I like my cake batter like I like my whisky: Stiff but not dry

Andrea, Jennifer and Iris came over to have our first cake decorating "class." I want to show you how cute the cupcakes turned out before I tell the tale of the 4 hour cupcake-a-thon.


I bought the Wilton Cake Decorating books, which I'm sure are a great tool if you follow the directions. But the book's recipe for buttercream had no butter in it. Shortening. What kitchen has shortening these days? Or lard? SO we decided to go with the recipe in the Joy of Cooking. And, after much discussion, we decided to make the 4 egg Yellow Cake (because 8 eggs needed for the 8 Yolk Gold Cake was just too much).


I may not have shortening, but I do have cake flour on hand at all times. Weird.
Iris likes Swans Down cake flour over Softasilk. You know, because of the box.


So the recipe instructs you to mix a meringue into the batter. Luckily Andrea knew what a "soft peak" looks like. Beautiful.


Then we used my nifty pancake batter dispenser and filled the cups. I love gadgets.

While the cupcakes were baking, we started on the Better Butter Buttercream. Seriously, why didn't we follow the directions? I'm talking about three women with 6 college degrees between them! We should know better.


The Joy of Cooking Buttercream requires you to make a meringue and a syrup and mix them with 3 sticks of butter. We doubled the recipe, so we used 6 sticks, added to the syrup and meringue 1 tbsp at a time! 48 tbsp of butter...


It had already taken 3 hours to get here. But 70 some cupcakes later, we were ready to roll!



But the icing was melty. It didn't keep the shape of the decorating tip. It was too clumpy to make it out of the leaf decorating tip in one piece. All it was really good for was dots and stars.




Jennifer made some wonderful stars.



And Andrea got good control over the leaf tip, and even got the hang of the shell technique.




I tried the ribbon.



Our first attempt at cake decorating was fun, and luckily I have creative friends that can make anything look cute.



And Iris thought that the cupcakes were delicious, even if the cake was a little dry and the buttercream stuck in the back of her throat.


We're going to try again soon, this time following the rules. I want to have some techniques down before I actually take a class and get graded on this!

99% Organic CCCs

After years of trying to be a domestic goddess, I've given up. I'm focusing all my effort on baking. (And sewing, but that doesn't contribute to the household.) So I'm taking classes at the Art Institute in baking, candy making, and cake decorating.

This week I decided to try my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe with all organic ingredients. The vanilla isn't organic, but it's made with 100% windpower, so it counts, right?


And they taste better than ever, of course! The recipe is from the cookbook that came with my kitchenaid mixer. And I always use butter instead of margarine. I think it helps keep them soft. Plus a piece of bread in the tupperware.
Not kidding.