Cupcake Earrings

Here are some little cupcake earring proto-types I made up a couple of months ago..

I envisage a whole cupcakery of earrings-

Sprinkles, cherries, chocolate buttercream etc..

Of course pancake meow does her own lovely version of these, hers even smell!

I prefer the look of polymer clay though.

All cupcakes, all the time

I was so chuffed to see a photo of my key lime pie cupcakes on the delightful All Cupcakes, All the time blog..

The girls really know their stuff:

I visit the blog pretty much every day, and oggle longingly at the sumptious looking cupcakes!

Spread the cupcake love, I say!

I'm back into the test kitchen this afternoon, to make use of some sad looking bananas-

Oh the possibilities!

Key Lime Taste Test

Taste testers M & C utterly enjoyed the key limes.

Apparently C is a total sucker for anything lime, as well as all things coconut- so, you can imagine his delight!

Lil A hasn't yet experienced sweet glee- so, like most things sweet, declined, even a taste.

So complete was M & C's enjoyment of the cupcakes-

They drove me all the way back (30 minutes drive) to my house!

Key lime pie cupcakes

Woweeee

I decided to go a little crazy (and make use of the left over limes we bought for our coronas) and experiment..

The key lime pie cupcake was born.

I've seen various people around the net mention these, but I decided to wing the recipe myself.

I love lime, but the adage- 'Too much of a good thing' definately applies with lime..

SO-

-Old faithful Magnolia vanilla cupcake base

-A batch of lime curd

-A batch of vanilla buttercream tinted a pretty, shade of pale lime

-Tonnes of tiny meringue rosettes, set under the broiler.

Last night, in fits of exctasy, I moaned- 'This is the best cupcake I've ever eaten!'..

The lime curd popped out in a joyful, gooey explosion.

The vanilla was the perfect base choice, as it's 'plain-ness' balanced out the flavour-full curd, and it's tart tang as well.

For me- the buttercream was really important in the taste and texture of the cupcake though..

Admittedly, the cakes would even be tasty without the meringue topping- but it does look pretty, and fulfil the key lime pie criteria..

Transferring the rosettes from baking paper to cupcake top, was VERY difficult though..

As desired, the meringue was still goeey in side, the force of removing the rosettes, often made the edges crumble in- ruining the pretty rosette structure..

Perhaps with a culinary blow torch, if the meringue compleletey covered the buttercream- I could alievate these problems..

Overall- delicious!

Cupcake tester J is not a lime person, still she rather enjoyed the experience..

Coconut Cupcakes

Baked these coconut cupcakes from Martha's website.
'Her' description lead me to believe they would be moist and lovely- I found them quite dry, but tasty, yes.

Flavour would be improved by using a titch less almond essence, as it is very strong and often overpowering.
Also, perhaps for a more coconutty taste, a small dash of coconut essence would help.
I only put about 1/2 the suggested coconut in- for texture, I liked it this way, but they weren't very coconutty.

I made my usual vanilla buttercream frosting, and then also a batch with no vanilla, but a heavy powdering of cocoa, and a drop of choc-rasberry essence.

Pistachio Choc-Chip Cupcakes with Vanilla Rose Buttercream Frosting

K was pestering me to get more creative with cupcake innovation.

I don't think he understood what he was unleashing!

I just used the Magnolia Vanilla on Vanilla recipe.
I put in 1 cup of ground pistachios, reducing the combined flours by 1 cup.

The frosting simply had a small dash of rose water added to the traditional recipe, tinted pink.

At first bite, I thought- ack, what was I thinking!?
Then, as I chewed on, they grew on me considerabley.
Still, not my favourite.

I don't like the chocolate, but without it, as 52 Cupcakes said- the cake would lack flavour and real body.
Also as K said, the cake was quite dry.

I like the frosting- interesting twist, but as rose water usually does- it leaves one with a dry mouth= bad!..

Mini Magnolias

Again, for M's party, I baked a batch of magnolia vanilla on vanilla, this time using a mini cupcake pan.

It was the last of the butter- so I didn't use quite as much for both the cake or frosting.
Hence they were both a little drier- and not as good.
BUT-
What an old faithful vanilla on vanilla is.
Everyone was well impressed and enjoyed them.
(Except K, the lack of butter, made them apparently taste like a different cupcake altogether for him)