Valentine’s Day is tomorrow!! Have you picked out any flowers for your Valentine?
It’s ok if you haven’t, but let this post serve as a reminder to get a move on. Don’t want to leave your lovely Valentine hanging!
If you read last week’s post, you’ll know that I went out on a limb and tried someone else’s recipe. You’ll also know that I was kind of disappointed in the way it turned out, but that I had some really good (IMHO) ideas for amping it up. First things first, I wanted to add a little strawberry “oomph” if you will, and add some strawberry jam to the mix. When I remade the cake recipe this week as cupcakes, I added a strawberry jam center to the cupcakes and let it ride. Definitely the right decision for amping up the strawberry flavor!
Next I tried out two different frostings for the newly strawberried cupcakes. For the sake of the story, I’ll tell you about the second frosting first. As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, Valentine’s Day is nigh and I have chocolate dipped everything on the brain - chocolate dipped strawberries being one of my favorites. So I figured I could create a twist on chocolate dipped strawberries and add chocolate frosting on top of my delectable “amped up” strawberry cupcakes by making a whipped dark chocolate ganache and frosting the cupcakes with it.
Whipped chocolate ganache is easy enough to make, but if you’re in a hurry don’t be a bonehead like me and skip steps.
Here’s what happened: I promised these cupcakes to my Man Candy™ for a work event he was having the next day. I made the cupcakes with the first frosting (that I haven’t told you about yet), but the first frosting is very complicated, uses a LOT of expensive ingredients, and only frosted one dozen cupcakes (the recipe I shared in last week’s blog made two dozen cupcakes). Knowing that it would be a challenge to make another batch of the first frosting in a timely manner, I decided to mix it up with the dark chocolate ganache for the next dozen. However it was late, so I made the dark chocolate ganache and popped it in the refrigerator to cool overnight. (Did I mention that the following morning I had to drop off my puppy at his sitter for the weekend because we were also about to head out of town? And also pack for said weekend, and drop off the cupcakes so we could leave ASAP? Yeah - the next day was rushed to say the least.)
This is where my great mistake came in and is also my tip of the week for you: don’t rush the whipping process!
I took the now-solid ganache out of the refrigerator to let it warm up and started packing for my trip. Halfway through, I scraped the still-solid ganache into my mixing bowl and started to try to whip it, even though it was still as solid as could be. DO NOT DO THIS IF YOU PLAN TO MAKE A WHIPPED GANACHE. Basically all I did was beat up that poor ganache and make it grainy in the process. Finally I stopped rushing around long enough to listen to my inner voice that was saying, “You know the right way to do this, and what always happens when you try to skip steps.”
I guess it’s a sign of maturity (finally!) that I actually listened to my own voice of reason and did what I knew was right. I made a double boiler and melted down the ganache to its liquid state, then whipped it from liquid into a fluffy frosting consistency perfect for cupcake decorating.
And finally, we shall talk about the first frosting that I made. A delicious, silky, not overly sweet, perfect for these cupcakes French Buttercream.
I did mention in last week’s post that I wanted to replace the American buttercream from the original recipe and use French buttercream, and that’s exactly what I did! But this time, I wanted to pipe the French buttercream into a gorgeous floral bouquet.
Yeah, yeah, I know. But really since it’s almost Valentine’s Day, what’s a more creative way to give flowers to your Valentine other than to gift them as an edible delicacy?
And just in case you don’t want to give them in a traditional cupcake box, I made them into a cupcake bouquet of sorts. I saw this on Pinterest and decided to try it, so there’s plenty of room for improvement. For instance, next time I’m either going to bake much larger cupcakes or use much smaller cups for this project. Either way, it’s a really cute idea and I would like to do this again.
Happy eating, y’all!
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