Birthday Cupcakes
Labels: 100% sugar, she bakes
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
A bit of backtracking here.
In mid July, I offered to cater for my parents-in-law's joint birthday celebration. With Hubs as my head waiter and me behind the stove, we ran a three course full service dinner for fourteen guests. Everyone enjoyed it and said I should consider setting up shop. I smiled and waved off the notion graciously. After, these were the in-laws' nearest and dearest friends. What else would they say? I know I'm good but not that good. So I took their well-meaning, if not over zealous compliments with a kilo of salt. I know where I stand.
A month prior to the party, I was going over the menu with mother-in-law. After finalising the dinner, we broached the subject of birthday cakes. I told her cupcakes were rather fashionable at the moment and it has all but taken over the regular cake, would she love to have some this year? Something a little different...
Yes, she would.
I came up with two types of cupcakes and with the mature guests in mind, delibrately kept the frosting simple and elegant. I did try to inject a bit of the summer spirit too, with the ingredients and flower cum butterfly theme.
For the flower cupcakes, I placed a couple of fresh raspberries in the paper cups before pouring the batter inside. For the topping, I used a white chocolate frosting. When you take a bite, the rich, cloying chocolate is off set by the tart raspberries and mixed together with the mild vanilla flavoured cake. Quite the oral treat. With cut stawberries for flowers and mint for leaves, they were easy on the eyes too.
The butterfly cupcakes were more straightforward. I baked my favourite chocolate cupcake recipe, sliced off the top for wings, arranged them using the same frosting and sent it flying with a good dousing of icing sugar.
Here is the recipe for the frosting. It is by Jane Homby and is taken from the June 2007 issue of GoodFood.
White Chocolate Frosting
You need:
100g white chocolate
140g unsalted butter
140g icing sugar
You do:
The Dutchess of Cookalot whipped this up at 4:34 am
For the butterflies, you just slice of the top, slide it into two and invert it on the icing to create butterfly wings??
Btw, the white chocolate frosting - is it grainy in texture because of the use of icing sugar?
: August 23, 2007 6:15 pmYes, that's exactly what I did to create butterfly wings.
The frosting is creamy smooth in texture as icing sugar is very fine, powdery even.
Once again you've outdone yourself.
And what did you cook?
