Of recipes and salvaging...

Ask any baker, and they will tell you that part of baking is dealing with things that don't go according to the written recipes. When your baked goodies don't turn out as expected, it's time to find ways to salvage it (if any) and figure what went wrong...

To commemorate the arrival of spring and my last free week before my final exam revision (yes, I'm graduating soon!), I decided to make blueberry cupcakes with cream cheese buttercream. Sad to say, things didn't go as planned and a few mishaps occurred, with one especially because of my own carelessness.

The most critical fault was that the cupcakes were still underbaked. It was also mortifying to find it out only after I finished piping buttercream on them! I altered a recipe I found, but stuck to the prescribed baking time. 

Moral of the story, it pays to be attentive to the baking time when changing a recipe and to be more flexible when following a recipe. Don't merely stick to a number but check for the cupcake's 'doneness' inside, even if the tops look good. (I don't think this applies to sponge cakes though, 'cause you shouldn't poke anything inside; but that's another story...). Yes, it's an extra effort but it will make all the difference.

The taste of the cupcakes was good, and it was such a shame to throw them away...I could salvage it if I want to...but then maybe another day...Anyway, the original recipe is here, but I adapted it below. Luckily, it's not all doom and gloom. Two gems came out of this baking episode. One is the yummy cream cheese buttercream :) I found that you don't have to go through making glucose and using the thermometer to make the buttercream. Dorie Greenspan's method works out fine. And two...scroll down to see ;)

Blueberry Buttermilk Cupcakes

makes 12 

Ingredients
1 1/3 cups of all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
5/6 cup (208g) sugar
1/4 cup (62.5g) butter, room temperature
2 egg whites
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk
100g blueberries 

Method 
1. Preheat oven to 180C, line a 12-muffin tin.
2. Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
3. Cream together the butter and sugar, around 3-5 minutes (depending on your butter's softness).
4. Beat in the egg whites and vanilla thoroughly.
5. Add the flour to the egg mixture, alternating with buttermilk, in two or three additions.
6. Fold in the blueberries.
7. Spoon into the 12 muffin cases.
8. Bake until a tester comes out clean, 20-22 minutes (but bake longer if they're not done).
Cool on a wire rack before frosting. 

Cream Cheese Buttercream

adapted from here

Ingredients

170g butter, room temperature

125g cream cheese, room temperature (more, if you like it 'cheesier')

3 egg whites

1/2 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract 

Method 

1. Put the sugar and the egg whites in a heat-proof bowl and whisk over simmering water, for around 3 minutes, until the mixture is shiny like marshmallow cream.
2. Take it off the water and using a hand-held (stand-up) mixer on medium speed, beat until room temperature, around 5 minutes. 
3. Still on medium speed, add the butter, in 3-4 additions.
4. Add the cream cheese, also in 3-4 additions.
5. Beat the mixture for 6-10 minutes until smooth.
6. Beat in the vanilla extract.

Okay, so the second good thing that came out of this is my cupcake decoration. I tried piping with a ziplock bag and guess what...

A rose! Snip off a bit of the bag's edge and when you squeeze it out, try to get the buttercream out flat. I discovered this by accident. Although it's not the best, I'm quite happy with it. I will still have to practice and perfect it next time :)