Going into Research Mode

It was fun and difficult "playing bakery" fulfilling actual cupcake orders. I've learned to be more organized, planning out orders a few weeks in advance. I've discovered the limitations of my refrigerator and freezer, which maxes out at 4 dozen cupcakes. I've learned that it's not wise to make creative or technical decisions at ten at night. Above all, I've learned that I need more practice. I need to be able to make my products with consistent results and with consistent high quality. So I may be making the same frosting ten times before I feel I can do it instinctively.
I've also learned that doing kids' parties may not be for me. I love the creative aspect - designing a one of a kind cupcake for the birthday boy/girl. But the gigs are irregular and frankly, I don't know if I can charge much in that market.
Instead, I've decided to target local cafes. Why not sell to businesses that are already established? It's less scary than trying to open my own bakery.
I would like to focus my energy in the next few months on honing my recipes, practicing, and coming up with some fall flavors. My first challenge: pumpkin. Stay tuned...

Butterfly Cupcake

butterflyCupcake
Originally uploaded by ACFred

Another first birthday - one of my playgroup mom's daughter Eden turning 1 year old. 1 1/2 dozen chocolate cream cheese cupcakes and 1 1/2 dozen strawberry cupcakes. I thought it would be a cinch. But yet again, it took 4 1/2 hours, working until 11:30pm. Most of the time was spent designing the personalized cupcake for the birthday girl. The original design was overtaken by a new design, which I thought of later. In my original design, I used a 4 petal flower cookie cutter to create a butterfly shape. Rolled fondant cut-out again - i feel like it's such a crutch, but fondant is so clean and holds up against the elements so well.
Although I stayed up just as late as for the other orders, I wasn't as stressed out. I felt pretty confident about the results. Again, the presentation was not what I had originally designed. I wanted to do more fondant flower cutouts but as the evening progressed, three flowers became two, then two became one. Sometimes simpler is better.

Debut of the Mini

Many tasters of my cupcakes requested and suggested that I do mini cupcakes. Give the people what they want, right? The mini cupcakes had their debut at my moms club playgroup meeting - the second combined playgroup-cupcake tasting event last Friday.
I had prepared the components of the mini cupcakes two weeks in advance. On the suggestion of the moms, I did a lemon cupcake and a chocolate raspberry cupcake. I wanted to have more "adult" flavors (containing alcohol) so I did a mocha cupcake with Kahlua syrup and Tiramisu cupcake with marsala syrup. Tiramisu was suggested by my cousin Terry. I think it should be included as one of my core cupcakes; Tiramisu is one of the most popular desserts.
The lemon cupcake was the easiest: lemon cake, cream cheese frosting, a drizzle of lemon curd, clear sugar crystals. Each component I've done before but never put them together. I was very happy with the taste. The lemon cake has a real (not artificial) light lemon flavor. The cream cheese frosting had both tang and sweetness and the lemon curd had a strong lemon taste and sweetess to balance it. I have to say presentation was lacking. My cream cheese frosting is a bit sticky and runny and doesn't allow for clean piping. Next time I will decrease the proportion of cream cheese. The clear sugar crystals gave the cupcake some interesting crunch.
The chocolate cupcake with raspberry frosting was the second easiest. Chocolate and raspberry is a classic combination. I was doing raspberry frosting for the first time. But fairly confident that it would be yummy - I used my strawberry frosting recipe (one of my most popular frostings) and substituted the strawberries for raspberries. It worked beautifully. Then topped it with a fresh raspberry. As expected, this cupcake was a winner too. The flavor of the raspberry frosting and the rich chocolate taste of the cake were equally matched.
The mocha cupcake was originally supposed to be a coffee cupcake. The coffee frosting that I made was unsatisfactory, I think, because I used an inferior instant coffee to flavor it. I had made mocha frosting a few months ago and I remember it being pretty good, so opted to do mocha instead. It's made up of chocolate, heavy cream and espresso powder. With so few ingredients, I had to make them count. I already had a reliable dark chocolate which I use all the time. Heavy cream - there is not much variation there in terms of taste. It seemed I've looked every where for espresso powder - Safeway, Whole Foods, Starbucks. Then when I went to get the raspberries for the chocolate raspberry cupcakes at another local Whole Foods-type market, I found the espresso powder and it was the brand that my chef instructor had recommended.

Chocolate is a pretty strong flavor which might overpower the coffee flavor, so I decided to brush some Kahlua simple syrup on the cupcakes before frosting them. The final product was very chocolatey, but can't say I tasted any coffee flavor. I've heard that coffee accentuates/complements chocolate nicely. Perhaps more espresso powder in the frosting next time. I also added a little Dutch-processed cocoa, intended to give the frosting a darker color, but didn't seem to have that effect. Next time, no cocoa which may further allow the coffee flavor to come through.
The tiramisu cupcake was to be my exciting new flavor. I found a recipe online for marscapone frosting which contains marscapone, heavy cream, marsala, powdered sugar. Marscapone AND heavy cream TOGETHER?!! It cannot go wrong! And it didn't. This frosting was yummy straight out of the gate - no adjustments. I brushed the cupcakes with some marsala simple syrup, piped a swirl of marscapone frosting and sprinkled with chocolate shavings. The frosting is what made it.

The previous night assembly of the cupcakes took 4 hours. I was able to fit two trays of cupcakes in 9" X 13" box. I carefully engineered the top tray by using Laura's empty plastic Gerber containers as stands. I had at least 2 dozen of each flavor - anticipating that there would be about 10 moms at the playgroup - each getting 2 minis per flavor. By the way, about 4-5 mini cupcakes equals one standard size cupcake.
Unfortunately, many babies were sick and couldn't make the playgroup. In total, 4 moms showed up INCLUDING me. They were impressed and loved them and the fact they were minis. Tiramisu and Mocha were the favorites.

Since not many moms showed up, I had a lot of cupcakes left over. After the playgroup, disappointed that there wasn't a larger turnout, I immediately call Alec telling him that I'm sending over cupcakes. That day, his company had a beer bash and before everyone arrived, he very neatly and orderly laid out my cupcakes on the dessert table. The cupcakes won out over the store bought birthday cake that lay next to them - one lady had to personally serve the cake in order to get rid of it. My favorite comment was from Alec's coworker, Carlo who said about the mocha cupcake, "This is what I would change about it...nothing." Now, I can say it was worth all the work.

Doh! Nice Recovery

My second order, another 1st birthday: 1-1/2 dozen chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and 1-1/2 dozen lemon cupcakes with vanilla frosting, blueberry and strawberry sauce, topped with strawberries and blueberries. The fact that the latter has such a long name is a clue of how difficult it was. I thought it was so well planned. I made all the components in advance - cupcakes, frostings, sauces.
Assembling the chocolate cupcakes was almost too easy. I finished them after Alec gave Laura a bath and read her bedtime stories - about an hour.

The lemon cupcakes took almost 4 hours, working from 9pm - 1am. One of the slow downs was the sauces. I had frozen them, then thawed them. It seemed the water separated from the sauces and it was all lumpy. So I reheated them in a sauce pan until it was homogenous. And like last time, little chunks of berry got stuck in the squeeze bottle spout, which slowed my work down.

The most unbelievable part was just as I am about to add the final sauce swirl to the frosted lemon cupcakes, I take the box of cupcakes out of the frigerator and set it on the counter and turn back to the frigerator to soften the slam of the frig door, as not to wake up Laura. Only I didn't set the entire box on the counter and the box topples to the floor. I can't believe what just happened.

Surprisingly when I opened the box, none of the cupcakes looked very damaged, only that the strawberries had fallen off and a couple blueberries got smushed. I had extra berries, so I could easily replace them. Ok, not a catastrophe. I resume saucing but am a little unnerved at the accident and tired because it's way past my bedtime. I drizzle a swirly pattern of sauce on the cupcakes and they don't turn out exactly as I had envisioned. Since I used a round tip to make a smooth soft-serve-ice cream-like swirl for frosting, the sauce does not have enough grooves to cling to the frosting, so some sauce dribbles messily down. I am not happy but am too tired to care. And as usual I ask myself "why am I doing this?"
I go to bed unsatisfied and disappointed in my work. Of course, I can't fall asleep because I'm thinking about how horrified my client will be when they see the cupcakes.

The next morning I wake up to Laura whimpering, look at the clock - 6:30am. I didn't get much sleep but enough to realize that I can't present those lemon cupcakes as is. The customer is supposed to come to pick up the order at 9am, I consider a total redo of the frosting. Can I do it in less than 2 hours? Yes, I can do it! I get up, quickly feed Laura and myself. It's 7:30am by the time I start new frosting, which I whip up in 15 minutes. I inspect the sauces to ensure they are of good consistency and there is enough to do 1 1/2 dozen cupcakes. All components are done for a decorating redo. I carefully detach the frosting from the lemon cupcakes and fortunately, they practically come off in one piece and somewhat cleanly. This time I use a star tip and make zig zags across the cupcake - proper groovage. Then I drizzle the sauces along the same zig zag path. Another small rose of frosting in the center. Top with two slices of strawberries and a blueberry. It looks good, yes! And no sign that they were ever messed up. I finish redecorating the cupcakes by 8:37am and have time to spare for clean up.

Lesson learned: be more careful transfering the product. The silver lining was that the second rendition of the lemon cupcakes was better. I'll have to accept that I'll make mistakes. I suppose the mistakes are not always a reflection of my ability - the challenge is figuring out how to recover from them.