Tie Dye Cupcakes Part Deux

After making the Tie Dyed Cupcakes last night, I needed to make the white chocolate frosting today. I chose to revisit the white chocolate frosting from the Caramel Cupcake disaster. I was really unhappy with that frosting and those cupcakes, but that is a different story. The original frosting was not smooth, I found it complicated to make, and it did not go through the pastry bag. But I did not want to give up on something that everyone who tried one said the frosting was wonderful. I really was not a huge fan of it, but what the hell, I tried it again.

Before venturing back, I did some research on different white chocolate buttercream frostings and the basic procedure of making frostings in general. I learned that the type of buttercream that the frosting falls under is a "french buttercream". The french buttercream is a richer flavored frosting. It uses a soft ball candy liquid instead of the traditional powdered sugar and egg yolks instead of just the whites traditionally found in simple buttercream frostings. Armed with more information and a better candy thermometer, I was ready to try again.

The end result was much smoother than the previous batch, and I didn't find it that hard to make. Maybe it was knowing the procedure already, but I felt this time was much better. However, the frosting still didn't pipe through the pastry bag, so I just spread it on the cupcakes by hand.

In the end, I was happy with the frosting, but very unhappy with the cupcakes themselves. They are way too dense. More like a frosted muffin then a light and fluffy cupcake. I added too much flour and made a rookie mistake. If I want to do this for a living, I cannot afford to make these mistakes. But I have learned my lesson and will not be making it again.

Here are some finished product pictures. I just wish they tasted as good as they look.

Tie Dye Cupcakes

Tonight I made the cake part of the white chocolate raspberry cupcakes that I have been thinking about for the entire week. I wanted to make a raspberry cake then top it with white chocolate frosting, but I wasn't sure how a full raspberry cupcake would taste. I decided to attempt to swirl the raspberry batter with a regular vanilla cake batter. The end result was like I imagined except the raspberry batter was much lighter in color than I thought it would be. I am calling them "Tie Dyed Cupcakes". Now all I have to do is frost them, but I think that will have to wait until the morning.

Here are some before pictures:

Wishing for more time

As I sit here waiting for Kevin to come home before I leave for class, I should be thinking about the soups that we will be preparing tonight and try to remember the readings for this week, but all I can think of are new dessert recipes. The newest idea was inspired by a co-worker Aaron who was raving about the white chocolate raspberry cheesecake. That is a favorite flavor combination for lots of people. I don't think it's a favorite of mine, but it's quite tasty nonetheless. Therefore, I was thinking about a redux of the classic WC & R pairing. There are so many possibilities for this going through my head. My first instinct was to, of course, make a raspberry cupcake with white chocolate buttercream frosting. I still can't get out of that cupcake rut. But, I think I have come up with an even better idea that still allows me to tweak the WC buttercream frosting recipe. But even as I write this my brain is still working on an even better idea. However, I don't know when I will be able to get to make it, which is why I am wishing for more time.

Cara Cara's and Cookies

Last Wednesday, I was fortunate to taste some of the best cookies I have ever had. The chef was a girl in my professional cooking class who is also trying to get into the baking and pastry program at JCCC. These cookies were huge and not just traditional chocolate chip cookies. I was a pig and grabbed 3 different varieties. The first one I had was a peanut butter cookie with chocolate chips and pretzels. AMAZING. The sweetness of the chocolate balanced beautifully with the saltiness of the peanuts and the crunch of the surprising pretzels. The other two I took home to share with my husband, Kevin. We split a white cookie with dark chocolate, white chocolate, and raspberry chips that was good, but not as good as the peanut butter. We saved the best for last. It was what she called her "earthy" cookie. It was a oatmeal chocolate chip cookie with walnuts and dried cranberries.



Because imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I am trying to emulate these cookies without losing, as they say in Project Runway, my design aesthetic. These cookies have two of my favorite combinations: oatmeal and chocolate chips, and peanut butter and chocolate. I also decided to add craisins for half of the batch. YUM.



While I was making the cookie dough batter, Kevin decided to be a foodie too and wanted to figure out the difference between a Cara Cara orange and a Navel orange. He asked me about it, but I had no clue. When he cut into the two of them, the Cara Cara had a much darker almost reddish color, while the Navel was the traditional orange. The flavor of the Cara Cara was much richer and more complex. After eating it, the navel orange was almost bland. It got my creative juices flowing for creating something using the flavorful Cara Cara's.

Cupcake Rut

Recently, I have found myself in a cupcake rut. Many of my new ideas and recipes have come to me in the baby cake form. I love cupcakes. I love the versitility and portablity of them, but I feel that they are our current bakery fad. A few years ago, it was cookie shops and now cupcake shops are popping up all over the place. I don't want to fall into that fad and never be able to get out. But nonetheless, my cupcakes are what people want.

Last week while trying to fall asleep I came up with an idea for Caramel Cupcakes with White Chocolate Buttercream Frosting. The idea was sound, but the recipe needs some tweeking. Like my husband, the artist, I am finding that I am getting very picky about my work, and was really not happy with those cupcakes.

My next babycake adventure will be Salted Caramel Cupcakes. I have been kicking that idea around for a while, but haven't decided on the exact recipe as of yet.

Before I do that, though, I have to get started on the Red Velvet cupcakes for a friends wedding. The wedding is in April, but with my work schedule and other Cloud 9 Pastries clients, I want to get started on those as soon as possible. Don't worry, they freeze really well and I won't frost all 250 of them until the day before the wedding.

Welcome

Welcome to the Cloud 9 Pastries blog. I wanted to create this to talk about different baking adventures; the good and the not so good. All part of the journey of starting a home business.

I plan to use this as a sounding board for different recipes and photos of my work. I would love to hear comments and feed back.