A Birthday Wish

My mom's birthday was this past weekend. She made a special request for a dessert that she had loved as a child. She described a chocolate cake with a cream filling, it had a marshmallow type frosting, and then the whole thing was covered in a chocolate shell. I attempted to recreate this childhood dessert in the form of a cupcake. I first researched different types of filling and settled on trying a Chantilly cream. Chantilly cream sounds like it might be a difficult thing to make, after all it is French, but it was actually really easy. Turns out that is really just whipped cream, with sugar and vanilla, it was definitely good. I wanted to use a good frosting, not just marshmallow cream for the frosting. After a little bit of looking, I remembered that my Hello, Cupcake book had a 7 minute frosting, that has a marshmallow type texture/flavor. So we were set. I made the chocolate cupcakes, filled them with Chantilly cream, and then made the 7 minute frosting, which actually was more like a 10 minute frosting; and then the fun began.

I had decided to use some enrobbing chocolate to cover the cupcakes, but the enrobbing chocolate was old, and let's just say that once we got it melted, I'm not sure it ever was chocolate. So then we decided to try some magic shell that people put on ice cream. It kind of worked, it worked well for covering the frosting, but it became apparent that it wasn't going to cover all of the cupcakes. So then we melted some chocolate almond bark and dipped the base of the cupcakes in that. It was a very long messy process, and I will admit that I did have the thought "is all this work, worth it?"
I got the answer to my question, with the first bite, and yes, it was totally worth all the work and mess for this very tasty cupcake. I'm not sure if they were an accurate representation of my mom's favorite childhood dessert, but I think everyone enjoyed it. I know I did, in fact, I wish I had one right now...maybe when I fall asleep, I will get to eat one in my dreams.

Last tastes of summer

I have a hard time welcoming the cool days of fall and saying good-bye to the hot days of summer. So in the memory of summer, I made some key lime cupcakes. It brought me great satisfaction grating the limes, and squeezing them for every last drop of lime juice. I had intended to put lime curd in the centers, and decided to cheat and buy pre-made lime curd. Turns out, pre-made lime curd is NASTY. Because I want this to be an appetizing blog, I won't go into how disgusting it was. Needless to say, I didn't put any lime curd into the centers of the lime cupcakes. While the cupcakes were baking, I made swiss meringue buttercream frosting. That stuff is amazing, it is very light, not overly sweet, and can be eaten by the spoonfuls (yes, I ate the frosting in spoonfuls). After the cupcakes cooled, I frosted them, added lime peel, and topped the cupcakes off with a graham cracker. Such a cruel world, that I won't be able to enjoy the hot summers and delicious summer foods for quite some time.