I wanted to make this one quick. For lots of reasons, but mostly that today was really snowy, which made for bad driving, and I was lacking on a couple ingredients that I would need to make most of the more fun and exciting cakes. Also, it was because I plan on making Christmas cookies this week and I didn't want to overdo it on the sweet stuff... so I chose an easy recipe and did some switching things up and through a different twist on it to fit the ingredients I already had. Not a huge success, but definitely not BAD I would say.
To begin with, this recipe is all sorts of alterable so you can be creative and match it to whatever occasion you'd like to make it for! Also, these cakes are in honor not only of the super snowy weather I had the day I made them, but also of the Detroit Lions who got another elusive win this Sunday. Finally you guys played a nice fourth quarter. FINALLY ;-)
^I gathered up all the necessities, this time around you'll need butter, sugar and powdered sugar, self-rising flour, eggs, vanialla, milk, and food coloring in whatever color you like!
^The sugar, eggs, and butter go together first. I was SURE to let the butter soften this time. It was a BIG HELP, so make sure you follow those directions. Beat them until "light and fluffy".
^After beating the wet mix, you'll sift in the flour and milk in two batches. Why two batches? I'm not sure, but it seemed to work out just fine.
^Stir thoroughly of course!
^Next, you'll need to divide the mixture into however many bowls as you want colors. The original recipe was for "Neopolitan Cakes" which had you adding a little bit of cocoa powder and milk to one of the mixtures, in addition to a plain one and a pink one. I chose to do blue and white, for both some chilly snow cakes and the Detroit Lions who just finished winning as I started my baking.
^Since the butter batter is a little yellow, I had to use a LOT of blue to overpower the green I was getting from mixing the blue in. It worked out pretty well, just a few extra drops.
^Layer the two batters. I put the blue on the bottom and a small dab on top of the plain mixture. If I were to do it again, I think I would try to make it so the blue and the plain were more side by side so...
^...when you run the toothpick through to marble the cakes, it's an even better and more dramatic mix. That extra dab on top did the trick well enough though! Pop these in a 350 degree oven for about 20 minutes.
^While the cakes are baking, it's time to make the frosting. A whole stick of butter was called for, which I did. This is a butter cream frosting but there was WAY too much liquid for the powdered sugar that wasled for. So... beat a HALF a stick of butter to start with, sift in the powdered sugar and milk (again with two batches... hmmm...) and if you need more, make another batch with the other half of the stick of butter. The first batch of frosting was just too soupy.
^Once you get the buttercream to a good consistency, choose your food coloring colors to decorate.
^Timing was perfect while making the frosting, the cakes were ready by the time I had the frosting whipped up.
^I went for the white and blue color scheme again. This needed a little extra powdered sugar to get it a thick enough consistency to use in my frosting pump. Bought it at a dollar store, and this was the first time I got to use it. The thicker the frosting, the better it works too.
^So we have our white frosted cakes (if you were going with the Neopolitan Cakes recipe, you would again divide the frostings into threes, leave on plain, one pink via red food coloring, and one chocolate with a little milk and cocoa powder). Of course, any number of color combinations are fine, so do whatever you want to make your cupcakes your own.
^I used my frosting pump to make little snowflakes (not beautiful but you get the idea ;) and finished with just a touch of sprinkles. After the fact, I wish I would have dusted them just a tiny bit with extra powdered sugar, but they still tasted just fine!
Happy Cupcaking!
