Friday, August 6, 2010

How Hard Can it Be?

Got up early this morning to bake cupcakes and beat the heat. I've been wanting cupcakes since I had a delicious one at a bakery during a day trip  a few weeks back. Stopped at our neighborhood bakery close to home a few days ago that advertised cupcakes on their sign. When I went in, they didn't even have one!

I watched Martha make a black velvet cake on her show and I've been dying to try it. So, what could be better and easier than black velvet cupcakes?

Making them was cool - and fascinating.


Here is the oil and red food coloring. Looks kind of like a science experiment. My kids were not as impressed as I was.

I have the oven on preheating and all the ingredients mixed in the bowl to put into the pretty pink liners in the muffin tins. It's very red! These are going to be so pretty!



As I pour the batter I can smell this plastic smell. Hmm, shouldn't these smell like chocolate? I taste the batter. Blech! What's wrong with them? My daughter tells me it's the red gel food coloring that makes it taste like that. Didn't I remember the cake she had to throw away when she used it? No, I don't remember that I sob.

I double check the recipe to see if I missed something or put too much coloring in. OH NO I was supposed to mix the food coloring with 6 Tbsp of water!

Have you ever tried to throw out an entire batch of batter already in the muffin tins? Red food coloring everywhere as I try to clean it off every surface in my kitchen.

Next on my list: lemon cupcakes. How hard can they be? Stop laughing. I can do this, there's no food coloring involved.

4 comments:

Rachael Johns said...

Oh dear :( But I DO love the sound of black velvet cupcakes! A definite cupcake fan here!

Unknown said...

The Lemon ones turned out nicely. And I ate a few while icing them. Okay, more than a few.

Janet said...

This cracked me up, Anne! Glad the lemon ones turned out.

I wonder if you can send this in to Martha's website or blog (does Martha blog?).

Unknown said...

Janet, I didn't use Martha's recipe for that first batch so, when I remade them last night I used Martha's recipe. Her recipe called for way more cocoa and half the food coloring. They turned out MUCH better. But they still have a unique flavor that I'm hoping the cream cheese icing will tame.