Look at the pretty colours!!

I wanted to give Rainbow Buttercream a go today, so decided to make a test batch of cupcakes for Bens party (a week and a half to go and he isn't sure what to have, I think its a case of too much choice!) in the hope he'd say 'can we have them Mum'.  He liked the look of them, but, wasn't sold on making a final choice.  So the hunt continues.  If I could think of something easy in a Hot Wheels or Ben 10 theme, I'd have done it by now *sigh*.

If you're wondering how to re-create this icing, its actually quite simple.  Which brings me to a side rant about intellectual property, skills and ideas.  Recently I was witness to a display of irony that left me speechless, a fellow baking devotee who has decided to venture into business with her various efforts was bemoaning the theft of her various cupcake 'ideas'.  Apparently a competitor has set up within a stones throw of her, offering very similar products to what she is, and that is, by her account, the work of the debbil himself.  I didn't have the heart to point out to her that this unsuspecting soul probably got her 'ideas' from the same places online that she did, and, that there are hundreds of places selling very similar designs and flavours.  She stole from you, you stole from someone else, not one of us has an original thought, and, if we do, chances are someone else out there has already come up with it, or done something just like it.  In the world of cupcakes, cookies and baked treats, you're going to be pushing a fat lady up a steep incline to prove intellectual ownership of something.

How does Rainbow Buttercream factor into this?  Well, debbil woman thinks she is some sort of hero for making this stuff, and, she's not.  A couple of people asked her for some tips to make it themselves, and she ignored them.  I know how to make it, I'm in the mood for sharing, so, here it is.

You will need 1 unit of Buttercream to begin, this will give you enough frosting for 2 dozen cupcakes. 

Basic Vanilla Buttercream Frosting
Ingredients
125g Butter
125g Copha
4 Cups Icing Mixture
1 teaspoon Vanilla Essence
2 Tablespoons Milk

Once the Buttercream is prepared

separate into at least 3 bowls evenly.

Tint the 3 bowls with food colouring, I chose Rose Pink

Blue

and Yellow.

 Next, trusty piping bag and star nozzle come out to play.  The secret to the rainbow icing is just loading up your bag, spoonful at a time, with the different coloured Buttercreams

then swirl in pretty colours to your hearts content.

Up yours debbil woman!!

The letter of the day is P.

Proudly brought to you by the three 'P's - Pica, Peppermint & Pupil Free Day.

Pica, is the name of the disorder that my youngest two seem to have. Whilst Kyla is happy munching down on toilet paper (only fresh, not used I assure you!), Zeke likes the taste of dirt, but, worse than that, is his addiction to foam.

Over the last 6 months, the kitchen cupboard under the sink has returned to 'defense' mode. The re-introduction of kiddie proof locks on the cupboard has seen a huge improvement in thefts and vandalism, however today, someone (and I won't point fingers, its probably me after all) forgot to put the lock back on.



The result of this horrific parental oversight, is what we in the industry call an 'ergonomic sponge'.

Cleverly designed holes for your fingers give you the ability to really get down deep to the filth and grime, giving you cleaner dishes and well-scrubbed counters.

$3.95 a pack of 3. I just hope one day Demand will exceed Supply.

Our other wonderful sponsor is Peppermint. I have a couple of Peppermint Crisps in the fridge, had a cupcake idea, and so begins our foray into baking for today.

First, I wanted to use a really scrumptious and moist cake for the base of the cupcake. I opted to go with my fail safe, super moist and always well received Chocolate Cake for the base.

Moist Chocolate Cake
Ingredients
125g Butter
125g Caster Sugar
40g Sifted Icing Sugar
2 Eggs
1 teaspoon Vanilla
80g Jam
155g Self Raising Flour
60g Cocoa
1 teaspoon bicarb soda
250ml Milk


Now, before we start on the 'how to' of the recipe, just in case you want to give this a try yourself, over at Chez Kate we're...

...cookin' with Gas.  Gas fan forced oven to be exact, so factor that in when it comes to baking times.

Time to bake that chocolate cake. First, preheat the oven to about 170 degrees celcius. In a large bowl, combine the softened butter, icing mixture and sugar. Beat together until light and creamy.


Add the eggs at this point, one at a time, continuing to mix through each addition. Add the jam and vanilla, then dissolve the bicarb soda in the milk (just pop it in, stir it around a bit) and gradually add to the bowl the milk, flour and cocoa. You can add alternatively whilst mixing to avoid splashing and puffs of flour, or pop it all in at once and mix slowly and carefully. I opted for the latter this time :-



Next, mix well until the batter resembles something similar to chocolate mousse.


This takes about 2-3 minutes on a medium ish speed on my mixer. Its a $49 'Poor People Can Bake Too' Aldi Sale special that seems to really not have any clear slow setting. I mean, there are numerals that arbitrarily relate to parts of the adjustable dial, but, if you're not supervising this mixer on setting 1, you'll be cleaning flecks of butter rolled in sugar from places you only imagined. Setting 1's speed also sounds suspiciously as fast as settings 2 through to 6, but move it to 7 and beyond, and, you'll think you're attending the breaking of the land speed record by a motorized wheelchair.

Hence my KitchenAid lust. I saw one today and was underwhelmed, but I'll bet that thing at least has speeds that are measurably different. For $49 though, this last paragraph of whinging aside, I won't complain about my Aldi bargain. Its been a good mixer, hasn't died after 12 months of abuse so hey, its a win in my books. It did originally come with two glass bowls though, this large one, and, a smaller one that was great for whipping up small batches of icings and the like. I broke the smaller one showcasing my inability to retain basic scientific core values (don't place cold glass into hot liquid, lol how Science 101 reject is that for ya!) and mourn its passing every day.

Oops, rambling. Sorry.

Get your muffin trays out, some patty liners




Fill each patty cup about 1/2 way or so, you don't need to be overly generous as this cake has a tendency to rise up then sink back.  Overflow = big mess and bad news.






Into the oven they go. After about 10 minutes, I turn the trays and drop the heat right back. My oven loves to burn the arse right out of things though. You don't want to overcook this mix, so drop the temp by at least 20 degrees here, at the very least.

After another 15-20 minutes, your cupcakes should hopefully look like this




sinking slightly in the middle, but if you feel the outer diameter, it will feel more like springy cake. As you can see, I got 24 cupcakes out of this mixture. I used every last drop of mixture




Let the cupcakes cool for at least an hour, two is better.

In the meantime, make yourself useful and pull out two Peppermint Crisp bars. Holding a spoon by the very end, whack the crap out of it while it is still in its wrapper




and place the 'bits' to one side in a bowl.




Next, its time for some of the Buttercream frosting. Once you've made up the base buttercream, divide the mixture into two bowls. In the first one, we're going to place about half a teaspoon of Peppermint Essence and a splash of green food colouring (and of course the 1 Tablespoon of Milk at this point).




Mix until you get a nice even colour and consistency.

Now for the chocolate. In the other bowl, place about half a cup of Cocoa Powder and a Tablespoon of Milk.





Mix away until combined well.

Next, take your piping bag and large star nozzle (oh, star nozzle, my limited piping experience loves you), two clean spoons and start loading up your piping bag in an extra special way...







The technique you're aiming for here is 'a little bit of this and a little bit of that', alternate the chocolate buttercream and peppermint buttercream. One spoonful at a time.

Next, take a piece of paper towel or a napkin and start to squeeze the buttercream creation until you see the colours combined




In this photo above, you'll see to the right that the mixture initially came out only chocolate, but, the peppermint began to seep through very quickly after.

Now attack those cupcakes!







Next, apply some of your crushed Peppermint Crisp:-






Repeat 23 times, unless you drop one, or one is stolen before you get to it. Either way, the buttercream recipe covers 24, no leftovers, I didn't kick myself because I'd made too much or too little. A very rousing success.







These will be going to the teachers at the boys school for morning tea tomorrow. I really appreciate Pupil Free Days, and this is my special thank you to them for making such a special occasion possible. The absence of a school run gave me two extra hours in my day today, which really, makes the whole production above possible.

The taste test verdict - SCRUMPTIOUS!!




Its hard to capture how moist the chocolate cake is, but, take my word for it!






Demolition in record time!

The cost - these came in at around 38c per cupcake, not bad!

The Cupcake Bouquet

So today I continued on a little further with the making of the cupcake bouquet.  I'd planned to have more done by now, but, 4 small children have a way of upsetting the best laid plans so for now, I'm still 'getting there'.  Tomorrow is a pupil free day for the school aged kids, so, I'm calling this an official three day weekend, and therefore, I have not failed to meet my deadline.  Plus, its only 7pm, and sleep is for the weak, right!?!

Anyway, back to the cupcake bouquet. These are the little suckers I baked yesterday.  I baked them in pretty coloured liners (not visible in this picture, lol), to help with the 'colourfulness' (if that is even a word) of the finished product.

Today was buttercream and piping time.  I decided to go with two colours, again, to enhance the whole 'colourfulness' I was trying to get going on.

The Buttercream Recipe
125g Copha
125g Unsalted Butter
1 teaspoon Vanilla Essence
4 Cups Pure Icing Sugar
2 Tablespoons of Milk


Cream together the Copha and Unsalted butter until light and fluffy.  Add the vanilla and then begin gradually adding the sifted icing sugar.  Beat well the entire time, scraping down the sides of the bowl regularly.  When all the icing sugar has been mixed in, it will be very thick and stiff.

At this point, I halved the mixture and added a Tablespoon of Milk to one bowl, then, some Rose Pink colouring and Strawberry Essence.

Now, here is where you'll see the separation of the 'trained' cooks, and, me.  I'm self taught. Well, I did do a 4 week course many moons back when we bought a franchise and learnt to ice donuts, but, the course was 6 weeks long (I am such a quitter, lol) and the people teaching it didn't really give a rats if you did a good job or not, they had your $$$ already and acted accordingly.  But, I digress.  What I want people reading this to understand is that I don't use technical terms, I don't have all the latest flashy equipment, and I have no formal training.  So when I use incorrect terms for utensils, or, guess at what they might be, go easy on me!  I also have limited tools, am slowly gaining an appreciation for so many more, but, as I'm self taught with everything, this takes a lot longer than your average baking blog queen.

Back to the task at hand...

Whipped it until it was light and fluffy and the colour was consistent  (scraping the bowl down a few times along the way is a given) then pulled out the trusty Loyal piping bag and a large star nozzle and began to load up ready for action

Simple swirl, going from the outside to the inside on top of each cupcake

Repeat, repeat, repeat, stuff up a few, repeat, repeat, repeat.  Put aside the good ones

And pop them in the fridge.

Next, the Banana Buttercream.  Again I added a Tablespoon of Milk, plus some Banana Essence.

Once it was whipped, again I loaded up a clean piping bag then began the process of swirling once more, this time in yellow.

As you can see I opted to pipe the yellow icing onto the cupcakes in the pink liners, and the pink icing on the cupcakes in the green liners.  Colourfulness.  That's the word (that's not a word) here today people.  I like bright, it cheers people up, and if I don't anchor these suckers into the styrofoam ball correctly, the colour might be the only thing to bring a smile to the face of whoever is the lucky recipient of my bouquet (I'm betting my neighbour, who just dropped off a massive box of washing powder she picked up on special for me) as the cupcakes on the sides drop off.  The top will save it.  It will take serious movement for those to topple, but, I worry about the sides...