So Wednesday was my sister's birthday. Apparently she was feeling the pressure of one of those "My Super Sweet 16" feuds, even though she was only turning 14. One of the girls in her class who's birthday is three days after hers was boasting about having mini cupcakes and cookies or something, so Tianna asked me to make some of MY cupcakes. Oh yes, they had a throwdown.
I've never gone all out for this particular little sister's birthday before, so I decided this would be the year that I made it super special, and I agreed to take on her battle. She wanted red velvets and vanilla. I've never been a huge fan of vanilla--too boring--but I've always thought that vanilla can be amazingly supplemented by a killer frosting. So there was my game plan: red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and vanilla frosting with strawberry cream cheese frosting. These babies took three days to make.
PS. It also happened to be my friend Matt's birthday the day after Tianna's so I made some for him too.
DAY 1: chocolate design piping
Dark chocolate and white chocolate, melted down, & piped through plastic bags onto a cold cookie sheet; pretty stuff for something so simple. I made a couple march 26s and 25s, names, ages, happy birthdays. I had to do it really fast though because the chocolate kept hardening inside the bag and chunks would clog the tip. I also made a few for Uyen and JN.
DAY 2: bakingyummy red velvet batter // generic cupcake liners FAIL
I love baking cakes now that I have an electric hand mixer. It's so much easier. I mean sure, it gets a little heavy on the wrists, but it sure beats using a whisk and mixing it manually. Frosting is a lot easier to make with it now too. Thank you Chris!
PS. Don't buy generic cupcake liners. Haha. You end up with half cupcake liners in the middle of your stack, completely out of nowhere...cheapos.
vanilla cupcakes go into the oven // i got a pretty box for the cupcakes too
leftover batter was used for mini cupcakes!
They look like condiments before they're baked! Wanna know why? I might've taken the cups from In N Out. Maybe.
DAY 3: frosting & decorating
Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting!
I've never successfully made frosting...until this time. It always came out really runny or more like icing. It actually STAYED creamy this time! Funny, because I didn't actually go by a recipe this time! After reading up on different recipes online, I kind of just adlibbed what to put into the mixing bowl and ta-da! Strawberry frosting came out amazing. I used real strawberries, pureed and strained so that the frosting wouldn't be seedy.
Oh snap. She delivers too??
Casualties of Baking
aka BROKEN CHOCOLATE PIECES =/
So overall how would I rate this adventure? I definitely put a lot of time and effort into it, and it was definitely a great relief of stress and tension that I had built up from Finals week last week. I loved it. I put my all into them.
Any interesting tales?
Well, I went looking for migrant workers selling strawberries on the street and we didn't stop until the 2nd or 3rd person because the first person didn't look like the type that would be willing to bargain. I only had $7, but they wanted $8. I ended up paying that last dollar in quarters...because I fail at bargaining.
My sister's friends asked her if I had BOUGHT the PREMADE MIX from Sprinkles in Palo Alto. Oh HELLS NO! Baby, these were home-made and NOT available at a store near you. Hahaha. It was quite the compliment. Tianna also told me that the teachers raved about my strawberry frosting. I'm totally flattered by how well they were received at her school. WIN!
I'll definitely be making these again and maybe even different flavors of frosting. I think I've finally conquered frosting. Yay!
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