Conveneience store cupcakes-redone part two

As fun as it was to revisit a cupcake idea I had previous done. I was much more excited to try out something new. Snowball cupcakes. They would look just like those little pretty pink cakes that I always thought would be better than they actually tasted, only these would be tasty, or at least that was my hope.

For number eight, I used the same chocolate cake recipe and filling as I did for number seven of my 26 before 26 quest.

One of the things I was looking forward to was dying my coconut. I had never done this before, and even though shaking a container full of food coloring and coconut may not be everybody's idea of a good time, I was jazzed. The first time I dyed my coconut, it was too red. Not a red red, more of a Sarah Goldfarb red. A strange dark pink/orange/red combo. Luckily I  had just enough to do over. The second time around they came out a very lovely and dainty shade of pink.

By the time it came to the frosting, I was pooped. I thought about making something from Martha Stewart, or numerous other places. Seeing some recipes prepared with fluff, I had bought some at the store on Monday when getting all my supplies. What I didn't get was cream of tartar, which just about all of the other recipes called for. So on Thursday night after work, it was decision time. I could go to the store again, or make some fluff butter cream. The more I thought about it, I didn't want to mix my fluff with butter. I liked fluff how it was, and I wanted a very marshmallow-ey taste.

I decided to use the fluff in it's natural form. Each cake was topped with a big mound of fluff, and then pretty, pink coconut shavings were mushed into it.

They were lovely. The picture of perfection. It did not last long.

By the time I put them all away in the fridge, I noticed the fluff was sliding. I was worried because I was all out of the good coconut and there was not incomplete coverage. I wasn't sure if I wanted to take them to work anymore, but I needed enough to feed everybody. I decided that having the pink coconut look more like a garnish than a thick, plush blanket of coconut goodness was still good enough.


The next morning I woke to an awful sight. I wasn't terribly surprised. I went to bed feeling uneasy, and when I woke up before my alarm, I actually got up to check on my cakes instead of savoring those last 10 minutes of sleep. When I looked in my fridge I saw that more than half of the fluff was all the way off of the cupcakes, dripping down the sides of the liners, onto the tray and even on to the innocent chocolate cupcakes below.

With zero time to waste, I scraped the fluff off of all the cupcakes, ditched the cute little aluminum liners and set them in some ill-fitting pastel ones. Yuck. A frantic search on my iphone lead me to this recipe from Paula Deen. I love Miss Paula. She loves butter and her teeth are a frightening shade of white. Plus there is this, which makes me laugh while creeping me the fuck out. This is like the salad fingers of our time.



Anyway, I got down a double boiler I had bought at a thrift store a few months ago and got to work.

I honestly don't know where I went wrong. Maybe it was the pan, maybe the mixer, maybe the corn syrup. The double boiler makes it almost impossible for water to get in and ruin the party, but perhaps that is what happened, because the entire thing seized up. The beginning of the recipe is very much like swiss meringue, which I have no problem with. But this was not happening. When I hit the seven minute mark, my sugar was still grainy. Not just a little grainy, but super grainy. I kept going on, hoping it would fix itself. After about 12 minutes I gave up. The frosting had a terrible texture, but was tasty. I ended up putting it on the cupcakes. It wasn't very good at all, but I think I was bothered by it more than anybody else. The silver lining is that these were covered in so much Sarah Goldfarb red coconut that the gritty texture kind of blended in with the texture of to coconut.

I would like to say that they looked better in person, but yeah.. nope.

They definitely weren't the lovely, light pink beauties I had imagined, but I am just happy that they made it to my break room. This will be one to revisit, but not for a long while.

Convenience store cupcakes-redone part one.

I barely made the cupcakes in time to commemorate my coworker's farewell. With preparation every night after work and an emergency frosting do-over in the morning, I was very tired by the time I was done. And cranky. Still, overall I am pleased with how they turned out.

I ended up doing variations of pre-packaged cake foods. The first one to be completed was the classic chocolate Hostess cupcake. My very first time making cupcakes as an adult was when my work was doing a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society Relay for Life. We had a bake sale, and I thought cupcakes would be the perfect thing to bring. One of the types I made was a variation of the chocolate Hostess cupcake. It was fun to revisit it four years later. They turned better this time around, but looking back on it, I am impressed with the effort I made the first time around. I had never made anything other than a packaged cake mix, and I remember messing that up at least once in my youth. But still I went balls out and made chocolate cupcakes from scratch, filled them, covered them with ganache and topped them with a white swirl. I didn't even know what ganache was.

So here is number seven on my quest to complete 26 cupcakes before my 26th birthday.

They got a little roughed up on the way to work.

I used this chocolate cake recipe from Kevin and Amanda. I don't follow any blogs religiously, but this is one I am always coming back to. Full of great ideas, plus Kevin, Amanda and their dogs seem so cute and likable.

The cream filling recipe was from Retro Desserts. I found it though Baking Bites.

For the ganache I used my old standby of 9oz semi sweet chocolate with 8 ounces of heavy cream. I topped it off with a royal icing swirl. This was my first time making royal icing. It made way, waaaaay, more than what I needed, so it felt a little wasteful, but I had to have the swirls. I ended up going with this recipe from Alton Brown.

Overall, these were delicious. The chocolate cake was nice and moist, the filling was creamy and the ganache was smooth and shiny. You can't really beat that. They were very, very decadent. I would say that they are so rich that you really can't finish one by yourself, but that would be a lie. But they are so rich that I could share half of one with somebody and not feel gypped.

These were wonderful -a little time consuming, but not incredibly difficult. The other cupcake totally made up for how easy these ones were. The tragic tale will be highlighted in number eight of my quest for 26 before 26.

Getting ready for my week

Is it really only Tuesday? The first week of the month is always crazy busy at work. This week, I am making the banana cupcakes for a birthday, and two extra special cupcakes for a send off to somebody at work. To add to the craziness, Eric's grandparents are coming to see him on Thursday, his dad is coming over on Friday, and on Saturday we are driving out to Pinon Hills to see his mom and step-dad, perhaps after a trip to Ikea.

With my commute, I haven't been getting home each night this week until around 7:00 at the very earliest. I have to get home, get cooking, and then clean everything up that night, instead waiting for Eric to do all of the dishes after school.

Monday I went to the grocery store to get everything I needed. And today I got a few of my ducks in order.

They don't all match, but the only reason they are even in plastic containers is because I ran out of ziplock bags.

This is turning out to be a busy week.