Cupcake Relay

I took a cupcake class. Not that I needed it but the recipes sounded interesting. I guess I could have gone to recipe books but I also thought I'd see some cupcake decorating.


The class was taught by Chef Clarence Ma.

It was a two day class. On the first day we made:
Limoncello with Limoncello icing, chai latte with chai frosting and tangerine cranberry.

Day 2 we made Banana Rum Foster and Chocolate Guanduia Pyramids with Chocolate Ganche. We also made lemon curd and vanilla buttercream frosting.

The recipes were easy to make though quite rich as it required butter and shortening. One thing that I discovered was the shortening is more stable than butter. As well it's cheaper. However the shortening we usually buy (Crisco) has hydrogenated fat which is bad for your health. Instead he used shortening that's for vegan so no problem with hydrogenated fat. Good to know. Wonder if will work for pie and puff pastries (that's my next plan of attack).


Here's the cupcake after baking


Here's the Limoncello with Limoncello icing. It was neat to decorate it like butterflies but I'm not sure if I would do that unless I could serve immediately, as the "butterfly wings" will be quite dry.



Here are all three cupcakes- bottom is the cranberry tangerine cupcake with tangerine glaze. It was really good. Going clockwise is the Chai Latte with chai frosting. It was ok. I think I might try making an Earl Gray flavour one. The chai spices was a bit too exotic for a cupcake (though I love chai tea). The last one is the Limoncello one which was also quite good.


I did not like the frosting because it was too sweet. If I was to make it again, I would put less frosting.

Here is a picture of the Chocolate Guaduia Pyramids with the Ganche. It was easy to make. Since Guaduia is expensive and hard to get, most places replace it with Nutella.






Here's a pic of the banana froster. We made a small well in the cupcake and put in lemon curd.


The vanilla buttercream frosting was AMAZING!!! I'm not a fan of buttercream but in this case we used vanilla paste. I didn't realize that the seeds settled so put 2 teaspoon of vanilla liquid. Chef Ma corrected by shaking the bottle and added another 2 teaspoon with the seeds. However Chef Ma wanted to show the vanilla pod and how 1 pod is about 1 teaspoon, he added that as well. The frosting was soooooooo vanilllay, it was amazing.

Final Thoughts:
I'm not sure I'd take a cupcake or even a baking class again because it's too simple and I can follow a recipe book. It was a good class in that I learn interesting facts.

I really liked the taste of the second class's cupcakes. It was soo perfect in taste and texture. I would have liked the class to show how to decorate the cupcakes as that was the part I was most interested in.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone