Cupcake Attempt #3

Today I wanted to try a Red Velvet Cupcake with Cream Cheese frosting. I found this great recipe online and we went with it! I realized we didn't have enough Red food coloring so I decided I would make them Blue Velvet cupcakes. I bought a new mixer at Wal-Mart today and I think this made a WORLD of difference in our cupcakes and frosting. I mixed the dry ingredients and then the wet, and added the blue food coloring...it was a gorgeous color of blue and I was really excited. However, when I mixed it with the flour  and cocoa it became this camo green color lol! Oops lol. Oh well. Joe made the frosting and it was so so so yummy! So aside from the weird color, the cupcakes were pretty damn close to a success this time around. Thank GOD!

Final Verdict: Cream Cheese Frosting was DELICIOUS! Color of cupcakes was a little weird (note to self: buy some red food coloring). Cupcakes were just a tiny tiny bit on the dry side...try not to cook them so long next time.

Cupcake Attempt #2

I've been sick since Monday which is why we haven't tried cupcakes in a few days. I felt ok for a brief enough time to do a batch tonight. I found a chocolate cupcake recipe online and decided to use it. Joe wanted to make a peanut better cup cupcake. I made the cupcakes and again Joe made the frosting and the ganache. The batter looked amazing and I was excited about it working out this time after our fail last time. The cupcakes rose perfectly in the oven and looked fantastic. Joe made a peanut butter frosting and I added some food coloring to give it a little bit of a browner color. Joe then made a chocolate ganache which we planned to drizzle on top. We pulled the cupcakes out after they cooled and it was weird because the bottom of the cupcakes seemed to have domed upward. We ended up dipping the cupcakes in ganache which looked fantastic! Then I frosted them but realized I really need a bigger gauge of piping tips, as these are just too small. I took a picture before drizzling so you could see the swirl first. The drizzling wasn't working out so hot since we don't have the right utensil to do it so I just added a dollop of ganache on each one. We bit into it and something was off about the cake. Turns out the recipe for the cupcakes was vegan LMAO! whoops. I thought it was weird there was no milk or eggs in the recipe but really didn't put 2 and 2 together. This makes sense as to why the cupcakes domed at the bottom and gave them a strange 'cake-brownie' texture. The cupcakes weren't as pretty as the last batch due to the wrong piping and ganache tools.

Final Verdict: Cupcake had a weird texture and rose in a strange manner due to vegan recipe. Icing was perfect but a little too peanut-buttery...Will cut back the pb next time. Ganache was superb!

Cupcake Attempt #1

This evening Joe and I decided to get our hands dirty and try making our first batch of cupcakes by hand. We decided to go simple and do a chocolate cupcake with a red vanilla buttercream frosting. We decided that I would make the cupcakes and Joe would do the frosting. We started off well, when I realized my measuring spoons seem to be missing, so I had to "eyeball" the amount of vanilla and baking powder going into my mix. This seemed to be mistake numero uno. You'd think there wouldn't be much that could go wrong while doing the prep for cupcakes...WRONG. While mixing the wet ingredients I smell something burning. Just my luck, the motor in my mixer burns out, insert mistake numero dos. So, I had to then mix everything by hand. I made mistake numero tres when I didn't google how to mix cupcake batter by hand. I mixed the CRAP out of that batter. Turns out, that's a big fat no-no. We put the cupcakes in the oven, and 20 mins later pulled out cupcakes that looked more like tarts lol. They were literally about an inch thick. Yikes. Joe's frosting turns out BEAUTIFUL...in looks, and looks alone. While it didn't taste bad, per se, it was like eating pure sugar. It was so sweet it had the potential to put a cavity on every tooth in your mouth. Anyhow we trucked on, deciding, "hey, it might taste good". NOT. We let them cool, and then I frosted them. The frosting had this natural crystalline gloss look that was so pretty, although I doubt we will be able to recreate that.  Turns out I'm a natural at frosting cupcakes, who knew?

Final Verdict:
    Cupcake Attempt #1: Epic Fail. Frosting was too sweet, cupcakes were dry and didn't rise. They did however look beautiful.