Friday, June 26, 2009

a girly sort of skull

My friend Sarah had few requests for her urban family birthday party : hot dogs, badminton, and chocolate cupcakes with cooked frosting.

I used Magnolia's chocolate cupcake recipe, and started by beating eggs and sugar.


Followed by 6 one-ounce blocks of baker's chocolate...


Mix it all up, adding vanilla and milk mixed separately...


It starts to smooth and turn a nice, smooth chocolately brown...


Fill up those cupcake liners (silver Wilton wrappers to match the forthcoming dragees)


You can see I have no sophisticated way to fill these. Two spoons seem to work just fine for me. While those are baking, I started the cooked frosting, otherwise known as whipped buttercream or perhaps the world's best cupcake frosting. Start with four sticks of butter and two cups of sugar.


About 45 minutes before I whipped the icing, I prepared the "cooked" part by continuously whisking flour and milk until it thickened over the stovetop. This sits on a cooling rack for 3/4 of an hour until a film has formed over the top. Pull the film off and throw it away.


Whip the milk paste mixture in thirds with the butter, sugar, and vanilla already in your mixing bowl. Behold the glory.



Add some Wilton pink rose gel food coloring and you've got fluffy pink heaven. (Always use gel color in frostings, as liquid color will change your consistency and more often than not, separate into multiple colors.)


Ding ding! The cupcakes are finished and ready for finishing touches.


Fill up a piping bag with icing and a medium star tip and go at it.



Sarah loves skulls, so I surprised her by carving white skulls out of rolled fondant. I was rushing like a madwoman at this point, so I didn't take any photos of actually carving the skulls. I decided to spell Happy Birthday Sarah and use skulls on the rest of the cupcakes. I had leftover batter, so I made mini cupcakes as well and added the same silver dragees to those. (I had a brain fart and attempted to take photos of the cupcakes with a flash on a steel table, so the quality isn't fantastic.)


Luckily Sarah got a few. Photos, as well as cupcakes.




Girly and a bit edgy at the same time. A delicious cupcake paradox.

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