Frosting! Finally!

Oh my goodness, it sure took me a long time to get here. After stage managing all day, I really don't want to look at a computer or type anything else. But today, I'm finally alone in my apartment for a few minutes (ah, sweet bliss. I mean, I love Zack. But I'm around 20 people all day. I need some break time). So I figured I'd blog before I lost my nerve.

Frosting! Wedding frosting. For Bryn and Paul. Remember them?

Ok, so we've got cupcakes all ready to go. Now it's frosting time. First, you melt 12 oz of chocolate chips over a double boiler (or a metal bowl inside a pan of boiling water - or in the microwave. I won't tell). Set that aside.


Melt another 12 oz of chocolate chips in two cups of cream over low heat, stirring constantly. This will be your frosting.



You're supposed to cook it for 25-35 minutes, which made mine look a little weird. Cooking it for so long made it split funny. See?


That Martha, she sure is persnickety. She makes you do all kinds of annoying things.

Okay, combine one cup of the frosting you just made with the melted chocolate. Refrigerate until hardened.

Put the rest of the frosting over an ice water bath (that means you put the bowl of frosting into a bigger bowl with ice water in it. Just in case you didn't know). Frosting is still split weird.


I thought it was ruined, but I mixed it up like Martha said to and finally, it looked like frosting again.


I kind of thought it looked like frosting before it ever went in the ice bath. Why I couldn't I have just let it cool and spread it then?

Whatever. I frosted the cupcakes.


Then I used a spoon to make little chocolate curls from the hardened chocolate/frosting mixture. It didn't go as well as I had hoped. They looked kinda weird. I sifted a little bit of cocoa powder on them and called it a day.


But they tasted good! Emma liked them (Emma is Bryn's cousin).


I hope it was worth the wait! Enjoy.

Cakes helps people come together

Last weekend, Bryn, one of my oldest friends in the whole world got married. It was a small wedding where everyone contributed something, her mom and aunt made the food, her new mother-in-law bought some flowers, her uncle and cousin provided live music and I volunteered to make a cake!

My dreams of making a large multi-tiered wedding cake were dashed when I realized that the wedding was in New Jersey and that I was going to have to take the subway and a car to get there. My plan B? To make cupcakes and put them in the shape of a wedding cake. Or maybe just eat them.

Bryn asked for "chocolate" so after I perused my cookbooks, I decided on Martha Stewart's chocolate cupcakes with chocolate icing and chocolate curls. I am so good at taking direction.

First, I sifted together 2 cups cake flour (all I could find was whole wheat again. But whatever. No one noticed), 1 cup cocoa powder, 1 tsp baking powder and 1/2 tsp salt.


Usually, when recipes say sift, I just dump it all in a bowl. But Martha is known for her finicky tendencies, so I decided to humor her. This is a wedding cake after all. Here's my sifted mixture.


Martha recommends I use an electric stand mixer for the next step. But I don't have one of those, so I used a hand mixer instead. It worked just fine. I beat together 3 sticks of butter and 2 cups of sugar until it was "light and fluffy." Then I added 5 eggs (one at a time) and 2 tsp vanilla and beat it some more.


Then I added 1 cup of the flour mixture and mixed. Then 1/2 cup of buttermilk and mixed. Then flour. Then buttermilk. Then flour. And then I had cake batter!


I poured it into cupcake liners and baked for about 25 minutes at 350 degrees (or at least that's what I was supposed to do. My oven doesn't get hotter than 325 degrees anymore, so I had to bake them for a lot longer).


The frosting was super complicated, so I'll get to that tomorrow. But don't touch that dial, I'll be right back.

Aaargh

I have massive amounts of work to do! This so rarely happens to me, but I am being buried by electronic paperwork. All I really want to do is blog about cupcakes, but that will have to wait until tomorrow (or even Friday). But please don't forget about me! Keep checking back and I'll show you all about these:


Yeah, they look good, right? Keep reading.