Fantasy cupcakes v6.0

Yellow butter cupcakes with chocolate-egg white buttercream

Cuspcake rating: 3

Was most delighted to get my hands on Rose Levy Berenbaum's new book (when am I not delighted to get my hands on any new book?), and keen to try some recipes. Picked the first Baby Cake recipe, Yellow Butter Cupcakes, as I love butter cake and haven't done one yet, and well, it was first in a very short list of recipes.

Was very interested to try her reverse method of mixing batter, and while I was doing it, was really excited about it, as it seems to be far less mess (none of that creaming, and less splashing), and resulted in a lovely batter which tasted fantastic off the spoon. She also bakes at a slightly lower temp and a lower rack position than all the other recipes I've tried.

Believe I followed the recipe to the best of my attention, but somehow the cakes turned out each with crooked tops, which appeared to be caused by a large air bubble trying to get out of the cooked top of each cuppie. And then the cake batter under that hole seemed undercooked. Not sure what I did wrong, was rather disappointed, but the cakes still tasted great.

Opted for the chocolate-egg white buttercream, to offset the vanilla cake. It was easier to do than the recipe sounds, and the texture of the buttercream was perfect. A bit rich, perhaps because my dark chocolate was too dark, but still yummy. Finger-licking good, even in my overheated, frosting-averse state.

Topped them off with marshmallows, which looked comically huge on the tiny cuppies, but I thought would do well to cut the richness of the chocolate, and my little cupcake loves marshmallows. :)

Fantasy cupcakes v5.0

Dad's brownie cupcakes with vanilla buttercream

Cuspcake rating: 2

Finally got around to trying dad's brownie recipe as a cupcake, only I used part self-raising flour, and, well, let's just say it works better as a brownie recipe! It was too sweet, and rose too much then sank. Also created that crusty top that works on brownies, but not in little portions, somehow. Back to the search for the perfect chocolate cuppie then!

As for the vanilla buttercream, used the Primrose Bakery one again, but managed to botch it up. Really must stop trying to skip steps. Seems ridiculous to botch up a recipe I've used before. It tasted good, but was runny, and if you looked closely, looked like it was separating. I made up for it with extra gumpaste flowers and star sprinkles.

Nonetheless, I was rewarded for my sub-par efforts by the sight and sounds of my favourite 5-year-old licking and yumming her way through her cuppie :) Kids. Gotta love 'em. And I guess it proves the theory right that kids like anything sweet, soft and damp.

Fantasy cupcakes v3.0

Vanilla cupcakes with milk chocolate frosting

Cuspcake rating: 4.5

Another of my now-weekly batches for the kids. Tried the Magnolia Bakery vanilla cupcake recipe again, and it's really tasty, just it rose with bumps in the centres again, I have no idea why. Definitely didn't overmix, and it wasn't even the same recipe as I used the two-flour version instead of the one-flour Chockylit adaptation.

Added mini M&M baking bits to the batter for variety, since they had vanilla last week too, and I'm guessing they aren't as attuned to the subtle variations in Magnolia vs. Primrose recipes the way I am. Topped them off with the Milk Chocolate Icing from Magnolia Bakery, which was quite runny at room temperature, but tasty and sticky. The gumpaste flowers are new, they came in assorted colours, which looked especially pretty altogether.

I hear they went down well again. Wonder how many kid-friendly choc and vanilla combinations I can come up with before they get sick of them!

Fantasy cupcakes v2.0

Vanilla vanilla cupcakes

Cuspcake rating: 3

Probably unfair to rate these, as I needed 22 and only had 22 38mm cups, so am not getting to taste the actual product. Moreover, the real success of these depends only on how much my almost-five-year-old patron and her friends like these.

Baked the leftover batter in larger cups (44mm, I got another 9) and left them in the oven too long so they went crispy on top. They're very tasty, and I'm a weird one who likes my cakes crispy and golden so, again, probably not entirely fair to rate these (they tasted like big, less-sweet kueh baulus – one of my favourite snacks). The buttercream was pretty, light and easy to spread, but waaay too sweet for my grownup tastebuds, hopefully the kids will feel otherwise.

From the Primrose Bakery book – have to say I am pleased with the recipes I've tried so far, it's turning out to have been a great budget birthday gift to myself, at least, I certainly can't think of anything else that could have given me as much entertainment and pleasure for $15.

Update: These were a hit, I'm pleased to report. The kids asked for more cupcakes, and even the boys thought they were pretty. :)

Lavender Blue Dilly Dilly

Lavender cream-filled cupcakes with cream cheese frosting

Cuspcake rating: 3

Started with the same batch of Amy Sedaris vanilla cupcakes as the Bellini cupcakes, just wanted to experiment with a different combination.

The cream and frosting are from cupcakeblog. Liked these quite alot, they taste very refined and dainty. Botched the lavender cream recipe by adding twice the amount of cream, so made up for it by drizzling a few drops of the lavender syrup and dropping a flower or two in each cupcake's filling. That worked out well to make up for the oversight, with little pops of lavender fragrance when you bite into a bud.

Added only about 3/4 the sugar to the cream cheese frosting, and more lemon juice (no zest though as it seems to be an acquired taste and I'm taking these to the office) in an attempt to cut the sweetness of the cake. The overall result is still a little sweeter than I'd like, probably because of the lavender syrup, but I like the delicacy of the flavours, and would just improve on the cake.

Break out the bubbly

Bellini cupcakes
Cuspcake rating: 2.5 (3 if not for the filling!)

Started with Amy Sedaris' recipe for vanilla cupcakes, was wary of overfilling cups so filled them only about half, as a result, most of them didn't rise to the tops of the cups as I'd hoped. They are tasty, a little too sweet for me, and had a fine texture after baking. Unfortunately after keeping them overnight in the fridge, the texture seems to have changed quite alot and they are rather dense now. Will leave them to come fully to room temperature and report back.

To compensate for the cakes' sweetness, and to more quickly satisfy my curiosity about the recipes I study all week and wait till the weekend to try, I tried two combinations: The first, an attempt at the Bellini cupcake I spoke of. I had in mind a sourish roasted peach filling with a champagne whipped cream. The second is the Lavender cream filled cupcake with citrus cream cheese frosting, in the post after this.

It's such a tough juggling act – how do you make frostings that stand up to 30ºC+ weather, which aren't too sweet? It seems like all the nice light, less-sweet frostings need to be fridged, in which case, the cakes turn hard and cold. Hard cakes with nice frosting? Or nice cakes with toe-curlingly sweet frostings?

Scared off by the too-sweet honey buttercream of my mid-week attempt, I decided to err on the side of taste this time. Adapted the champagne curd recipe from cupcakeblog, and combined it with a filling of pureed roasted peaches, which I heated with a little brown sugar and lemon juice.

First, my caveat – I have never tasted a Bellini before. But from a cupcake point of view, my off-season white peaches were unfortunately rather tasteless, and I rather wish I could taste them more. Perhaps I should use tinned ones next time – sadly enough, tinned peaches are what most of us in this tropical country think of when you say "peach" anyhow. The curd however is quite yummy, despite not being a champagne drinker, (or liking alcohol at all) I find it enjoyable. The bite of the curd did successfully offset the sweetness of the cake, pity it also overtook my poor peach puree.

Well, at least this one seems to be an easy fix.

Eating her curds and whey

Lemon curd-filled vanilla cupcakes with cream cheese frosting (cupcakeblog)

Cuspcake Rating: 3.5/5

So I outdid myself this weekend with two batches of cupcakes, the second being more complicated than any I've tried – the Lemon Curd-filled Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting from Cheryl Porro's cupcakeblog, a delicious blog I'm forcing myself to devour bit by bit. She's got a great, scientific approach to cupcaking, really unusual flavour combinations and by the looks of this one – superb recipes!

The people at work, tired out by rich chocolatey desserts, had requested something fruity for a change, and I love tart flavours so I zoomed in on this recipe. Plus, the chance to try my hand at making curd and stuffing cupcakes was irresistible.

I used evaporated milk in the vanilla cupcakes as that's all I had on hand, not sure how that affected flavour and texture. Also doubled the vanilla as I wanted it discernible to contrast with the lemon, and used a 1:4 ratio of cake flour to all-purpose, as I'd read reviews where cupcakes had turned out dense. The batter half-filled 16 2-inch cups.

The cupcakes turned out very tasty, and moist in a slightly sticky way, which may have been the evap milk talking. They also mostly had round bumps just in the centre, which was odd, but worked out alright as they lent a base to the eventual mound of frosting. I plan to experiment – just a little lighter (the weather is always hot here) and this'll be my go-to vanilla cupcake recipe.

Added more lemon juice to the curd with no apparent ill-effects, as I wanted something really tangy. The curd was yummy, I'd love to eat it over icecream, and could see myself just glazing plain cupcakes with it in a pinch. Wonder how a mango version'd work out, think mango juice might not hold up to heat as well as lemon? I added the leftover curd to the frosting, with some more lemon juice to counter all the sugar (didn't use it all in the end).

The results got good reviews at work (except from a dieter who went unhappily without). But honestly I didn't really care since, most importantly, they pleased a picky almost-five-year-old (who ate mostly the frosting and the coloured hundreds-and-thousands I'd bought expressly for her pleasure) and a perhaps-pickier 37-year-old, which pleased me no end.

There's nothing quite like baking for people you love. And no baked good says love quite like a cupcake, don't you think?