More Cupcake Baking!

After years of looking up recipes online, I finally broke down and bought a cookbook. Granted, this cookbook will not eliminate my need to frantically search online for a dinner recipe, but it will prevent that from happening anytime I need to bake cupcakes!

Justin and I LOVE Barnes and Noble. Sometimes, when we need a night out, we go to B&N and just sit and read. He sits in the woodworking section and I, the baking section. After a couple of visits and several hours, I finally picked out a book that has the makings for the perfect kitchen companion.



The variety of flavors of both cupcakes and frostings this book offers is amazing. :) It gets me giddy just thinking of it.

If you are anything like me, as soon as you buy something you want to take it home and use it? Right? When we left B&N Wednesday night it was 9:30pm, and if it was not for the fact that we didn't have all of the ingrediants in our cupboard, I would have tried out some of the recipies that night.

The whole school day on Thursday I was anxious to get home and crack open my new book. Turns out I had an excuse to use it. One of my students' last day was Friday, so we were throwing him a good-bye, good luck party! Parties require cupcakes! :)

I chose to make Chocolate cupcakes with Marshmellow Icing!

I was a little intimidated by the marshmellow frosting at first, because it required me to use a candy thermometor - admittedly this was my first use for one. I boiled 2/3 c. sugar and 1/4 c. light corn syrup, along with 1 1/2 T. of water together until the temporature reached soft ball stage (239 degrees F).

While I was keeping a very close eye on the temperature, I had my KitchenAid beating 2 egg whites until soft peaks formed.

When the sugar/syrup mixture was complete I turned the mixer on a low speed and added the mixture slow and steadily. Once all added, I turned the mixer on a medium-high speed and whipped the mixture until it was thick like meringue and cool. Near the end is when I added the vanilla extract.

YUMMY!

I ended up having a lot of extra chocolate batter, so I made a miniture cake, too!

AND

Lemon cupcakes with Lemon Icing!

The thing I like about the cupcake batter from Primrose Bakery is that they only have a little bit of levening, making it that the cupcakes do not overflow their papers. This makes them easier to decorate!

The Lemon Buttercream frosting, I have to say, was a bit eye-crossing. Justin is a lemon lover, so he thought it was perfect but I will warn you, if you don't want something tart, this is not your recipe. The recipe called for 2-3 tablespoons of freshly squeezed lemon and 2 tsp of lemon zest. In the future I might replace the a tablespoon of lemon juice with water, just to tame it down a little.  

Well, in case you couldn't already guess, I would recommend this book to anyone who likes to bake cupcakes. The variety allows to break away from the norm of vanilla and chocolate and to mix it up a little bit! Kudos to Primrose!