to be a bit better about posting from now on.
For this evening's installment of the weekly Sunday movie night Aaron and I host, I decided to make Billy's Vanilla Vanilla cupcakes (courtesy of Martha Stewart.com), topped with White Chocolate Buttercream frosting (from Jen's Genuine Life) - pictures forthcoming. I've used Billy's recipe before and I can say that it works quite well, whether you use the full recipe or half it, for a more manageable number of cupcakes. 
My movie night guests are rather divided, in terms of their tastes for sweets. Cupcakes aren't always the favorites with those [boys] who aren't crazy about intense desserts. Thus, when I do make cupcakes (or really anything with frosting), I usually decide to go all out. Besides, any leftovers can always come to school with me - leaving them in the graduate student lounge usually produces an empty plate at the end of the day.
In any case, the frosting I made is a "true" buttercream and is, by anyone's standard, quite serious. The white chocolate seemed like just the right amount of richness for my sweets-loving friends, so I decided to go for it. The end result is fabulous and creamy, but I did have to tweak the recipe to make the frosting stiff enough to spread thickly. This didn't surprise me, as I feel as though I always have to add a bit more confectioner's sugar (in this case, just under half a cup). It's surprising that anyone can ever quantify the necessary ingredients enough to produce a recipe, really. I usually wing it with my frosting and glazing recipes, but the addition of melted chocolate gave me pause.
You can see from the pictures that the frosting is a bit grainy. This is because the chocolate hadn't cooled completely when I added it to the butter. Parts solidified and sort of splintered while I beat the ingredients together. I figure I'll just tell my guests that the cupcakes are topped with a "vanilla buttercream with white chocolate flake." They'll buy it, I'm sure... Otherwise, though, the flavor is delicious and I have to give Jen (of Jen's Genuine Life) a lot of credit.
update: I took the movie night leftovers to my sister's birthday party a day or so later, and they disappeared about an hour after we got there. Success!
2 comments:
I didn't try the cupcakes, but they looked good and everyone loved them. They definitely went over better than the garbage movies that I showed.
haha, thanks aaron.
don't fool yourself though, everyone LOVED deadly reactor!
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