MandiCakes

MandiCakes

My roommate Kelli, who I lovingly refer to as 'Ipod' had a table read on Saturday for a KICK @$$ play she wrote. To keep the talent happy (and by 'the talent' I'm referring to our dear, wonderful unpaid friends that live for this stuff), she asked me to make cupcakes. YAY!!! I always love excuses to make cupcakes!

Note: In our circle of friends there are two Kelly/Kelli-s. Kelly with a 'y' and Kelli with an 'i.' My roommate, Kelli with an 'i,' somehow had her name changed by the group and became 'I-pod.' Who knows. But it annoys the heckfire out of her so we continue to do it. :)

But the table read was a BLAST! Say hello to Dawn, Candy and Jacoley Poo.

Marie Pettit (http://www.mariepettit.com/), Randy (we wrangled him into reading) and Karen.

This was our intermission break between acts.

It was cupcake time!

Brian, the potential producer and my roomie, the aspiring and ridonkulously

talented Kelli Bowlden.

And now... the ladies, the cupcakes themselves.

Say hello to BLACK FOREST.

NUM. I just happened to have some Bing cherries (which is weird cause I'm not a 'havin' Bing cherries around' kinda girl) and thought how fun it would be to make these pretty cakes! I adapted the recipe again from 'Cupcakes' by Shelly Kalldunski.

After a super rich devil's food cake, I added a layer of rich chocolate icing. Then I stewed the fresh cherries down to a syrup & folded them into some homemade whipped cream. DELICOUS.

These ladies wear whipped cream like they-uh headed to-a debutant ball!



And then came the Lemon Blueberry Crunch Cupcakes. Mmm...



They were ooey, gooey and delicous. Just wrong on every level.



And then I did a mini Salted Caramel Cupcake which was so cute! I think I added a little too much sea salt, though. They were a tad more savory than anticipated.

And then these were the big boys. Salted Caramel. Sloppy and delicous.

They were overly gooey.

I'd say it was a mistake but was it?

I mean, herrrrooooow... YUM.

What hoppened is that I made the salted buttercream the night before and kept the frosting in the fridge overnight. When I went to hurriedly frost the cupcakes the next day I forgot to dethaw it. Oops. It was hard as a rock.

To remedy this (I still chuckle), I put the bowl of frosting over a double broiler. Not because I thought this would work AT ALL but because-- hey, why not?

So rather than a homemade buttercream folded with caramel drizzle, it turned into soupy caramelly goo with hard chunks of cold homemade buttercream. HA! At this point, I didn't care. I just spooned it onto each cupcake like a cafeteria lunch lady. And seriously? YUM ANYWAY. :)

Word.

The words 'beautiful disaster' come to mind.