As some of you have already noticed, I added a poll on the left column of my blog asking what your favorite flavor of cake is. It's totally anonymous, and I'd appreciate your answer even if you don't plan on coming to our wedding. I'm not going to base the ratio of white to chocolate solely on the results, but I'd like to at least get an idea of what people like.
One of the choices I listed, butter pecan, may not be very well-known, but it's popular in my family. My grandma made it a lot and baked it for my brother's birthday. I want to have one batch at the wedding because we think they're amazing, regardless of what anyone else thinks. But since Nathan didn't even know it existed, I decided to bake some for him. I figured it wouldn't hurt to get in some taste tests before the wedding. Plus, I've never actually baked a cake or cupcakes before, and I didn't think learning the week of the wedding would be a good idea.
I used the Betty Crocker cake mix, which makes two dozen standard cupcakes. Since I could only bake a dozen at a time, I at least got two shots at getting it right. Here are the results...
Lesson #1: Don't fill the cups too high, or they will look like mushrooms.
Lesson #2: Cupcake liners are a good thing. Okay, I kind of already knew that one, but since I forgot to buy them, I decided to see what would happen. Well, that's what happened.
Lesson #3: Icing cupcakes is a lot harder than it looks. In my defense, I was using a knife, but I just could not get them to look nice.
My second attempt turned out a little better since I bought cupcake liners, but because the first ones were too tall, these were of course too short. The icing looked a little better.
Even though they didn't look pretty enough for a wedding, the good news is that they were still tasty. I left most of them with Nathan, and after a couple days he told me he was addicted. Hopefully our guests will like them as well.
Would you try a new food or flavor at a wedding if you had the option to eat something more familiar instead?
Another tip (for future reference): When making muffins or cupcakes and you forget to buy the liners, be sure to grease each cupcake slot (PAM or other non-stick spray is probably the easiest method). Then, when they're done baking, and cooled for a couple of minutes, either use a knife or slightly twist the muffin/cupcake to get it all out (sometimes you'll have a small bit left in, but it's not much).
ReplyDeleteJust a helpful hint. :)