Monday, October 13, 2008

Back & Bakin'


I was sad to take such a long hiatus from baking and blogging...this seems to be a pattern lately that I need to break! Life has been crazy and hectic and (sadly) expensive, so baking has definitely been on the backburner as I've tried to manage everything else around me. AND to add another stumbling block to the mix, Steve was having camera problems and lost the snapshots of the baking that I actually have been able to do recently.

Thankfully, all was not lost and he was able to recover the files, so now I can happily return to blogging with pictures in hand (because, really, what's a baking blog with no drool-worthy pictures?!).

So back to the blogging task at hand. A few weeks ago our neighbors Rob and Jill had their housewarming party (shout out to Rob if you actually read this as you claim! :) ) and in every circumstance I convince myself that I need to bring baked goods, whether or not others really want 'em. Any excuse to bake and know that it's going to leave my house so I'm not tempted to gorge myself is an opportunity not to be passed up.

Since it's harder to travel with cupcakes, I never get to make them. But with Rob and Jill's place right downstairs, cupcakes it was. Baking Bites is always my go-to for recipes, I can sit for hours going through the archives and weighing my options. So I was excited when I hit upon these Vanilla Brown Butter Cupcakes - very simple to throw together, the brown butter was a little bit of a twist on something ordinary. Done and done. I wanted a frosting that was more suitable for piping on than spreading, so I used this recipe for a basic buttercream on The Repressed Pastry Chef, dividing the recipe in half, using all unsalted butter and adding in a vanilla bean.

The cupcakes baked up well, and I said, very easy to throw together. Buttercream is pretty basic and fool proof as well (not to mention delicious). I decorated all of the cupcakes and they looked beautiful. I knew the frosting tasted great, so the cupcakes were really the wildcard. We took them down to the party...and there they sat, dressed to kill but with not a lot of takers. Steve and I shared one (because one simply must taste test) and they were...ok. Not great, a little heavy, the brown butter was a taste that you couldn't quite put your foot on but weren't quite sure if you wanted to. But how did others know they had a strange and mysterious taste? Everyone at the party must have had stellar baking e.s.p. and just knew these wouldn't be delightly simple vanilla cupcakes

All-in-all I learned that even for cupcakes beauty may only be skin deep, but I simply must do more research in the field to confirm this ;)

1 comment:

Soltan said...

Thanks for the shout out! Perhaps if you didn't call your cupcakes "Vanilla Brown Surprise Cupcakes" at our party, their might have been more takers. Just Kidding :).

I think our guests probably wanted to show their loyalty to Jill and I by eating our food before yours. It had nothing to do with them being bad or good. And, if my memory serves me correctly, there were only a few of your cupcakes left at the end of the night.

Keep on baking and blogging,

-Rob