"Just Keep Beating Them!"

Before I start anything, I want to call attention the left side of the page. Do you see it? That little survey chilling out in the corner? Well, if you do, good for you! If not, shame on you :P. Well, now that you know about it, why not do me a favor and fill it out for me? It will only take a second, that is, unless you cannot read. If that's the case, well....this awkward. But here, let me help direct your attention.
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Now no one can complain that they couldn't find it. 

The theme of yesterday's baking was s'mores and I must say, that this was the most challenging recipe to date. This one recipe, one 
recipe that produced 24 cupcakes, took me three plus hours to make. Yes you read that right; three plus hours. I burned through three different CDs on my laptop trying to bake these delectable morsels. In addition to that bombshell, check out how many ingredients were needed to pull of this recipe.

Yea, that's a lot of stuff (and there was more stuff on the table). Not only did I have to make the batter, but this recipe called for a graham cracker bottom and a homemade marshmallow frosting (oh I have a such a rant prepared for this). The graham cracker bottom was the easy part, just toss some graham crackers into a Ziploc bag and crush them into crumbs. While most people would have just used the blunt end of an object or just used their hands, I decided that it would be more efficient (and fun) to smash them with my shoes. So, I performed a bit of River Dance on top of the cookie filled Ziploc bag until it was crushed to perfection. Then I just tossed in some butter and mixed it together and ta-da! Graham cracker bottom!  Once I had lined the bottom of the cupcake pans, I added some semi-sweet dark chocolate chips and popped the pans into the oven for five minutes and let them melt. This actually made everything really convenient for me. Usually I wait to turn the oven on when I am almost ready to throw the pans into bake. However, the oven's at school take forever to heat up, probably because they are electric.

Unfortunately, the graham cracker bit was easy pickings compared to what came next. Oh dear, I wonder where I should start? I think I will start with the batter. In case you haven't read any of my previous posts, I have had issues with the moistness of my cupcake batter. So of course when I saw that I was going to add a cup of boiling water I was certain that this would be the answer to my dry batter problems. Naturally, this observation turned into a nightmare when, after adding the water, the batter turned into a giant chocolate puddle; no joke. Just the idea of pouring the batter into the cupcake pan filled me with dread.

Sadly I stopped taking pictures believing that this was going to turn out to be my first ever baking disaster. Ok. Second. 

Of course, pouring the better did indeed produce a mess, covering the pans with chocolate goop. Looking back on it now, I can say that this is when I made my first mistake. I should have headed the advice of the blogger who posted this recipe and listened when she said fill them up 3/4s full. You can guess that I didn't. Irony came and bit me in the butt with full force when I eagerly peered into the oven to see how the cupcakes were coming along. The things had expanded so much, that I could hardly see any of the metal on the pans; everything was coated in chocolate cupcake batter. To make matters worse, they looked far from done. The required time passed and I did the toothpick test and obviously they came out covered in chocolate batter. Add another three minutes. Still not done. Two more additional minutes and I was getting nervous. They looked unfinished, but I could tell they were beginning to burn. With no choice left, I took them out and let them cool. At the time I thought that that was going to be the worse part. Boy was I wrong.


Have you ever tried to make your own marshmallow frosting? Well, here's a fun fact that I didn't know until after the fact: Egg whites will stiffen eventually if you just keep beating them. However, and this is a big however, if you get so much as a little bit of yolk in the egg whites, noting is going to happen. Nada, zip. Nothing. As I have previously stated, I didn't know this while I was actually trying to make it. Reflecting on it now, I think that perhaps that the egg white/yolk thing wasn't the only thing that led to my oncoming down fall. I needed to heat the egg whites with sugar and cream of tartar in a double boiler until it reached 160 degrees F. Sadly, I don't have a thermometer to check that. Now can you see where things might have started to go wrong?


Well, after mixing it for a good forty-five minutes, I called a co-worker who is almost like a baking confidant of mine, and asked her for her opinion. Insert lesson about egg whites here.

Thinking that I was on the verge of utter defeat, I put a bit of the marshmallow glaze on a few cupcakes and called down Therese to give them a try. She said they were good; though the glazed ones were a bit sweet for her. So here, for your viewing pleasure, my little cupcakes. Yea, that homemade look that they're rocking is optional. If you prefer conventional looking cupcakes, try not to make the same mistakes that I did.


Considering the length of this post, I will post the recipe late today. However, I just want to announce that I am taking a break next week. I will blog about something so don't forget to check in. And here, in case you weren't counting: 14 done, 486 to go.


Until next time,
Jill