I made cupcakes last week just because decoration ideas began to grow in my mind like weeds; although I normally save baking for occasions where others can eat my food, I just couldn't wait this time. Which means I had to invite people over spur of the moment to eat my food!
I found a recipe that was possible with the contents of my kitchen and set to work, consulting my scrap paper of scribbled notes as I planned out my flavors and decorations. These dark chocolate cupcakes came out in chocolate-orange, chocolate-caramel, and chocolate-walnut permutations.
More importantly, I got to play with my star, leaf, and round tips to produce these decorated cupcakes. I especially love this pile of leaf squigglies (above) and this cute pyramid of round plops (below).
I'll need to tinker with the cake recipe a tad more, but the dark chocolate buttercream icing pictured at the top of this post turned out great. Here 'tis!
Dark Chocolate Buttercream Icing
2 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
2 C powdered sugar
2 T cocoa powder
1 tsp. vanilla extract
8 oz. melted semisweet or bittersweet chocolate
pinch salt
Beat the butter with an electric mixer on medium-high speed until smooth. Reduce the speed to medium-low and slowly add the powdered sugar. Beat until smooth. Beat in the cocoa powder, vanilla, melted chocolate, and salt. Turn the speed up to medium-high until the mixture is light and fluffy.
Try it with white chocolate sometime!
No comments:
Post a Comment