Being organized is sometimes a curse. As, for example, if you're having a party at your house and the piece de resistance will be chocolate cupcakes. But, rather than baking them the day of the party, you bake them the day before. And you make two, count them, two different buttercream frostings the night before. And they both turn out perfectly, leading you to believe that The Buttercream Curse has been lifted. And then, maybe a half-hour before people are supposed to start ringing your doorbell, you decide that the Golden Buttercream Frosting that looked so beautiful last night needs to be whipped into shape. And then it turns into a curdled mess. That is when being organized gets you nowhere. You are so bitter you think you might as well have just used supermarket frosting in a can. Frosting in a can! Yes, friends, I was contemplating frosting in a can. That is how low I went. And it's all because I rushed the buttercream.
But let's talk about happy things for a while before returning to the subject of frosting. Chocolate cupcakes are very happy things, and this recipe is so easy that it's even a cinch to double. All my cupcake pans were called into play.
A doubled recipe takes a lot of cocoa--I ran out of my usual Droste brand and used some Hershey's Natural. It's much lighter, and so my cupcakes were doubtless also lighter than if they'd been made with Droste. I can't imagine that they would have tasted any better.
Does that batter not look ultra-rich and creamy? How could cupcakes made from that batter be anything but delicious?
Just so they'd all be perfect, I weighed them out--50 grams per cake. Hmm. There appears to be a glass of wine in the background. I have no idea how that got there.
All the cupcakes came out of the oven looking good, even the ones in the silicone cups. I don't really trust silicone yet. I always think it's going to melt.
As I poured the Lyle's Golden Syrup in with the sugar, I wondered if this wasn't going to turn out to be a deceptive color--too dark ("golden") to look like vanilla.
Adding the single teaspoon of lemon to this very rich buttercream turns out to be pure genius--it's just sour enough to cut the sweetness of the frosting.
Cook the sugar, golden syrup, and lemon juice until the mixture comes to a rolling boil.
Pour the syrup in a glass measuring cup sprayed with cooking spray.
Beat the syrup into the egg yolks, and then gradualy beat in the butter and vanilla. It looked so smooth and beautiful when it was done.
It was cold, hard, and ugly when I took it out of the refrigerator the next day.
Oh, that was a sad time. Here is what the recipe says: "Bring to room temperature before using to prevent curdling and rebeat to restore the texture." It seemed like an hour would be enough to bring it to room temperature, but I can tell you that it wasn't. I rebeat it. That did not "restore the texture." Quite the opposite. I kept beating it. Then I tried the combination of beating it and swearing it at. That was about as successful as you'd think.
I had been planning to pipe on this beautiful frosting, but I ran out of time. (This is why I like it every time I read someone else saying that they ran out of time. It makes me feel better somehow to know I'm not alone).
So I ended up with one plate full of chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting that was definitely sub-par in appearance, but above par in taste, even though people thought it was going to be a lemon frosting because of the color. And I had one plate of chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting that was better-looking but not better-tasting. Like Jim, I preferred the taste of the Golden Neoclassic variety.
When I tasted these cupcakes, I'll admit to feeling a little resentful that I'd set myself this task of baking a different cake every week. Why couldn't I just make chocolate cupcakes every week? Why couldn't I alternate all 7 variations on the golden buttercream? I would perfect my buttercream technique. I would strew cupcakes wherever I went. People would call me "The Cupcake Lady." There would be mountains of cupcakes at my funeral. My dreams were making me so happy (except for the funeral dream--that was kind of a downer).
But it is not to be. Onward--to next week's Chocolate-Covered Strawberry Cake.
TASTING PANEL:
Jim: "I love the cupcakes. The frostings are both good, but the vanilla one is better."
Ngoc: "The cupcakes are amazing!"
Teddie: "The cupcake with vanilla frosting is a real gutbomb if it’s the only thing you have for dinner other than a handful of jelly beans."
Sara: "This is the best cake I've ever had in my life!"
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