More About Cupcakes

I guess I don't really enjoy baking things like cupcakes. Yesterday I tried out a recipe for peanut butter and chocolate cupcakes. It started with a cake mix where you add some peanut butter and then you put a mini peanut butter cup candy in the center of the cupcake. That part wasn't so bad and they came out okay but a little dry. Then for the frosting you bring some whipping cream to a boil and pour it over semisweet chocolate that you've chopped up and then stir it around so that the chocolate melts and then add some peanut butter. And then you have to wait for all that to cool off and firm up and that seemed to be taking forever so we put it in the fridge and then of course forgot that it was in there. By the time I remembered it was so firm that there was no way to spread it so it had to sit out for about an hour to warm up. Then after you frost the cupcakes you chop up some peanut butter cups and sprinkle them on top.

They look kind of cute but really don't taste all that good.

I'm thinking bakery cupcakes after all for the barbecue. Way easier than this baking nonsense. We are going to try cupcakes from Smith's bakery, a downtown bakery that's been in business since 1938 or something like that. I've had donuts and cookies from them before and they are quite delicious so maybe their cupcakes will be, too.

Anyway. Aside from baking cupcakes. We are promised a week of summer weather after a weekend of rain and actual closing of the interstate over the Grapevine because of snow. Yes, snow in the mountains in the middle of April and then this weekend is supposed to get up to 90. Weird, but this week so far has been absolutely beautiful so I'm not complaining!

We watched the movie Cars last weekend. I don't know why I've never watched this movie before but when I saw that Cars 2 was out and it looked kind of cute I thought maybe I'd better watch the original Cars. It was WONDERFUL and so entertaining. I'm always amazed at all of the little details they include in Pixar movies, like the part at the racetrack where they show cars going to the restrooms and the men cars are zipping in and out while the lady cars are waiting in a very long line. And then the bugs. The flying bugs. So cute! I really enjoyed watching this movie and now can't wait to see Cars 2.

The bugs. One of my favorite things, at first you don't realize what they are because they are tiny and the scene moves quickly but then you realize that these are actual bugs.

How Do You Make a Bad Cupcake?

We are planning our first of what we hope will be an annual barbecue this spring, and thought that cupcakes would work well for dessert since we are celebrating some birthdays and cupcakes are easier to serve than big cakes since you can just grab one. No slicing and serving involved. I'm not all that much of a baker and can't even remember the last time I baked cupcakes, maybe for someone's birthday twenty years ago.

So, there is a new gourmet cupcake and coffee place down the road and I thought why not try their cupcakes and then maybe order some for the barbecue.

The prices were what I expected, like $2.85 a cupcake, because they are gourmet and all, and I was anticipating a really delicious cupcake for $2.85 but when I started to eat my $2.85 cupcake I was like why does a $2.85 cupcake really have no flavor? And is kind of dry? And even the frosting has no flavor? The cupcake was chocolate so why didn't it have a melt in your mouth chocolatey good taste? I was so disappointed in my expensive cupcake. Needless to say we are not ordering $2.85 cupcakes for the barbecue.

So, maybe I'll make some myself.

I've been researching cupcake recipes from the simple fix up a boxed mix to the rather complicated make it with cake flour and some weird expensive liqueur that you'll only use a tablespoon of and then have a big bottle of sitting in your cupboard until you throw it out a few years later when you find the dusty bottle hiding behind the other bottles of ingredients you've bought and only used a tablespoon of.

Yesterday I decided to try a recipe for s'mores cupcakes from Betty Crocker that I found online. The batter was easy, just a boxed mix with some chopped up hershey bars and graham cracker crumbs in it, so no problem there although it doesn't taste like any s'more I've ever eaten, just like cake with some graham cracker crumbs muddling things up and some chopped up candy bars in it. Then the frosting you make with butter, powdered sugar, and a jar of marshmallow creme. I've never bought or eaten marshmallow creme before but when I was trying to find it in Foods Co, I did find bags of giant sized marshmallows, almost as big as a hockey puck giant marshmallows. I guess they are for super sized s'mores or something.

So, I got the cupcake part of the cupcakes baked, no problem there, and then it was time to make the frosting. I'm trying to mix up the butter, sugar and marshmallow creme and marshmallow creme is really sticky and messy and all I have is a little hand held mixer so this is not really going all that well. And did I say it was very sticky? I had bought one of those cake decorating kits with the tips and the bags for putting on frosting because one of the reasons I've never made very many cupcakes is the frosting all those cupcakes part and I thought it might be easier to just pipe the frosting on. It was easier than spreading but getting that sticky stuff into the frosting bag was not. Marshmallow frosting is STICKY!

Finally, they were done and sampled and while they tasted okay, definitely did not taste like a s'more and the frosting was not something that I will ever want to make again, so on to other experiments. This week I will try chocolate peanut butter cupcakes with chopped up peanut butter cups on top of the frosting.

This is how the cupcakes are supposed to look. I did not buy a box of  graham cracker bears to put one or two on top of my cupcakes because I didn't want a box of graham cracker bears getting dusty in my cupboard.