I made these for a July 4th cookout, although that's probably obvious. I was going to decorate them with adorable little stars and stripes and get patriotic cupcake liners, but as usual I got behind schedule. I didn't even start these until the morning of the party.
I'm trying to perfect an easy, nearly foolproof cupcake recipe. This wasn't it. They were okay, but I screwed up the flavoring. I wanted to make a lemon cupcake with a cream cheese/white chocolate icing that had a hint of lemon. Even though I used lemon zest and lemon extract in the cakes, they didn't taste all that lemony. I haven't had much success with making a real lemony cupcake or layer cake, although I have had some luck with lemon pound cake. I'll need to revisit the pound cake recipe to see what might make these better.
The texture in these was awesome, however, with a smooth, even and small crumb. They were moist, too. I'd give myself a B- on these overall. They were surely better than the grocery store cakes that others brought to the cookout. I probably spent too much time on these considering the crowd that was at this party, but I did receive several compliments. Naturally a few people asked me where I got them (obviously they don't know me very well).
One aspect of these that will remain as I develop the recipe is that they use what is called the "high ratio" method. The name, although it comes from the type of shortening that is used in many commercial bakeries, actually describes the technique. Instead of creaming together the butter and
sugar first to create aeration, you mix the butter with the flour and leavening agents. The photo at right shows the crumbs that develop after this step - no
dry flour should remain. It looks a little like pastry dough. After that you add most of the liquid (usually eggs and milk), mixing this at high speed for 1 1/2 minutes to develop the gluten a little and provide the aeration. The rest of the liquid is added after the high speed mixing and the entire batter is whipped a little
longer. Most high ratio recipes are similar, but I need to determine the reason that only part of the liquid is mixed in at first. If I can get away with it, I'd like to put it all in at once to make the recipe even easier. I guess I will have to do some side by side testing. Someone is going to be happy about that; probably my vet's office.
On a related side note, my husband and I just rescued a kitten yesterday. We weren't sure it was going to make it to the hospital - it was in very bad shape. We found it in our friend's backyard, panting and too weak to move, lying in the full sun. We estimated it didn't have much more than an hour or two left. We rushed it to the animal ER (of course this happened on a weekend), where they tested it for a few nasty diseases (all negative so far, two more tests to go) and put it on an IV drip, flea medicine and antibiotics. Today it is at our regular vet's office, resting and getting hydrated. We may be able to pick it up this evening - keep your fingers crossed! We really don't need another cat (this makes 7, all indoor cats), but we couldn't leave it there, nor could we just drop it off and have it put down if there was a decent chance it would make it. It still displays ataxia at moments, but we are hoping that's a result of malnutrition and will go away once the little bugger is properly hydrated and nourished. We named it Lazarus. Photos will appear soon if he survives, which is looking better with each passing hour.
Back to the cupcakes. When you first add the liquid to the creamed flour/butter, it looks very thin. Then a miracle happens (actually, gluten formation happens). After about a minute, the batter starts to thicken, and by the time you are done mixing it's a proper cake batter. I spooned the batter into the mini muffin tins, filling them about 2/3 to 3/4 full. I like my cupcakes to dome a little over the top of the paper which is why I fill them more than most recipes indicate. However, these didn't dome at all (note for next recipe: more baking soda and/or powder), so some of them ended up with large flat tops that wanted to stick to the pan. I trimmed a few with scissors to make them look better.
One funny thing about cakes is that the smaller the pan, the more leavening you have to use. It seems counter-intuitive, but I guess the smaller pans bake faster so you need the leavening to work faster. If I baked this as a layer cake it probably has enough leavening, but for mini-cupcakes it needs a boost.
Back to the drawing--uh--cutting(?) board.