"Cupcake Night"

I never really need an excuse to bake something, so when I noticed a posting for another fundraiser at work, I jumped at it. This way I can bake and decorate and not suffer the consequences of eating all of my creations :). 

I used the same recipe for these that I used in the chocolate cake I made recently, and the icing is a swiss meringue buttercream. Simple enough right? Chocolate cupcakes, icing recipe I'd used before... what could go wrong? 

Well....

Issue #1 - the recipe made way too much batter. I filled 2 regular size cupcake trays and 2 mini cupcake trays - 48 cupcakes total. I put too much batter into the regular cupcake trays so they ended up baking bigger than I wanted. I've since purchased an ice cream scoop that will help me disperse the proper amount of batter per cup.

Issue #2 - the icing was way too soft to decorate with. I may have mentioned before that we like to keep our place fairly warm. We usually have the fireplace on and the thermostat set to about 23 degrees. These are less than optimal conditions for a butter-based icing. I fully intended to open windows and turn down the heat before I started making the icing, but I forgot once I got wrapped up in the baking.

Issue #3 - and probably the one that caused me the most pain...I didn't make enough icing. I knew this just as i finished making a batch and split it into 4 bowls for coloring. It did NOT look like enough to cover 24 regular and 24 mini cupcakes! Making more would have been a pain, so instead I decided to use it 'sparingly'. This was probably the biggest mistake of all. By using it sparingly, I couldn't properly decorate ANY of the cupcakes. I was holding back and not using as much pressure so I could decorate more of them with what I had. The result was less than desirable, and the icing looked messy.

Sigh...

Needless to say, I had a bit of a meltdown that night (I partially blame the full moon). I was so frustrated with these that wanted to toss the whole batch of them. I fully admit that I was completely irrational, but I didn't want people to think my cupcakes were sub-par. Well no one did, and they were the first to sell out at the bake sale. I should know by now that NO one will notice the imperfections but me, but I can't help it!

Ryan says this will forever be known as "Cupcake Night" and refers to it whenever I'm being irrational...."remember cupcake night?". I can't help but laugh at it now! He was so incredibly calm and supportive, how he managed to remain cool with me in my state is a mystery, AND he cleaned the entire kitchen afterwards!