Fantasy cupcakes v4.0

Red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting

Cuspcake rating: 5

My weekly baking for the kids, and after tossing ideas around in my mind all week (caramel cupcakes? malted cupcakes?) I hit on the perfect idea – red velvet cuppies. They were my first – and worst – attempt (see entry #1, and my misunderstanding of butter measurements), and I think it's about time after about 20 different recipes that I try them again, isn't it?

Have collected quite a number of red velvet recipes to date – from chowhound, cupcakeblog, various books – but decided to try the repressedpastrychef one, since it looked easy and I don't have shortening.

The batter didn't taste too great off the spoon, but the cake turned out fluffy and moist, with a fine crumb, and cocoa-y and sweet enough (the batter tasted of salt and baking soda). The baking soda aftertaste is a little stronger than I'd like (or perhaps its the colouring, it's something artificial, anyway), but I'm sensitive to these things.

The cream cheese frosting recipe looked a little wrong to me, so I added more sugar, and used more butter to replace the shortening I didn't have. It turned out fluffy and cheesy, and in combination with the cake – heavenly. Amazing how the sum of the parts is so much greater than the whole. Red velvet should not be eaten on its own. And although people say cream cheese icing is all wrong for Red Velvet cake – well, traditional or not, it's yummy!

(So yummy I had to stop myself eating all 6 extra minis at once – and I've really been suffering cupcake fatigue and have a splitting headache to boot!)

Make cupcakes, not war

Red Velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting (Paula Deen)

Cuspcake Rating: 1/5

I'm about three years late on the craze, but I made my first batch of cupcakes last night.

Red velvet with cream cheese frosting. The icing was too sweet and too oily, badly piped. The ziplock bag I was using to frost them burst and dripped messily on the floor.

But it was great, like the best childhood craft project imaginable, with edible results.

I've found my cooking niche.

I've noticed that a number of cupcake bloggers aren't at all what you'd picture cupcake bloggers to be. And while I have no tattooes, I daresay I wouldn't match your mental picture either. I work in fashion, and most of my contemporaries spend most of their spare time at the manicure salon or at the latest trendy fusion fitness class.

One certainly does not expect me to love dessert. Most don't even expect me to eat. Perhaps even less than they'd expect I spend weekends elbow deep in batter.

I never pictured myself as a hobby baker, and I've never really liked cupcakes, finding them much better to look at than to eat. Give me something heartier and uglier for dessert every time – a whopping slice of cold cheesecake, icecream, brownies. Preferably messy to eat, rather than nibble off a china saucer with a silver fork.

An amateur home-cook at best, I'm more used to jointing a chicken than to piping delicate cream swirls. Yet I somehow arrived at this after a nine-month search for a new hobby, which took me through stovetop cooking (curries from scratch, stews and braises), to a short flirtation with roasting, then baking whole cakes.

So my perfect cupcakes may not be anyone else's perfect. But here's what I'm on a quest for: Cupcakes that taste great first, and look good second. Each one should offer the satisfaction of a hearty, full-sized dessert, in a cup. A good blend of the flavours and tasty textures everyone somehow finds nostalgic and comforting. Fun to do, and they must, must make the eater feel special. 

Ceux-ci sont mes petites génoises individuelles parfaites.