut with a fork thus making it not so much a winner in my book. Compared to the JoyofBaking.com's cupcakes, overall, the Martha Stewart's Yellow Buttermilk Cupcakes were more moist in general which can probably be attributed to the use of egg yolks in the recipe. Egg yolks contribute to a spongier and more moist texture.
Head to head, the yogurt infused Martha Stewart Buttermilk Cupcake vs. the yogurt infused JoyofBaking.com's Vanilla Cupcake... both were moist cupcakes, however, the MS Buttermilk was more moist. Since I was not a fan of the texture though, I would definitely have to tweak the amount of yogurt added. I believe I may be able to achieve similar results if I substituted some of the egg in the JoyofBaking.com's Vanilla Cupcake with egg yolks.
This experiment is definitely a learning experience. If you taste the batter, you can definitely distinguish between the flavors and while none of the cupcakes are winners yet, I am learning what works and what doesn't and through research, why it works out as it does. Oh and eating lots of yummy cupcakes! You can tell we enjoyed the yogurt infused cupcakes (in the yellow wrappers) more than the original versions!)

Martha Stewart's Yellow Buttermilk Cupcakes
* 3 cups cake flour (not self-rising)
* 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
* 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
* 2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
* 1 1/2 teaspoons coarse salt
* 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (2 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
* 2 1/4 cups sugar
* 5 large whole eggs plus 3 egg yolks, room temperature
* 2 cups buttermilk, room temperature
* 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. Sift together both flours, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
2. With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Reduce speed to medium. Add whole eggs, one at a time, beating until each is incorporated, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Add yolks, and beat until thoroughly combined. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture in three batches, alternating with two additions of buttermilk, and beating until combined after each. Beat in vanilla.
3. Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each three-quarters full. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until cupcakes spring back when lightly touched and a cake tester inserted in centers comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Transfer tins to wire racks to cool 10 minutes; turn out cupcakes onto racks and let cool completely. Cupcakes can be stored overnight at room temperature, or frozen up to 2 months, in airtight containers.

Cupcake Experiment #1 using JoyofBaking.com Vanilla Cupcake Recipe

We are in a very experimental mood lately! Yesterday, we began the great cupcake experiment in a quest for the perfectly moist and tasty cupcake because let's face it, people want the whole package, not just a pretty face (the frosting)!

First vanilla cupcake recipe up, JoyofBaking.com's Vanilla Cupcake. Here's where things become a bit dicey. I wanted to try 3 different add-ins with my cupcakes along with the original mix but we are on a major food overhaul (diets are for those who cannot stick to a plan for the long haul!) so I broke out the handy recipe ingredient converter and converted that baby down to 1/4 of its original size rendering me 3 cupcakes of each mix but such a small amount of mix is not so easy to... mix and while all of the ingredients were perfectly measured out (thank you new food scale!), the eggs may have gotten lost in there a bit. Who knew you could actually use "half" an egg! (Not just because the recipe converter said so..you can actually do it...I read up on eggs...a lot!)

So I measured, mixed, added and baked and voila! We have our first test cupcakes! Our add-ins were Sprite, Sour Cream and thick Greek Yogurt. Originally, I thought the Sour Cream and Yogurt would taste roughly the same but in the end, the sour cream didn't have that fresh baked taste although the moist-ness was about the same. The Sprite, Soner's idea, didn't turn out so hot...literally...the baking time should have been a bit longer for the Sprite cupcakes, however, since the cupcakes were all in the same pan, it was hard to adjust for that. I do not believe the Sprite cupcakes would have tasted better than the Greek Yogurt ones though. Overall, the Greek Yogurt cupcakes win out in the JoyofBaking.com's Vanilla Cupcakes (which is awesome as when we move to Turkey, they will not have Sour Cream and thick yogurt is what they do best!). Today I will try a different Vanilla Cupcake recipe, testing the Greek yogurt vs. original recipe then I will taste them against Cupcake Batch 1 (I saved two from each flavor although I have to act fast so they do not lose their moisture!) Bottom line, the original recipe tasted good but when you tasted it against the Greek Yogurt or Sour Cream cupcakes, they tasted dry.

In the end, I hope to nail down the best Vanilla Cupcake recipe for me then begin to tweak the recipe bit by bit for a difference you can taste.









JoyofBaking.com Vanilla Cupcake Recipe

1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature

2/3 cup (130 grams) granulated white sugar

3 large eggs

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Zest of 1 large lemon (optional)

1 1/2 cups (195 grams) all purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup (60 ml) milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (177 degrees C) and line 12 muffin cups with paper liners.

In the bowl of your electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the vanilla extract and lemon zest.

In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the flour mixture and milk, in three additions, beginning and ending with the flour. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.

Evenly fill the muffin cups with the batter and bake for about 18-20 minutes or until nicely browned and a toothpick inserted into a cupcake comes out clean. Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool.


,

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.