cupcakes

They're trying to be cats.


Inspired by the work of Karen Tack and Alan Richardson seen in this book. They don't actually replicate anything in the book, those are much more precise, it's just inspired by it. In fact, when I tried to obey instructions in the book, filling a zip-lock and fitting it with piping tip, the bag exploded open at the bottom instead of flowing through the tip. Cheap ass bags. So I go, "Screw this. I'll make the kitties fluffy without the piping tip." For the decoration I used what was available in the candy aisle at the King Soopers where I got the cake and frosting mix, which was meager. Fruit roll for the tongue, mini M&Ms for eyes, coated peanuts for the nose. I used white chocolate that I already had for the ears. I melted it, daubed it onto parchment paper and froze it for a few minutes to set.


I looked for white chocolate discs for kitty cheeks and black licorice string for the mouth but couldn't find them. I didn't feel like pouring white chocolate discs so I just left them off, and piped chocolate ganache through a pin hole in the corner of a zip lock bag for the bit between the nose and the tongue. Ganache made in a ramakin, a slight handful of chocolate chips and a splash of milk heated to melting in the microwave.

Do know what I noticed? Cake mix is dreadfully inexpensive. This surprised me. The thing is, low protein cake flour is rather expensive, as far as flour goes. I almost used that since I already have it on hand and it would have been just as easy to create my own cake mix as it is to adjust a box mix. The flour used in these cake mixes is definitely low protein and yet it is so cheap. This perplexes me. I suppose it's because you only get a couple of cups of flour in a box mix. But then, cocoa isn't exactly cheap either. Conclusion: cake mixes are a fantastic deal. These cupcakes turned out exceedingly light and fluffy. If you were to smash one, it would reduce to the size of a pea. Or possibly it would reduce to the size of a pea pod. OK FINE! It would compress to the size of several pea pods, if the pods were the fat kind of pea pods, and a little bit on the big side. The point is, the cake is extraordinarily light. AP flour would have a much denser crumb, and bread flour would be most uncupcake-like and you wouldn't be instructed to blend it for several minutes either, because that would develop the gluten present in greater quantity in the higher protein AP and even more so in bread flour. I say all this to emphasize the different increments of protein in various types of flour, and the effect of increased gluten. You don't want gluten to develop in cakes, but you do want gluten to develop in bread.