The Best Cupcakes I Have Ever Made
A long time ago, I saw this picture of a cupcake:
A mocha cupcake with mocha ganache and mascarpone cream. And I decided that I must make that cupcake. But it’s quite an involved cupcake, one that I needed a worthy occasion. Clearly, my birthday was just such an occasion. So, on Monday night I embarked on an epic journey of cupcake, ganache and mascarpone cream making. It took me most of the night – no doubt this was not helped by the fact that I was chatting online at the same time – and I had a near catastrophe when I put the first batch ((the recipe makes 30 cupcakes and I only have 24 cupcakes worth of space in my muffin tins, so I had to bake them in two batches)) of cupcakes into the oven before the oven was preheated. Thankfully, the cupcakes baked just fine, despite their premature entry into the oven.
In the picture that I’d originally seen (above), the cupcakes were baked espresso cups – the idea being that it would look like a coffee with foam on top. Very cute. But could I find little paper espresso cups ANYWHERE?? No, of course not. So I decided to just make mine regular cupcake style ((if anyone knows where I can buy little paper espresso cups in the Greater Vancouver area, let me know! These cupcakes were such a hit I will definitely be making them again.))
Since I love to bake and I work in an office with people who love to eat, I often bring my baked goods to work, which allows me to enjoy baking without having to eat 30 cupcakes in one sitting. And generally when I bring baked goods to work, I get a lot of compliments. But the reaction to these cupcakes was above and beyond anything I’ve seen before. You know that thing that people do when they are eating exquisitely delicious food and they instinctively close their eyes to savour it? They were doing that. People were raving about these cupcakes for *days*. A few people told me that I should open a bakery. And several people asked for the recipe and then after I gave it to them, they said, “oh my god, these are complicated!”
For those interested, you can find the recipe for these cupcakes here. You should note that the recipe made about twice as much mascarpone cream than I needed for thirty cupcakes – which, if I’d thought about it, should have been obvious. I mean, two cups of mascarpone cheese plus two cups of whipping cream (that’s two cups *before* it’s even whipped!) was obviously going to make a hell of a lot of cream! In fact, I still have a container full of it in my fridge! So I’d recommend only making about half of what it calls for. And given that mascarpone cream is ungodly expensive, so only having to buy half as much = win!
Image Credit: First picture of the cupcake was posted by chotda on Flickr. The other picture is by me!
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Um, yum!!