I have to say thanks to Makiko of I was just really very hungry for hosting this months Is My Blog Burning. This has been such a fun event! I think most people have a favorite cupcake or muffin so I predict the entries wil be plentiful!
My entry is tiny cupcakes. You can see the regular sized cupcake in the back of the picture for scale. I always try to keep sweets to a minimum. One because they're so cute that way, and two because no one ever really knows how many you ate!
I started this evening with a simple chocolate cake recipe. My favorite is from Hersheys. Their Deep Dark Chocolate Cake is the one I usually turn to if I need a chocolate cake.
I then put together a white cake mix. See my post from February about my search for the perfect white cake. I used that recipe tonight. I also added a few chopped cherries to the batter for some of the cupcakes.
I poured three different sizes of white and chocolate batters. I mixed in some macaroon coconut into a half cup of the white batter and spooned a half teaspoon full on three of the small chocolate ones. I love chocolate macaroon cupcakes! I also put a dab of seedless raspberry preserves in three.
The fun part was decorating these little cupcakes. I frosted using a simple butter frosting. Half pound of unsalted butter, 2 teaspoons of vanilla, powdered sugar until just sweetened. Beat the butter together with the vanilla, then begin adding the sugar until it is at the right consistency but still a little stiff, add a couple teaspoons of milk or half anf half to bring to a spreadable consistency. I used the white to do the cherry cakes and the teeny chocolate ones. I then added a clue to the frosting to indicate inside flavors - Cherry, raspberry dots, coconut on the chocolate macaroon, etc.
After finishing with the white buttercream I added some cocoa powder to the remaining frosting, whipped it up and frosted the others with chocolate. Of course going into the piping bag there was a white residue so I frosted the smallest ones that were left over with the marbled frosting.
As you can see, some basic cake and frostings you can be creative and make some pretty good looking sweets even when you have a terrible pain in your jaw! (see previous post)
