I was just blog hopping and Meg at "Whatever" posted this today: http://megduerksen.typepad.com/whatever/2010/09/vitamins.html#comments What a great, easy way to make a difference. I'm in, how about you? Have I mentioned how much I LOVE blogging and the community it builds?
(Disclaimer: After I published this, I got to feeling bad about posting this cupcake story along with the link above. Seems sort of self indulgent to post about cupcakes in which I used about 6 eggs, when the kids mentioned in the link above might have only one egg per week. Then I decided I wouldn't unpost it, but I did want to acknowledge the disparity and hopefully it won't offend anyone.)
Now, on to the strawberry cupcakes I attempted the other day - using the Sprinkles recipe that was posted on the Martha Stewart website.
They looked promising at first and so very PINK. Don't you just love pink?!
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Then it came time to make the frosting which I screwed up. It was a strawberry buttercream and when I mixed it, it was too sweet so I added more butter AFTER it was mixed. BAD IDEA... The butter wasn't quite soft enough, so it never fully blended, the longer I mixed it, the more it started to separate. It didn't look good. I put the entire bowl in the fridge to chill hoping that if it was all the same temperature maybe I could get it to blend together later.
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When I was testing the cupcakes, the toothpick kept coming out with batter on it so I'd leave them in the oven a few more minutes. They ended up being a little dry, so I must have overcooked them. I don't know what happened, normally I am much better at this.
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Oh well ... after cooling, I got the frosting to blend (mostly), and then tried to dress them up with a little colored sugar. But they just weren't right. I wasn't happy with the way they looked or tasted. (Although, that didn't stop me from eating a couple.)