Each batch of cupcakes ends up looking crazier than the last, but I can't resist a cupcake challenge! This one was to make three different kinds of chocolate cupcakes for a friend's birthday. I started with an identical chocolate base for each - a moist and easy recipe containing rich Ghiradelli cocoa and a splash of buttermilk. The frostings all started out the same as well, as my bff (best frosting friend) Swiss meringue buttercream. I didn't really have much direction on how much flavoring to add to each because of the unusual ingredient ratios, so we just went by taste. Luckily two of my neighbors smelled the cupcakes and came up to help (thanks, Michelle and Mandy! ;) ) The vanilla frosting was flavored by the contents of a vanilla bean, the strawberry frosting contains freshly pureed strawberries, and the chocolate frosting was made by adding melted semisweet chocolate to the bowl until the mixture tasted right. We chose the fillings to correlate with the frostings and ended up with:
chocolate cupcake / Nutella filling / chocolate frosting / crushed cocoa almonds / mini marshmallow halves
chocolate cupcake / strawberry filling / strawberry frosting / chocolate sprinkles / strawberry pieces
chocolate cupcake / raspberry filling / vanilla bean frosting / chocolate shavings / raspberries
Of
course these were mini cupcakes, because minis are cuter, and because it is
easier for people to try multiple flavors when each cake is just a nibble. I varied the heights of the piped frosting by flavor so that once the toppings were applied, the finished products were roughly the same height for some sense of uniformity.
Until the next cupcake challenge...
Until the next cupcake challenge...
