Yes, too many days after posting about it, I finally made my cupcakes! They frustrated me a bit, and I plan on making a second batch today with a tweaked recipe. I'll post the recipes after making the second batch, with a full comparison. :)
For the first batch though, I used a "Silver Cake" recipe by Betty Crocker - it's an older white cake recipe, and I have a fondness for older recipes, because let's be honest, they tend to taste better! Both this recipe and the frosting use real butter, and I don't think you'd get the same experience if you use margarine.
As for how they came out, the cake was a tad more flour-y (my fault!) and less sweet (their fault!) than I care for. The flour issue was due to my laziness/impatience, however. The recipe calls for sifted flour, and I of course didn't bother to sift it, so I'm sure there was a lot more flour than I should've had in the cake. My "tweaked" recipe that I'm going to be trying today will reduce the amount of flour to try and compensate for the lack of sifting. I will also be increasing the sugar a bit, but this cake is NOT bad by ANY means. If you've ever tried a sour cream cake, the flavor is very reminiscent of it.
As for the chocolate fudge frosting... OMG, this stuff is decadence itself, and absolutely to DIE for! You'll want to use it on anything and everything you can possibly get your hands on! My original recipe states that it will frost a 2-layer 8" round cake, however I think after making my cupcakes, you would have to put a 1/2" thick layer over the entire cake to use all the frosting it makes! It is also super chocolatey, thick, and rich, but extremely addictive. <-- This is coming from someone who, most of the time will say, "Chocolate? Oh, no thanks," because I really don't eat a lot of chocolate. I couldn't keep away from this stuff! The chocolate frosting recipe is actually a Cake Boss recipe I found, and I will be posting it along with a few "tweaks" that I made to it as well. :) Today, I'll probably reduce the recipe to half, just because there really was WAY too much for the number of cupcakes I had.
With that said, I'll post my other pictures from the cupcake making journey (sorry there are so few, I'm honestly not used to documenting my cooking experiences yet! LOL!) and then I'll update in a bit with the recipes and adjustments made, as well as the comparison of the finished products, which is the part I'm *really* looking forward to! :P
For the first batch though, I used a "Silver Cake" recipe by Betty Crocker - it's an older white cake recipe, and I have a fondness for older recipes, because let's be honest, they tend to taste better! Both this recipe and the frosting use real butter, and I don't think you'd get the same experience if you use margarine.
As for how they came out, the cake was a tad more flour-y (my fault!) and less sweet (their fault!) than I care for. The flour issue was due to my laziness/impatience, however. The recipe calls for sifted flour, and I of course didn't bother to sift it, so I'm sure there was a lot more flour than I should've had in the cake. My "tweaked" recipe that I'm going to be trying today will reduce the amount of flour to try and compensate for the lack of sifting. I will also be increasing the sugar a bit, but this cake is NOT bad by ANY means. If you've ever tried a sour cream cake, the flavor is very reminiscent of it.
As for the chocolate fudge frosting... OMG, this stuff is decadence itself, and absolutely to DIE for! You'll want to use it on anything and everything you can possibly get your hands on! My original recipe states that it will frost a 2-layer 8" round cake, however I think after making my cupcakes, you would have to put a 1/2" thick layer over the entire cake to use all the frosting it makes! It is also super chocolatey, thick, and rich, but extremely addictive. <-- This is coming from someone who, most of the time will say, "Chocolate? Oh, no thanks," because I really don't eat a lot of chocolate. I couldn't keep away from this stuff! The chocolate frosting recipe is actually a Cake Boss recipe I found, and I will be posting it along with a few "tweaks" that I made to it as well. :) Today, I'll probably reduce the recipe to half, just because there really was WAY too much for the number of cupcakes I had.
With that said, I'll post my other pictures from the cupcake making journey (sorry there are so few, I'm honestly not used to documenting my cooking experiences yet! LOL!) and then I'll update in a bit with the recipes and adjustments made, as well as the comparison of the finished products, which is the part I'm *really* looking forward to! :P
5:08 pm Edit:
I finally finished the new batch of cupcakes, and I personally am MUCH more satisfied with them. They're far softer, have a better, slightly sweeter flavor (in my opinion), and they overall just seemed to come out better. I'm following this blurb with the original recipes, with my changes (in parenthesis) within the recipe, so you can see the changes I made to adjust things. Incidentally, I had *intended* on making a halved recipe of the chocolate fudge frosting, and after halving the butter, promptly flaked out and forgot to halve the rest of the ingredients. Honestly, I think it came out better than the original! :) Just goes to show you that occasionally, there are happy mistakes in cooking/baking! I'm just lucky this was one of them!
Betty Crocker Silver White Cake
Let me say that with my changes the cupcakes were much lighter, fluffier, springier, and they had a much better flavor! Still not overly sweet, but a little sweeter than the original recipe.
Decadent Dark Chocolate Fudge Frosting
*For a creamier frosting, use milk instead of water. Makes about 4 cups, or enough to fill and frost a 9-inch cake.
Put butter in bowl of stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment. Paddle on low speed (2) until smooth, no lumps, approximately 3 minutes. With motor running, add sugar one cup at a time, adding each additional cup only after the first is absorbed into butter. Stop machine and add cocoa, vanilla, and salt. Paddle on low-medium speed until completely smooth, approximately 2 minutes. Add water (cream) and continue to paddle until light and fluffy, 2-3 minutes. Frosting should keep up to 2 days in an airtight container at room temperature.
Keep in mind that while the recipe says "light and fluffy" (and granted, it is "fluffy"!) this is a very, VERY rich, decadent frosting, and if you add the extra cocoa like I did, you'll get an even richer chocolate flavor. I used Hershey's cacao powder, as it seems less bitter to me than Nestle's for frosting, and adding cream instead of water will give you a really nice milk chocolate fudgy flavor to the frosting. It is excellent paired with white cake, and would be extremely indulgent with a chocolate cake! Even accidentally reducing/halving only the butter and leaving the other ingredients at their full amounts, I still had just enough frosting to ice my cupcakes, however if you are doing round cakes, you will definitely want to use the full amount of butter. To be honest, it tastes the same to me either way. :) It also crusts nicely after a few hours, without becoming too brittle, and retains the moisture of the cake very well as well!
I finally finished the new batch of cupcakes, and I personally am MUCH more satisfied with them. They're far softer, have a better, slightly sweeter flavor (in my opinion), and they overall just seemed to come out better. I'm following this blurb with the original recipes, with my changes (in parenthesis) within the recipe, so you can see the changes I made to adjust things. Incidentally, I had *intended* on making a halved recipe of the chocolate fudge frosting, and after halving the butter, promptly flaked out and forgot to halve the rest of the ingredients. Honestly, I think it came out better than the original! :) Just goes to show you that occasionally, there are happy mistakes in cooking/baking! I'm just lucky this was one of them!
Betty Crocker Silver White Cake
- 2 1/4 C sifted cake flour (1 3/4 C unsifted all-purpose flour)
- 1 1/2 C sugar (1 3/4 C sugar)
- 1tsp salt (I used salted butter instead)
- 3 1/2tsp baking powder
- 1/2C unsalted butter, softened (salted)
- 1/2C milk (half/half cream)
- 2tsp vanilla (I used to taste, probably 3-4tsp)
- 3/4tsp almond extract (I used approx. 1-1 1/4tsp)
- 4 large egg whites
Let me say that with my changes the cupcakes were much lighter, fluffier, springier, and they had a much better flavor! Still not overly sweet, but a little sweeter than the original recipe.
Decadent Dark Chocolate Fudge Frosting
*For a creamier frosting, use milk instead of water. Makes about 4 cups, or enough to fill and frost a 9-inch cake.
- 2 1/2C (5 sticks) unsalted butter, softened (2 1/2 sticks, salted butter)
- 5C powdered sugar
- 2/3C cocoa (approx. 1C)
- 1tbsp vanilla extract (approx. 1 1/2, - I always add extra vanilla to things!)
- 1/4 tsp fine sea salt
- 3tbsp lukewarm water (heavy cream, added to desired consistency)
Put butter in bowl of stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment. Paddle on low speed (2) until smooth, no lumps, approximately 3 minutes. With motor running, add sugar one cup at a time, adding each additional cup only after the first is absorbed into butter. Stop machine and add cocoa, vanilla, and salt. Paddle on low-medium speed until completely smooth, approximately 2 minutes. Add water (cream) and continue to paddle until light and fluffy, 2-3 minutes. Frosting should keep up to 2 days in an airtight container at room temperature.
Keep in mind that while the recipe says "light and fluffy" (and granted, it is "fluffy"!) this is a very, VERY rich, decadent frosting, and if you add the extra cocoa like I did, you'll get an even richer chocolate flavor. I used Hershey's cacao powder, as it seems less bitter to me than Nestle's for frosting, and adding cream instead of water will give you a really nice milk chocolate fudgy flavor to the frosting. It is excellent paired with white cake, and would be extremely indulgent with a chocolate cake! Even accidentally reducing/halving only the butter and leaving the other ingredients at their full amounts, I still had just enough frosting to ice my cupcakes, however if you are doing round cakes, you will definitely want to use the full amount of butter. To be honest, it tastes the same to me either way. :) It also crusts nicely after a few hours, without becoming too brittle, and retains the moisture of the cake very well as well!