Yellow Cake with Dark Chocolate Frosting: Round 2

May is my birthday month and since work is preventing me from celebrating my birthday on my actual birthday, I decided to make my birthday cupcakes a week in advance. Therefore yellow cake with chocolate frosting, being the ultimate birthday cake/frosting pairing, was on the docket for this adventure. Also, having recently found my baking soul mate in Meg Ray, owner of Miette (the introduction to the book is an expanded version of my treat manifesto AND if I were to actually own a bakery Miette is exactly what it would look like), I was excited to try a recipe from her collection. So when I saw that she had a recipe for yellow cupcakes that she herself had spent awhile perfecting, I said to myself "challenge accepted."

What do you get when the frosting is too warm to pipe your regular way? A new way of piping!

Analysis of the Cake
 After the disappointing results from Martha's cookbook previously, I was one part skeptical of this recipe one part super anxious to potentially have a new found yellow cake recipe. And I have to say, I'm pretty sure my search for the perfect yellow cake recipe has ended.

A sea of golden-yellow cupcakes, baked to perfection

The Yays

• These cupcakes couldn't have possibly baked any more beautifully than they did. Perfectly domed in the middle, perfectly golden  at the edges. Almost too pretty to eat.....almost.
• They had a completely new method of mixing that I'm curious to learn more about the science of and which I'm also fairly certain led to the perfect yellow cake taste of the cake. The process involved heating up the egg prior to mixing with the dry ingredients as well as heating the milk and butter pre-group mix. 
• The taste balanced itself extremely well with the strength of the dark chocolate butter-cream. It presented a buttery texture and mellow flavor to counteract the richness of the frosting, unlike the previous adventure in yellow cupcaking.
• The inside was delightfully moist, had the perfect crumb (not too crumbly, not too stiff), held it's shape well outside of the wrapper, and had a slight buttery after-taste on the tongue (and really, who doesn't like butter?) 

NOM!

The Nays

• The tops were a little on the crispier side, but I think this could have been operator error in over baking. This will be easily remedied the next time I bake these bad boys however. 

Overall Impression: OHMUHLORD we have a winner!

Analysis of the Frosting
See previous entry