Sunday 9 August 2009

lemon cupcakes with a blueberry cream cheese frosting

It was L's b'day at work and I'd promised to bake her cupcakes (actually I make a lot of promises to bake cupcakes but it always seems to take me awhile to get around to it, but that's me if you get to know me). Anyway, it was a weekday night and I knew I should've gone for a known and trusted recipe but the creative streak in me decided to try a new one. The recipe ended up being from Sue McMahon's 'Cupcakes', which to be honest, was the first time I actually tried one of the recipes since buying the book - I admit I just have way too many. Anyway, given the time constraints and trying something new when I know I shouldn't always breeds issues, so I should've known what was to come but somehow, I blindingly chose to ignore.

For starters, the recipe only made 10 cupcakes instead of the 12 - which is a bummer for when you're trying a new recipe and the cupcakes need to be tested before you give them away.
Fortunately, they baked nicely and look at the 10 lovely cupcakes that came out of the oven! My mum will vouch for me that these lemon cupcakes were superb.
So I decided to make the cream cheese frosting in the book but creatively add a streak of blueberry to it. I didn't think you could go wrong with blueberry but obviously I hadn't given as much thought as I should. I blended the blueberries with a bit of icing sugar whilst they were still frozen (and you can probably imagine the rocks I got out of it, and then to top it off, I thought a little water would help and argh...disaster). When I laid up the cream cheese frosting and blueberry mush in the piping bag, the blueberry had decided to defrost and when piped, came out in a ghastly watery mess. Here were some of the better looking cupcakes.
Two of the cupcakes ended up getting eaten before they had the final ok to get into the box.

Despite the dramas, the cupcakes actually tasted quite good. I can't say I was completely happy with them but I did feel a bit better when people at work started eating them and telling me how they liked them and one girl even came to ask me for the recipe.

I guess nothing ever turns out perfectly and I've certainly learnt a lesson or two along the way. And well, even if they didn't look spot on perfect (which is what I would've preferred them to look), they still tasted great which is probably more important at the end of the day.

5 comments:

OohLookBel said...

It's always nice when someone asks for your recipes. Your cupcakes look alright to me, and you are a deft hand with the icing piping - I'm hopeless at it!

Anonymous said...

Taste is very important indeed, I think even more important than the look (and they look fine :) ). Always the ultimate compliment is when someone seeks you out for the recipe!

panda said...

belle - actually it was even better today when i got into work and found out that the girl had tried the recipe and also baked up a nice batch of cupcakes too :D and lol, i used to work at a cupcake place so i did quite a lot of piping for practice :P

nqn - as long as something tastes good, i guess it really doesn't matter what it looks like. and thanks, i guess the cupcakes do look ok :D

Karine said...

blueberry cream cheese frosting? Wow, it is the first time I heat about that, but it sounds amazing!

Jess said...

Jen they were delicious!