The Cupcake Thread!

[Mara]

here''s some chai spice for you freke... !

the recipe my pal was using, trying to remember but i believe it was a mint buttercream... and she added too much milk as the liquid.. she doesn''t like adding more sugar because she doesn''t like the buttercreams so sweet. i don''t either but a lot of people do. so she just spatula''d instead of piping. anyway was just curious.

i forget who asked for the coconut recipe but basically, take a white cake recipe you like, and use light coconut milk in place of the regular milk for the recipe. you can add a bit of coconut extract if you want more flavor but this is basically what i did and it works great, the cakes are light and have a hint of coconut and work great with a berry frosting or a chocolate frosting with coconut on top or whatever.

 

[Mara]

and here''s the famed banana caramel... omg i want to make these right now *eyes bananas on counter*

 

[FrekeChild]

Yum. Looking good Mara. So her ingredients were butter, powdered sugar and milk?

(I made banana caramel ice cream with Heath bar in it last night. It's currently in the freezing process...)

ETA: OMG!!!!I typed the flavor of the ice cream before I saw your last post!!!Hahahahaha!!!!!

 

[Mara]

HA that hilarious, that ice cream sounds divine..!!!

yep she used the basic or as i call it ''fake'' buttercream recipe.

random question but if you ate a cupcake and the frosting was very creamy and light and tasted strongly like butter, would you say it''s possible they used the fakey buttercream recipe and just used a really inordinately high amount of butter? OR is that more like SMBC (which i am not a huge fan of for cupcakes).

i have made a lot of buttercreams but mine never tasted like that (yuck!)... fyi people, buttercream should not taste like CREAMY BUTTER!

 

[FrekeChild]

Hmmmm...without tasting it, I can't say for sure, but I'm thinking along the lines of just butter with some sugar added to it. Or someone could have made a SMBC and added too much butter. I was going to say something about margarine, but I don't think many people use it anymore. SMBC should be light, fluffy and only sweet enough to make you sure you're eating dessert--it shouldn't be buttery or taste heavy at all. It could also be badly made fakey buttercream. Where did you have it? Do you have any pics?

For your friend's buttercream, I'd say that if you add too much milk (or any liquid) the best solution is to mix up some butter and sugar, and add some of that until it's more evened out and a better texture. She could end up with a lot of extra buttercream, but luckily it freezes well.

I hope the ice cream turns out ok. I haven't made any in...2 years now, so it was a big fat experiment.

 

[Tacori E-ring]

Quick question....I am making cupcakes for Tessa''s 1st b-day. Would it be better to decorate/frost them the night before or the day of (the party is at 1:00)? Can I make the cupcakes the night before? How do I store them?

 

[Mara]

Tacori you can make the cupcakes the night before and just seal them up in something like plastic wrap or tupperware to store them. I would frost the morning of .... unless you are using a buttercream that does not need refrigeration (aka not a cream cheese)... but I typically bake night before, frost the morning of. Good luck!

 

[Tacori E-ring]

Thanks Mara! I am going to use butter cream. I rather do it the night before b/c the designs are more complicated (than just strait frosting). I am doing halloween cupcakes since her b-day is so close. Plus they hopefully will be cute. Hope you are doing well.

 

[MishB]

I always make cupcakes at least the night before, mine last very well for 2-3 days. I''ve never been able to keep them longer than that, they just get eaten! The recipe I use is quite dense and moist, they stay fresh for ages. I use all-butter icing too, that seems fine for the same length of time too. I don''t put them in the refrigerator either, just cover with wrap and put in a cool dark cupboard.

 

[Tacori E-ring]

Thanks Mish! I am sure there will be lots to do on the day of so I rather do them the night before. Do you tent to foil so the frosting doesn''t get messed up?

 

[fleur-de-lis]

Wow, wow, wow. This thread is AMAZING!

Mara, it''s truly inspirational to see the progression of your cupcake passion as the months tick by, not to mention how skilled and artistic your delivery is these days. Your frosting-- the texture, the sheen, the piping!-- is inspiring. And then to see the photography skills which you had been using to capture the essence of an ideal-cut RB to cupcakes... wow. To me, it appears as if you have a COUPLE of back-up careers if your 9-to-5 doesn''t work out! Might I ask what tip you use when icing your cupcakes?


Freke, you are such an asset to this community in so many ways. I may love to cook and bake, and may have acquired a pretty broad knowledge of cooking techniques over the years, but your posts are an education. I truly appreciate the time you''ve taken to explain the "why" of certain techniques working, as well as your personal experiences trying them out. Few people are natural teachers; I think you''re one of them, and I just wanted to thank you.



Anyhow, as I found myself bringing out both my childhood Wilton Decorating Set and some long-disused professional grade stuff from before I went to grad school after reading through this thread, I just wanted to introduce myself and join in the fun. I can''t wait to work through all the recipes here! Mrs Salvo, I dove in last night with your Red Velvet recipe from about 30 pages back; there are ingredients in that bad boy that I don''t think I''ve ever seen in a cake before and I just HAD to try it out first, though I used my personal recipe fro cream cheese frosting. The Q is, are you actually able to pull the trigger and put in that much red dye?!?! If so, you are a bolder woman than I am!!!

Since we all know these threads are better with photos... here''s how I spent my time while watching the debate on the little TV in the kitchen:

 

[fleur-de-lis]

Freke, what is your experience with Royal Icing? As part of my playing last night, I whipped up a tiny batch to pipe into edible decorations, but it was SO thick that I had to both thin it a bit and abandon my smallest round tip. (Looking at the silver lining, surprisingly nothing broke when transferring off the waxed paper.) Do you prefer to use meringue powder or egg whites? For how long do you beat yours, since I think you mentioned earlier in this thread that you hand-beat rather than using a stand mixer, and which tool do you use when the end result is a thick paste like Royal Icing is?



Since we all love photos, here''s one of some of my Royal Icing goofiness. I felt like I had two left hands with the first few embarrassments! But hey, practice is practice. The following includes some script, tiny air hearts and arrows, a peony (''coz I was too lazy to build up a proper rose, lol), and in an homage to my screenname in this PS cupcake thread, a fleur-de-lis!

Goofy, I know, but it was so much fun to pick up a piping bag after a decade of dormancy...

 

[fleur-de-lis]

MishB, your pink cupcake in front of the Noritake set is so beautiful! Can you tell me a bit about the flower made from a mold? Is it more like a candy mold, or a lily head in which you piped the petals? If like a candy mold, do you squirt in some pink and some white, or did you make a white flower on which you then painted some pink?

 

[cdt1101]

Fleur - Do you mind posting your cream cheese frosting recipe? Your frosting looks incredible!! i want to eat my computer screen

 

[lili]

Date: 10/16/2008 4:04:49 PM
Author: cdt1101
Fleur - Do you mind posting your cream cheese frosting recipe? Your frosting looks incredible!! i want to eat my computer screen

I know, they look like softserve-- yum

 

[MishB]

I either put them in a deep baking dish and just stretch plastic wrap over it, or put them in the trays of my Cupcake Courier and stretch the wrap over the tiers, the pillars on the sides of the tiers keep the wrap off the cakes.

 

[MishB]

Date: 10/16/2008 3:16:55 PM
Author: fleur-de-lis
MishB, your pink cupcake in front of the Noritake set is so beautiful! Can you tell me a bit about the flower made from a mold? Is it more like a candy mold, or a lily head in which you piped the petals? If like a candy mold, do you squirt in some pink and some white, or did you make a white flower on which you then painted some pink?

fleur - it''s a 3 piece mold and veiner, you just put a blob of fondant icing in the first piece which forms a flat 5 petalled flower, the second 2 pieces form the shape of the flower and the veins. That flower is made with white icing and painted with food colour and a small brush.

 

[FrekeChild]

Date: 10/16/2008 3:02:35 PM
Author: fleur-de-lis
Freke, what is your experience with Royal Icing? As part of my playing last night, I whipped up a tiny batch to pipe into edible decorations, but it was SO thick that I had to both thin it a bit and abandon my smallest round tip. (Looking at the silver lining, surprisingly nothing broke when transferring off the waxed paper.) Do you prefer to use meringue powder or egg whites? For how long do you beat yours, since I think you mentioned earlier in this thread that you hand-beat rather than using a stand mixer, and which tool do you use when the end result is a thick paste like Royal Icing is?

Awwww f-d-l I think that's one of the nicest things someone has ever said to me! You made me all teary eyed and stuff...Thank you for all of the lovely compliments!

Royal Icing! I hate the stuff! Goodness me, it drives me bananas. However, it's totally necessary in the baking world, and I love being able to make stuff with it-just getting the consistency right is a PITA, and then keeping it from drying (in the bowl) is an even bigger PITA. I remember one of my first experiences with it--my partner and I (this was in school) made about a gallon of the stuff, and even though we had a damp towel over the top of it, it kept drying out! We couldn't put a wet towel over it either because then it would make the icing too wet. And then when it gets too dry, little chunks form and get stuck in your piping tips. Oh it was a mess.

I'll attach a photo of my last royal icing experience...and explain what I did with it after I answer your questions.

I always use egg whites. Unfortunately you don't need a lot of egg whites to make a small batch, so even if you just one one egg white, you end up throwing enough sugar into it that it makes a huge batch of icing. And, I'm always sketchy about using uncooked eggs, so I "kind of" cook them over a double boiler before I use them.

For beating, I basically just go until my arm feels like it's going to fall off, and then I enlist in some help.

Seriously, that's mostly a consistency thing as well. I normally whip the egg whites as much as I possibly can, and then start beating in the powdered sugar, and then I just go until I get the consistency where I want it. This also means that I add sugar and water when I need to, but I try to use them as little as possible.

Note: post on beating stuff by hand in the post on the next page.

The whisk I use for the initial whipping of egg whites and whatnot would be my middle one (next page), because it has less wires for the icing to get caught in, and therefore less drag. Once the icing gets too thick to try to get that one through it in any kind of speed, I'll switch to my favorite utensil--my flat rubber industrial grade spatula.

My best hint for royal icing is that when you're making it, make it fast. Speed is key with the stuff. Once it's made, use a decently damp towel (not dripping, but not almost dry either) to cover it up. If you have to get the phone, put another damp towel over your piping bag, because even a couple of seconds makes a difference. The other thing I have to say about it is that it's best to experiment with it until you find a consistency of icing that works best for you AND the tip you're working with. Also, to allow the decoration to dry for at least 24 hours before trying to move it.

Oh! Another thing--if you use egg whites, and whip it up less, the royal icing has a slight sheen to it once it's dry. But it will take a lot longer to dry.

And you've just reminded me that I need a silpat! Thanks!

Ok. The cake below has been posted on here before, but I didn't bother trying to look for it, because I have no idea where I posted it (could have even been in this thread!). The bride asked me for chocolate cake, mocha Italian buttercream as a filling with a touch of Kahlua, and she wanted silver snowflakes on it in an artsy way. Her colors were dark purple, silver and off white (don't get me started on the stark white THING that she put on top).

I started with the snowflakes about a week in advance of the wedding date. I began with royal icing, but I piped them really thin, and by the time they were ready to be moved...they decided they would rather fall apart. I had these beautiful elegant ornate snowflakes that were mostly piped about 2-3mm wide, and they couldn't stand the pressure. One of the big ones survived, which you can see is the one thats kind of sticking out of the top of the bottom layer to the right side. The middles of a couple of the other ones also survived, and those are all over, but one is on the top left surface of the middle cake, also standing.

Anyway, at that point, I had only a few days left to work on this before I lost all drying time. So I went to meringues. I made a batch of Italian Meringue (which when you think about it, it essentially the same ingredients as royal icing, just prepared a different way, with different proportions of each ingredient) and piped out the chunkier snowflakes--top tier in the middle, three to the right-ish side of the bottom tier, the pokey looking on on the top tier on the left that you can only see the profile of. The problem with meringue is that when it touches any liquid, it starts to dissolve. Well these were being painted with vodka mixed with silver dust. So the texture on the top of the meringue ones is a bit funky. Whatever, they didn't fall apart (not like the royal ones anyway).

So the last type of snowflake on the cake are essentially sugar cubes. This is the coolest technique I have ever used (ok, well maybe not ever, but...pretty dang cool). It basically consists of spraying water onto granulated sugar, until it becomes the consistency of wet sand, and them pressing it firmly into a form (I had cookie cutters that are shaped like snowflakes), and it has to be solid enough to lift the form away, and leave the sugar still in one piece. Like building a sand castle. It dries over night, and looks like a sugar cube, which is really what it is (or...I'd like to think it looks like freshly fallen snow-kind of glittery on top). So I made a bunch of those, and ended up placing them at the base of each pillar, and along the sides. You can't really see it that well in this pic, but there is a big one, about 7 inches across, in the middle of the bottom tier, under the middle tier.

So alls well that ends well. She loved the cake-said it was better looking than the one she picked out and was the inspiration (I dunno about that), and that it tasted great. So, wohoo! But I still hate royal icing. I can't tell you how much stress I was under with that mess! I only like using it when its piped directly onto a dessert, like petit fours.

Ok, it's getting late...

 

[FrekeChild]

One thing I want to mention, because I know I''m the crazy lady who beats most things by hand, is that I make my tools work for me. Depending on the job, I will use one of three whisks--I''ll attach a photo of what I''m talking about. The one with a ton of wires would be what I use when I make a creme anglaise, because you need as much agitation as you can get to not cook chunks of eggs on cream instead of a smooth creamy sauce. And a creme anglaise is what I used as a base for my ice cream the other night. Then when I was freezing the ice cream, I did it by hand using the left whisk again, until the ice cream began to freeze-when I switched to the middle whisk, that wouldn''t freeze solid with ice cream stuck in the wires. The flat one is supposed to be used for sauces, and it normally gets used to make Kraft Mac and Cheese, because there is so little liquid in the pan, a big fat whisk doesn''t really do anything, and the flat one can get into the corners of the pan.

The key though is to know what you need to do to the products and which tool to use them for. For whipped cream, whipping air into egg whites, I use the left one, because it has so many wires. If I were to use the middle one, it would take twice as long to get the required result. So using the big one for whipping air into something makes my life easier, and my arm a LOT less sore. And for making cookies, or butter based cake--really, butter based anything that has to be creamed, I''ll use my flat industrial grade spatula, and some arm power. But because butter doesn''t deflate instantly like egg whites or warm up and turn into butter like whipped cream, I can take breaks--which really saves my arms.

And I should mention here that my mom tried to steal my left whisk, but I managed to get it back. You guys should see what she does to utensils! It should be illegal!

Here are my whisks!

 

[Mara]

I love my silpats Freke...!! they are indispensible. I tried to get a knockoff once cuz it was cheaper and it was nasty..did not work well for me. i use them under all my cupcake tins.

FDL thanks for your super sweet comments! It IS fun to see progression isn''t it?? I can def see it in my own stuff and I have seen it in some of the blogs and stuff I follow too. Practice really does make perfect...or closer to it anyway. And funny about the photog...yes it''s amazing how adaptable those macro skills are right?!

I mostly use the 1M tip for swirls as well as the inside out techniques, but I also have these gigantic plastic star tips I got online from Australia... they are bigger than anything we have here in the US. I was intrigued by the fact that they use almost all plastic tips rather than metal and I wanted to try them...I love them for slightly softer frostings where they seem to create somehow softer looking swirls than with a metal if that makes sense. I don''t use them for TOO stiff frosting as I don''t want to bend the tines too much. I have been really happy with them though. I also sometimes use this big many tined tip that I don''t know the # off offhand, but I have only seen it in one or two stores. Anytime I go out and see a huge tip, I tend to buy it, even if I already have it. I have like 5 1M''s because I use that one so much.

and LOL re: the red velvet and the red dye, I have my own fave recipe and I cannot use half as much of the dye that most recipes have called for, I have cut it significantly and as a result mine are more brownish red than bright red but that is okay with me and people don''t seem to mind. I have an issue with dying my food colors hehee but it''s amazing how much people love RV! It is def not my favorite.

however speaking of RV, had to post this super fun picture, I made these for one of my fave clients yesterday as part of a larger order. She wanted RV dipped in choco ganache (something I offer as I think choc makes RV much better tasting) and then she wanted different themed frostings for a birthday girl who loved Tiff blue and also neutrals. So I did these RV''s with spiky pale pink (meant to do brown, mental note, chocolate brown food coloring turns things pale pink if you only use one drop, use ''true brown'' if you want beige!) frosting and pale lavendar edible frosted pearls. they LOVED how they came out and the picture is almost 3D...it is one of my favorites!

 

[neatfreak]

Those are awesome Mara! I think they work perfectly for a girl who loves Tiffany''s. Reminds me of a cupcake Audrey would love for some reason. The pearls maybe!

 

[Mara]

ha ha SDL..actually one of my good friends who also is a fabulous baker wants to do a cupcake cookbook together... she has some connections in the publishing world so who knows! I am game if she is willing to go for it...why not?!?! We are both so busy though...honestly it may never happen! Fun to think about though.

neatfreak...yeah they were kinda fun and elegant at the same time. I also did tiffany blue frosting swirls for her with white fondant hearts on top for the chocolate ones she got.

 

[neatfreak]

Date: 10/19/2008 11:56:07 PM

Those sound beautiful too! Pics???

 

[Tacori E-ring]

The great debate...I know I asked before but was hoping to get some more opinions...are dark pans better than the lighter gray? My friend said get dark but then she said the dark pan burnt her cupcakes. I am so confused!

 

[FrekeChild]

Silver or light colored cupcakes take more time to bake than the dark pans. It works just like black or white cars--the black absorbs more heat and the white car reflects the heat. It translates into only a few minutes of baking time though. So if cupcakes in light pans take 18 minutes, a dark pan will take 14-15 minutes. Or so. It''s best to start sticking toothpicks in around 12 minutes though.

 

[Tacori E-ring]

Date: 10/21/2008 8:38:17 PM
Author: FrekeChild
Silver or light colored cupcakes take more time to bake than the dark pans. It works just like black or white cars--the black absorbs more heat and the white car reflects the heat. It translates into only a few minutes of baking time though. So if cupcakes in light pans take 18 minutes, a dark pan will take 14-15 minutes. Or so. It''s best to start sticking toothpicks in around 12 minutes though.

Makes sense Freke. So I should go and return my dark pans then right?

 

[ilovethiswebsite]

If there was a way for me to eat this thread... I would.

 

[FrekeChild]

No real need to Tacori unless you want to. You just have to watch baking times more closely. For cake pans and items bigger than cupcakes, I''d start looking at what you''re baking around ten minutes early.

 

[Miscka]

Date: 10/21/2008 9:35:19 PM
Author: ilovethiswebsite
If there was a way for me to eat this thread... I would.

LOL!! Ditto!

 

[dragonfly411]

Thritto!