Alpha Bakers -- White Chocolate Cupcakes with Raspberry Cherry Buttercream

 I'm still perfecting my cupcake spin. That quick twist of the wrist, properly executed, will make your cupcake frosting look both rustic and adorable, a la Magnolia Bakery or their offshoots (my favorite without a doubt is Sugar Sweet Sunshine on the Lower East Side). To be sure, piping is the more secure way to make sure your cupcakes look pretty, but sometimes I want to be rustically brilliant (and sometimes I'm concerned that cherry chunks will get caught in the piping tip).

Those of you who know me will be surprised to hear how small the volume of my recent stress baking has been, post-election. I've been diverting more of my time into panicking, laundry, phone calls to elected officials, and more panicking, with a side of writing things on the chalkboard at work. I did make a batch of brownies, but cleverly left out the flour (they were weirdly delicious).

I decided, though, with only three recipes left in the Baking Bible bake through, that it was time to get back to some precision baking, so I made these white chocolate cupcakes with mousseline buttercream. The cupcakes are soft, egg white stabilized cake with four ounces of white chocolate melted in, and the frosting is a simple mousseline buttercream (sugar syrup, meringue, butter) with raspberry flavoring and a touch of fancy cherry jam. The spin, well, it's not perfect, but it looks rustic, right?

Heavenly Cake Bakers: Chocolate Raspberry Trifle Goes to the Park

This weekend was a banner weekend. I had not one, but two days off. It was heaven.

On Sunday, I puttered about all day, spoke to no one, and made two cakes. One was a wedding cake prototype for Jessica and Christopher. More on this later. The other was this trifle. I made half the recipe, and tucked it into a convenient vase for transport.

I made a few changes in the various components, based on the contents of the refrigerator. The final product was composed of Moist Chocolate Genoise, apricot preserves, creme anglaise made with cream, milk, coconut milk and the dregs of the milk chocolate ganache syrup left over from the wedding cake prototyping (it was in the glass measuring cup I used, hence the brownish flavor), and raspberries. I was going to make the raspberry whipped cream topping, but ran out of room in the container.

After I made the trifle, I felt ambivalent about taking it to a picnic in the park on a hot day, and put a daisy cake (visible behind) into the oven. However, when I emailed my concern to Stacey, her response was, and I quote, "Are you f*ING kidding me? I have been dreaming about trifle all day and night. Put it in a tub, I am bringing my spoon!!!!!" I brought the trifle. Avi took pictures of it with his new camera. All went well.

In the end, it was good that we had two cakes, because all of the lunch that we brought along was disgustingly healthy, including this salad from Heidi Swanson's Super Natural Every Day that has been obsessing me, quinoa cakes, egg salad, and roasted asparagus. On the way to the park, I realized how lame it was that we didn't even have a single bag of potato chips or something. Next time, barbeque sauce.

Raz-Berry Ganache

The kind u can't find in a second hand store...

Can you guess what was playing in my head during the entire production and planning (and eating) of this wonderful cake? I amuse myself to a potentially unbearable degree.

This weekend we celebrated Miriam's birthday, and she was nice enough to pick the cake I'd already been assigned out of a (short) lineup. Leading the witness, of course, plus I know she likes raspberries.
In short: chocolate genoise, brushed with cocoa syrup, torted and filled with the best raspberry ganache ever, made with chocolate, cream, raspberry puree, and Portuguese cherry brandy.

This cake transcended the sum of its parts, melding into one good lump of soft intensity. Happy birthday, Miriam.