Lemon Cake with Lemon Buttercream Frosting

After originally tasting these cupcakes, I wrote the most bitter (yeah, pun probably intended) blog post ever. The flavor just was not what I was expecting at all and I was slightly heartbroken at the failed adventure as these cupcakes are a gift for a 65th birthday extravaganza. But, I took another taste later and the tart after-tart was not so mouth-puckeringly bitey and I received confirmation from my official taste tester, and boyfriend extraordinaire, that this was indeed how they were supposed to taste. What follows is a less emo post about my first adventure in lemon cake and lemon buttercream.

Soft, sweet, and very very tart

Analysis of the Cake
I spent a great deal of time reading through the recipes in my cookbook collection and weighing the pros and cons to each one before finally settling upon Cake Love's "Light and Lemony" recipe. What drew me to this recipe originally were the multiple lemon flavor sources (segmented, limoncello, lemon oil) and the sour elements to counter the sweet (cream cheese, heavy cream). Also, it was the only lemon cake recipe I had that stated it could be made into cupcakes as well as other cake forms. I've previously made a spectacular lemon cake that would not translate well into cupcakes (however see nays for the shocking results).
The Yays

• New technique learned! How to segment a lemon! I did pretty well for my first try too. Lesson learned though: wear gloves. My dry nurses hands felt like the fire of a thousand suns by the second lemon. According to the recipe, by using a segmented lemon the lemon juice flavor is still translated into the batter but since it's still contained in it's pulpy cocoon the batter doesn't get too watered down. Noted.
• New ingredient used! Turbinado sugar! Smells like happy! Supposedly makes a huge difference but honestly I'm not really sure it did in the end. In fact, the batter was almost a little too gritty-sugary tasting. 
• The cake has a wonderful texture, light, spongy, kind of melts on your tongue. Almost like cotton-candy cake.
• They baked quite lovely and had a wonderful golden top as seen in the photo above. I did have to extend the baking time by quite a bit however, but all is well that ends well.

The Nays

• I'm definitely not sold that this is the best lemon cake recipe in existence. I still feel that the tart aftermath is a drawback and a recipe with a more subtle tartness would be much more pleasant on the palate. The first cupcake I had was difficult to finish because it was so tart but the second more mellowed out sample I had still had the tartness but perhaps not in as strong of a form as the first (or so I hope).
• The cupcake paper does not want to let go of the damn things, which is something I've experienced with lemon cakes before. It was a disappointment because I thought that since this recipe specifically gave directions for cupcakes this problem would be avoided. Lies.

Overall Impression: Bleh, probably won't re-visit this one

Analysis of the Frosting
The good news is the frosting is simply to die for. With our base of Italian Meringue Buttercream, I added pure lemon oil as suggested by Rose's Heavenly Cakes. This too was a heavily deliberated choice and in the battle between limoncello, lemon oil, and something else (I honestly can't remember at this moment) the sage advice from my mother (who has spent years perfecting a lemon cheesecake) was to go with the lemon oil as it was the least artificial tasting. And that advice was spot on. Sweet with a hint of lemon it was the perfect, light, and refreshing taste you would expect from something of the lemon variety.  
Overall Impression: Ohmuhlord, this one's a keeper

It's hard to go from something as wonderful as my recent endeavor with red velvet cupcakes to something that missed the mark, but that's why I'm on this quest so that I can filter through everything and find the best of the best. Until next time, keep on keepin' on!

Yellow Cupcakes with Oregon Strawberry Buttercream

On our last adventure we established the perfect yellow cake recipe. Today we expand upon our yellow cake and frosting combinations to employ a local, seasonal fruit whose existence is how I know God loves me: The Oregon Strawberry.

You may have been tricked by the grocery store into thinking that strawberries come from California, but this is a sham. The Oregon Strawberry is tiny, short seasoned, and packs so much more sweet sweet flavor than anything our neighbors to the south could ever produce. Enough of a rant about the wonders of Oregon strawberries and back to the subject at hand.

Analysis of the Cake
See previous entry and enjoy these photos of part of the process!

The Quest for Perfection includes perfect tools! I finally have a double boiler! All-Clad makes my heart skip a beat or two.

Egg and Vanilla mixture, getting heated up to just the right temperature!

Velvety smooth yellow cake batter. I may have sampled a teensy bit of the uncooked goodness...

Analysis of the Frosting
As always, the base of our frosting is an Italian Meringue Butter Cream a la Cake Love. After scouring all of my cookbooks for strawberry frosting, I decided that the strawberry puree found in The Cake Bible would be the first runner up in perfecting strawberry frosting. The reason: science. As to be expected by her previously underwhelming recipe, Martha Stewart's solution was to just put strawberries in a blender and mix it in the frosting. Sure, this will indeed give you strawberry frosting but my speculation is that the frosting will be somewhat lackluster. Other cookbooks had concepts similar to The Cake Bible, but did not incorporate quite as much science as I feel is necessary when involving berry flavor extraction and syrup creation. The Cake Bible, however, incorporates a much more complicated yet logical sequence for delivering a wham-bam punch of strawberry. The first step is to freeze the strawberries in order to begin breaking down the enzymes of deliciousness. The strawberries are then thawed in a colander over a series of hours. The sweet sweet juices collected below the colander are then made into a reduction while the remaining strawberry chunks are pureed in ye olde Cuisinart. These are all combined with a splash of lemon juice. This confection may then be added to the base frosting of your choice for a splendiferous delivery of strawberry.

I'm not sure if you can tell, but I kind of geek out over the scientific process of baking. Now, the breakdown:

The Yays

• Holy cow, this captures the essence of everything wonderful that is Oregon strawberries. Perfectly sweet, with a tiny hint of berry tang at the end and all of it encompassed by buttery goodness. 
• The strawberry puree freezes up to a year and can be thawed and re-frozen multiple times without damage to the puree according to the author. This excites me greatly as I will be able to enjoy a summertime treat in the middle of winter. That's a win all around!
• The frosting and yellow cake together are a heavenly dream come true and are a better interpretation of strawberry shortcake than actual strawberry shortcake. Amazingness times infinity. This is a winner for sure.

The Nays

• I did the frosting the night before the cupcakes and refrigerated it. Bad call. The consistency wasn't quite right even after re-warming the buttercream to room temperature. So, if crunched for time I would do it in reverse order (cupcakes the night before). This is not the frosting's fault.
• Last time I did a normal batch of frosting (4 cups) for the 18 cupcakes the yellow cake recipe yields and had copious amounts of chocolate frosting left over. In order to be less wasteful I did a half recipe (2 cups) of frosting but now have about 6 naked cupcakes. Something is amiss in measurement land so maybe next time I do yellow cake I should just do a double batch of cake.

Waiting to top off some cupcakes!

 Overall Impression: Ohmuhlord, we have a winner!

Chocolate Cake with Mocha Frosting

So technically I have made this combination of cake and frosting before, but a) this was a new chocolate cake recipe and b) this frosting combo is so fantastic that it deserves an appearance on this blog and c) I learned via youtube a new way to frost cupcakes! So it's semi-new and semi-previously done before.

Bird's-Eye-View of the Finished Product! Yay newly discovered rose swirl!

Analysis of the Cake
The "Chocolate Butter Cupcakes" recipe was brought to us today by Rose's Heavenly Cakes. The author of this cookbook has also written The Cake Bible, a cookbook I own but have yet to try cake recipes from. So the bar was set pretty high, I mean if you are going to make a book that is self-titled the end all be all of baking then you hopefully know your stuff pretty darn well. So let's take a journey, shall we?

All ready to battle the heat of the oven!

The Yays 

• The technique used for mixing was vastly different from any other I have used before, and while I was skeptical it did make a lovely textured batter. Rather than creaming the butter and sugar as the first step, this recipe had you mix the dry ingredients then add the butter then add the egg/vanilla mixture. Future Hillary will continue to experiment with this mixing technique and possibly research the science of this method
• The texture of the finished product was quite delightful. The cupcake held its shape well out of the wrapper and it had a soft/melty texture on the tongue. Quite delightful, really.
• It had a nice, delicate chocolate flavor. Definitely a solid basic chocolate cake recipe that will be filed away as the current winner of overall basic chocolate cupcake recipe for the time being.

Way to hold your shape little guy!

The Nays

• Not a bold enough chocolate cake to be paired with the mocha frosting, a devil's food would have been better. But that isn't the cake's fault. I suppose in the future though I would still like to try getting more of a chocolate BAM from the cake. Regardless, if you paired it with any other frosting it still wouldn't lick that chocolate craving I would be seeking from a cupcake.

Overall Impression: Somewhere between Meh and Ohmuhlord. 
  
Analysis of the Frosting
Using the aforementioned Italian Meringue Buttercream frosting with some melted chocolate and the "Classic Mocha Espresso" recipe from The Cake Bible, the most perfect melding of chocolate and coffee in frosting has been discovered. And that is a lot coming from someone who doesn't like coffee or most coffee flavored things. But this one's definitely a winner.

Overall Impression: Ohmuhlord

In summary, we have ourselves a current winner in the category of basic chocolate cake, however that has not been officially sealed for all eternity. With the onset of Oregon berry season rapidly approaching (especially if we continue to have this lovely weather!), I foresee a further continuation of the quest for the perfect yellow cake paired with  strawberry buttercream frosting on the horizon. Stay tuned!