Springtime Cupcakes

In celebration of my last day of law school classes - ever - I decided to make cupcakes for my fellow classmates. I wanted to do something springy, so I decided on yellow cupcakes with lemon cream cheese frosting topped with the peppermint marshmallows described below. I’m happy to say, the final product was as tasty as I’d hoped!

I used the one-bowl yellow cake recipe from Apartment Therapy’s The Kitchn website, which I highly recommend. I will advise, though, that you don’t want to let the tops of these cupcakes turn brown. Make sure you pull the cupcakes out as soon as they’re done, but while they’re still light yellow on top. I think that the texture created by the browning doesn’t really work well on frosted cupcakes - it’s too crusty and crunchy and ends up making the tender cake underneath it fall apart when you bite into it. As long as you pull the cake out on time though, it’s really a wonderful recipe, and so easy! It can be found here: http://www.thekitchn.com/thekitchn/diy-recipe/recipe-diy-yellow-cake-014637

Bald cupcakes in cute outfits:

Here’s my recipe for lemon cream cheese frosting. I kind of winged it when I made it, but I think this is a fairly close approximation; it will be enough to frost about 2 dozen cupcakes:

• 1 8-oz pkg cream cheese, softened
• 1/4 cup butter, softened (half a stick - though next time i would actually use the whole stick; i just ran out this time around)
• zest of half a large lemon (feel free to use more or less to taste)
• juice of half a large lemon (again, to taste)
• approx. 3 cups powdered sugar, sifted (if you’re not too lazy to sift - i usually am…)
• pinch or two of salt

1. Cream together butter and cream cheese.

2. Add salt, lemon juice, and zest, beat until blended and smooth.

3. Beat in powdered sugar - I usually do it about a cup at a time - until you’ve reached desired consistency. You may end up using significantly more or less, depending on your goal.

So when I made it, the frosting was a bit runny. But it sets up once it’s been refrigerated or even just after sitting out for a little while. If you don’t use it immediately after making it, make sure to stir it up until it has returned to its original consistency before you try spreading it. If you want a more solid frosting (easier to work with when decorating and piping), substitute butter-flavored shortening for half the butter that you plan to use. In fact, using more butter (I mentioned this in the ingredients list above) may actually fix this problem.

The Final Product!

My First Marshmallows!

Making marshmallows seems to be all the rage in the baking/dessert-making blogging community these days. Or perhaps just on the ones I happen to read? Whatever the case, I’ve been wanting to try my hand at it for quite awhile now, and I finally got around to it last week. It’s a pretty simple process, though it does take a good deal of time. But I really enjoyed it, and definitely plan to do it again soon

As a base, I used the recipe for basic vanilla marshmallows found here: http://www.browniepointsblog.com/2006/04/15/basic-vanilla-marshmallows/

To flavor them, I added about 4-5 drops of pure peppermint oil to the water/vanilla mixture before sprinkling the gelatin over it. I would recommend using all of the vanilla called for by the recipe; the flavored oil should be an addition, not a substitution. I also swirled green food coloring through them to make them a bit more festive, and rolled the sides in granulated vanilla sugar (instead of plain powdered sugar) to add a little crunch and extra flavor.

And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for: the pictures!

Boiling the sugar syrup:

Very beginning of the whipping process; right after I added the syrup to the gelatin:

Midway through the whipping process (about 5 minutes in):

End of whipping process (about 10 minutes):

Freshly poured slab, smoothed with an oiled offset spatula:

Beginning the swirling process:

Swirling completed:

Slab flipped over and dusted with powdered sugar for cutting:

The biscuit cutter I used to make the rounds:

The cutting process:

Connect 4, anyone?

The final product!