Total honestly. I'm a perfectionist, because I'm a perfectionist, I've probably iced a cake and or cupcake only a handful of times in my entire lifetime. But with cupcakes everywhere, I kept on thinking to myself, I've got to start somewhere so I did the following.
1. Watched a tutorial on cupcake icing.
2. Found an effortless cupcake recipe.
3. Found an effortless icing recipe.
Okay, I'm now three for three. It's going to be a good day. I post to facebook that I'm going to make cupcakes, so I actually get off the couch and now that I've committed, I'm up off the couch and off to the kitchen.
And I get out the stuff and begin.
Ut oh. I have no butter compartment on my refrigerator. What? Yep, the "butter" compartment on my two year old french door, stainless steel refrigerator is gone. So I yell (in a very calm manner, I assure you) for my 15 year old daughter. "Where is the butter compartment?"
Then I hear a story about she was in the kitchen yesterday and it "broke" and I was taking a nap so she asked my boyfriend to fix it...
In the meantime, obviously I've called him, repeated the story, he ignored the question...
"Where is the butter that was in the butter compartment?"
She shrugged her shoulders.
"Where's the margarine?"
More shoulder shrugging. Truth is that I had two full tubs of margarine in the fridge but I tend to use only butter sticks and my daughter went through the refrigerator the other day and cleaned it out (to be helpful) and I think since we never use the tub margarine, the date was probably expired so it was tossed. Just a theory though.
Now, a logical person would go to the store, and buy butter, but I'm stubborn. Going to the store would have been procrastination. Plus I planned to spend the day in my jammies. Hey, I'm making an effort to bake. I can stay in jammies if I want.
I remember that somewhere in the back of the pantry I have Crisco. I know I know. Back to the positive. We're back on track.
Bing! The cupcakes are taken out of the oven by my daughter who didn't know I used shortening instead of butter. She obviously knew we didn't have butter but I'm sure it never crossed her mind. I walk into the kitchen and she has half a cupcake in her mouth. "Good." She mumbles with a full mouth.
I smile to myself and break off a piece to taste and see for myself. Indeed, it was a very nice tasting simple cupcake. Moist, really moist. I might have to test the recipe with butter and see if it is just as moist.
Now for the frosting. Cream cheese frosting is my favorite, but for icing, I like butter cream because frankly it's stiffer.
I swap the frosting recipe I choose for one that used shortening, threw in red food coloring and viola. Now to find my cake decorating tools. Ummm...where are my cake decorating tools. I vaguely remembered making a three tier cake for my oldest daughter's birthday in 09. I know I purchased bags and tips. Where or where.
Ummm...yep, can't find them. Hey, I've only moved from San Francisco to Frisco Texas since then. So, now what?
Okay, I'll just use my cake knife or is that called a cake spatula? Whatever, it's for icing cakes. That I was able to find. I look at it in my drawer every day to remind myself to bake more.
So I remembered a technique where a good amount of frosting is plopped on top and then swilled around with the cake spatula. I did one. For a first attempt I wasn't that displeased with it but I wanted to find my piping tools, so I left the kitchen to try another box.
When I returned my daughter had filled a plastic sandwich bag with the icing and cut off the corner and was piping away. I was also gone long enough for her to pull out sprinkles and colored sugar. She had decorated two cupcakes beautifully, and got bored. She left the kitchen to do some homework.
I waited a few hours for the remainder of the cupcakes to frost themselves...and since that didn't happen, and there was hardly frosting left...(no comment), I just took a table knife and finished them off.
Then I pulled out ribs, did a simple salt and pepper rub. 45 minutes at 375 and some baked potatoes. Bing! Back to the oven. I pulled out the biggest baked potatoes I've ever seen. Then I remembered, and sighed. I have no butter.
I sent my daughter out to a few neighbors to borrow butter. Hey it's a potato. I wanted butter.
When I officially try again, I'll post pictures.
;)
ref:
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/simple-white-cake/
http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/Easy-Vanilla-Buttercream-Frosting
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/best-white-icing-ever/
http://www.yourcupofcake.com/2012/02/cupcake-decorating-tutorial.html
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