Cupcakes!

For Christmas this year, Steven got me a trip to Cookology at the Dulles Town Center Mall for a "cupcake workshop"!   I took Erica with me and made her wear a big paper chef's hat! Awesome.

We learned how to make three types of cupcakes: vanilla, chocolate, and red velvet.  The class was more about baking the cupcakes from scratch than it was about decorating them, although we did pipe some fantastic icing at the end.

The funniest part was discovering that we wouldn't be using any mixers or spoons or anything -- we hand-mixed these cupcakes.  With our own two (four?) hands.   Messy, but fun!  I somehow roped Erica into mixing the first batch for us (mwah-haha), but then I ended up mixing the red velvet batter, so in the end I got my just desserts.  Har-dee-har-har.  My fingers are still pink from the red food coloring!

They gave us a website where we could go get the recipes to make our own batch of cupcakes at home (I probably would use my stand mixer for a batch of 24 cakes.  Just sayin.)  We are still waiting to hear back from Cookology on whether they will post the icing recipes -- during the class, they told us that the icing recipe would be available online, but unfortunately it wasn't there when I checked last.

I'm really hoping we can get the icing recipe, because the chef instructing our class mentioned that he whisked the chocolate mousse icing for THREE HOURS and I have to know if that's really what he meant to say.

My finished cupcakes! Don't make fun of the icing on my red velvet cupcake - it was supposed to be a "homey-looking shmear."

Erica's cupcakes!  I think we totally rocked it.  We're ready to go open a cupcakery now.  You know, in our "free time."

I felt sort of like the Pope in this hat.  Sacrilege?

Erica wins the prize for being able to hold all three of her cupcakes at once.

When I got home, Steven and I split the red velvet cupcake immediately.  It was delicious - the cake was not as sweet as I anticipated, so it was a good balance against the cream cheese icing (which was insanely delicious).   I fully intend to eat BOTH of the remaining cupcakes after dinner.  And if I had whole milk handy (and the icing recipe, come to think of it), I'd strongly consider making a whole batch for myself tonight.  Mmmm, cupcakes.

Erica and I decided we need to take another class.  Knife skills? Cupcake decorating? Asian fusion? The possibilities are endless...