Armed with a kitchen full of ingredients, and still buzzing from the hours of romantic tension between Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy on display in X-Men: First Class, I set about making the coffee cupcakes with the type of careless disregard and darn the rules attitude you'd expect from me. And, as you would also expect from me, things went . . . slightly awry. While making the first batch I combined the coffee/cocoa mixture, the buttermilk and baking soda, and the egg in a mixing bowl, then added the flour, salt, and sugar mixture in thirds. The result was a perfectly passable cupcake, if a bit small and dense.
So, armed with the dual weapons of humility and experience, I once again set about making the cupcakes, this time following Ming's actual directions. This time I added the dry ingredients to the mixing bowl first, then mixed in the coffee and cocoa until the mixture was a bit grainy but integrated. Then added the egg and mixed until the mixture was smooth. The buttermilk and baking soda are the last thing to go in, and they mix for only a bit. Doing it this way allows the baking soda, which is producing CO2 in the acidic butter milk and produces a lighter, puffier batter, and thus a lighter and fluffier cupcake.
So, the icing. It's pretty much tastes like Baileys. If you really like Baileys as I do, this isn't a problem, but if you perhaps want to delay your children's adventure in the wonders of alcoholism, you can probably cut the Bailey's with heavy cream or just take the Baileys out all together and replace with heavy cream. My icing was not as runny as the picture. I don't know why, but my process was creaming the butter in the mixing bowl, then adding the liquid ingredients, then adding the powdered sugar one cup at a time until it was integrated in. It was a pretty light, normal icing.
So, armed with the dual weapons of humility and experience, I once again set about making the cupcakes, this time following Ming's actual directions. This time I added the dry ingredients to the mixing bowl first, then mixed in the coffee and cocoa until the mixture was a bit grainy but integrated. Then added the egg and mixed until the mixture was smooth. The buttermilk and baking soda are the last thing to go in, and they mix for only a bit. Doing it this way allows the baking soda, which is producing CO2 in the acidic butter milk and produces a lighter, puffier batter, and thus a lighter and fluffier cupcake.
So, the icing. It's pretty much tastes like Baileys. If you really like Baileys as I do, this isn't a problem, but if you perhaps want to delay your children's adventure in the wonders of alcoholism, you can probably cut the Bailey's with heavy cream or just take the Baileys out all together and replace with heavy cream. My icing was not as runny as the picture. I don't know why, but my process was creaming the butter in the mixing bowl, then adding the liquid ingredients, then adding the powdered sugar one cup at a time until it was integrated in. It was a pretty light, normal icing.
No comments:
Post a Comment