When I was a kid I loved icing. I took my first cake decorating class at 11 so I could learn to make roses, simply because eating a rose seemed less strange than a glob of icing. Then the gastric bypass surgery happened. For 6 months I couldn't eat any sugar among other things like most meat. In October my surgeon cleared me to slowly introduce regular foods into my life. I couldn't wait to get home and have a slice of my Dad's yellow buttercake with tinned chocolate butter-cream On the first bite, it tasted so sweet I thought I was going to implode. It happened with icing, honey buns, jelly donuts, and thus my love affair with the insanely sweet ended.
Since then I prefer whipped icing but California Cottage Food Law requires icings that don't need refrigeration so my favourites are 86-ed to sell to the public for the present. It basically leaves me meringue and butter-cream. It did occur to me though that I often don't make butter-cream in my personal kitchen. I make the chocolate kind, but other butter-creams I hadn't made since I was at the country club. Most people who've worked in restaurants and bakeries can tell you that for business reasons butter cream often has about 30-60% vegetable shortening. Alot of vegan commercial icings are all vegetable shortening. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's just not my forte. So when I set to make the champagne butter-cream for the Strawberry Champagne chiffon cupcakes I knew what I wanted to do. Simple, fluffy, delicious, celebration in my mouth. ^-^
Since then I prefer whipped icing but California Cottage Food Law requires icings that don't need refrigeration so my favourites are 86-ed to sell to the public for the present. It basically leaves me meringue and butter-cream. It did occur to me though that I often don't make butter-cream in my personal kitchen. I make the chocolate kind, but other butter-creams I hadn't made since I was at the country club. Most people who've worked in restaurants and bakeries can tell you that for business reasons butter cream often has about 30-60% vegetable shortening. Alot of vegan commercial icings are all vegetable shortening. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's just not my forte. So when I set to make the champagne butter-cream for the Strawberry Champagne chiffon cupcakes I knew what I wanted to do. Simple, fluffy, delicious, celebration in my mouth. ^-^
Ingredients
1.5lbs of unsalted butter at room temperature
2-3 cups of icing (powdered) sugar sifted (I'll get a mass for this the next time I do this)
3 tbsp of champagne I used Barefoot Bubbly Pink Moscato
1/3 cup of strawberries pureed. If you use frozen you may want to start with a quarter cup and work your
Procedure
Beat butter till fluffy (low-med)
Gradually beat in add sifted sugar (it should basically look like the desired consistency, leaning on the thick side) (low)
Beat on medium till fluffy
whisk in champagne and strawberry puree
Beat on low for 1 minute.
Ice cupcakes and enjoy!
The cake recipe I used is a pretty standard Japanese recipe for Strawberry Chiffon. I used a Wilton 27 tip and some light pink sanding sugar I bought at Spun Sugar in Berkeley. If you're local you gotta check them out.
mmm, butter, sugar, alcohol. And it's pink!Now that's what I call the makings for a good birthday cake ^-^
2 comments:
Looks good
Thanks! They were tasty ^-^
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