Little Bowl

Photo Courtesy of Nazra

A friend of mine had her pre-wedding photoshoot with Nazra a couple of months back and she asked if I could make some cupcakes for the shoot. So, I thought..wow.. this would be the perfect chance for me to finally make a cupcake bouquet that I’ve oohhh-ed and aaaahhhh-ed for soooo long over the internet.

So what I did was I browsed for the tutorial on how to actually make them because although I could figure out how they’re made, I wasn’t 100% sure and I didn’t want to take the risk of wasting delicious cupcakes because of a disasterous looking cupcake bouquet.

And then I found this and used that as a guide to make my bouquet.

Because my cupcakes were just slightly bigger than a regular mini cupcake, I used toothpicks to secure the cupcakes to the foam in the vase.

Although the technique shown was to actually frost the cupcakes before placing them on the foam, I did the opposite. I secured the cupcakes on the foam first, and later piped the frosting on top.

You can do either way; with both having its own pros and cons.

Pipe-first-secure-later:

PROS:

• You’ll have a nicer finishing to the cupcakes because the frostings are piped first.

CONS:

• Your frosting cannot be soft (like using SMBC in a hot summer day) or they will plop right off the cupcake as soon as you try to assemble them. And not to forget, you’ll DEFINITELY get some smudges on the cupcakes (unless you’re UBER careful when assembling)
• You also need to make sure you know where you want to place your cupcakes, meaning you have to measure out the size of the cupcakes and make a lay out on the foam ahead of time.

Secure-first-pipe-later:

PROS:

• You can arrange the cupcakes freely and even if you make mistakes arranging them, you can easily re-arrange with no worries of smudged frostings.

CONS:

• Piping the frosting CAN BE A GREAT CHALLENGE with this technique. Especially if you’re also adding some fresh/dried flowers to the bouquet like I did. Frosting the cupcakes was the last step that I made and my-oh-my, it wasn’t as easy as I thought.

So, I guess it depends on which you think is most comfortable with you. Those with years of piping experience can go ahead and secure the cupcakes first, but those who worry that their cupcakes might just look like goop after being piped should probably opt for the first technique.

This was how it looked like from the top.

And this was the front view of the bouquet.

I thought I did a pretty good job and my friend was also very happy with the cupcakes. I think I might just have my sisters sell these back home as their new side business.

They do make great centerpieces for weddings, or even a gift for a special someone, don’t you think?

**NOTE: This was actually made months ago. Had the post drafted but never got the chance to actually post it :p

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It was a good day. I had Nazra over at my house and we managed to make 2 types of cupcakes that I’ve been meaning to make for quite some time.

Key Lime Cupcakes and Black Forest Cupcakes

The first cupcake that I made was the Key Lime Cupcakes. These babies had a nice graham crust at the bottom with a superb cream cheese frosting.

I used my usual vanilla cupcake recipe, with 1 tbsp of fresh key lime juice instead of milk. And my cream cheese frosting was cream cheese + swiss meringues buttercream.

Assembling was pretty easy – bake the graham crust in the oven for a 1-2minutes and then plop the vanilla + key lime batter into the liners and bake for about 18-20 minutes. Cool on rack and frost with Cream Cheese frosting mixed with lime peels & a hint of lime color.

garnishing the cooled cupcakes

So in the end, this is how my Key Lime Cupcakes look like.

I thought these were really good. The cream cheese buttercream was smooth and yummy and with the combination of the graham crust at the bottom, they tasted like cheese cake! Or should I say, key lime pie?
The vanilla/lime cupcake itself didn’t interfere much with the cream cheese/graham crust combo but its presence wasn’t ignored as well.

Next I moved on to the Black Forest Cupcakes.

Well, making these babies were a jiffy. I had made the cherry filling earlier, so all I had to do was bake the chocolate cupcakes and whip the cream.

You can use any chocolate cake recipe that you like. I, of course used my usual chocolate cupcake recipe and to assemble, I poked a hole in the cupcake, fill it with the cherry fillings and topped it up with fresh whipped cream. Garnished it with fresh cherries and grated chocolate, and Voila!

Black Forest Cupcakes!

Oh, by the way..some might want to brush some liquor syrup of some sort to the cupcakes for extra moisture, so that’s totally up to you. I didn’t cause I thought my cupcakes were moist enough plus liquor is a NO-NO for me.

They were sooooo good that I didn’t feel guilty at all, even after gulping 3-4 of these babies! hahaha..Yes, they were THAT GOOD!

Hi everyone!!

I’d just like to share this SMBC recipe that I made just now using egg white powder.

I browsed high and low to see if anyone has ever successfully made SMBC using egg white powder but to no avail. So with just a hunch, I tried and it turned out just fine! (believe me, I had my worries!)

Here’s my version:

Ingredients:
2 teaspoon egg white powder, diluted in 14 tsp of water
(this was the instruction that came along with my egg white powder; egg white:water=1:7, and this i think is the same as 2-3 egg whites)
50g white sugar
250g soft but cool butter

Directions:

1. Whip the diluted egg whites with sugar until u get stiff peaks, or when u turn the bowl upside down, the meringue stays put and doesn’t plop or slide down the bowl.
2. Add the butter gradually to meringue. it WILL be soupy at first, but continue to mix until it starts to settle. If it still curdles, then add a little bit more butter.
3. Add any kind of flavoring/coloring you want to like a normal SMBC

Here is how the texture is like once done.

NOTE:

1. I didn’t heat my egg whites because I heard that egg white powder are already pasteurized and I didn’t want to take any more risk of messing it up :p
2. Use the egg whites according to can/package that it came with. I opt for less water (the package said 1:7 or 1:8)
3. Soft but COOL butter helps the buttercream sets faster, I think.

So, for those who’ve had doubts on using egg wihtes to make SMBC, go ahead and try it today! It worked for me!

I’ve always been a great fan of the peanutbutter-chocolate couple but I was getting a bit tired with the usual Chocolate cupcake with PB frosting that I’ve made oh-so-many times. And the last time I tried making Peanut Butter cupcakes, mine turned out soggy and too sweet.

I thought, well..maybe it’s time I revisit the Peanut Butter Cupcake land and give it another shot. And I did.
And I’m glad I did, because it is heaven on the palms of my hand

Ingredients:
makes 8-10 mini cupcakes
40g soft butter
20g creamy PB
70g flour
20g corn flour
50g sugar
1 egg
2 tbsp cream/milk
1/2 tsp baking powder
a pinch of salt

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 170 degrees.
2. Mix everything in a bowl and using your mixer, mix it at high for about 1 – 1 1/2 minutes.
3. Divide batter and dunk in a chunck of fresh banana. Bake for 20 minutes.
4. Leave cupcakes to cool and the slather some chocolate ganache (or you can even use Hershey’s Syrup) and sprinkle some ground peanuts on top.

I also had one banana left from last night’s dessert so I just cut them up and dump them in each cupcake. The outcome: nice soft gooey banana in a really moist PB cupcake.

I think I will definitely make these again. They’re simple, not too Peanut Butter-ish and are really, really, really GOOD!

Yes. I DO love Peanut Butter and Chocolate everyone..anybody care to join me?