Cupcakes, Meringues and Mother's Day!

Mothers! Happy Mothers Day! Super Happy Mothers Day, especially since so many of my cousins are having babies recently; from the Abbotsford, B.C. to Edmonton, AB, to Toronto, ON and Montreal, QC.

Now I'm not gonna lie, Mother drives me nuts sometimes and I probably drive her nuts sometimes too. If it weren't for Mommy though, I couldn't be elbow deep in flour, sugar, eggs and dough. So thank you Mommy for birthing me err... bringing me into this world.

So my present to her this year, I accepted my offer to attend school for Respiratory Therapy. Might not really sound like a gift to HER but trust me, it was. Oh and I made her some cupcakes or more like I made some cupcakes inspired by Mother's day cause Mother doesn't much like sweets so I made a very small batch. She didn't even try them. ='(

Anyway I present to you my Blueberry Buttercream Cupcakes with Meringue Kisses.

The cake recipe was a pound cake recipe I found in Shirley O'Corriher's Bakewise it was quite simple to make:

1. Pre-heat your oven and prepare your muffin pan.

2. Cream the fat and sugar until fluffy. Why do they say fluffy? I mean is this fluffy? Looks like wet sand to me.

 

I always thought of stuffing in a toy when I thought fluffy. I think I'll try beating for an hour next time and see what kind of fluffy turns out. My poor hand mixer, I already smoked my first one while trying to knead bread

= /. That was a sad day, especially since I decided to make meringues soon after and had to whip them by hand. I'll write about that at another time.

3. Add the eggs one at a time.

Egg 1

Egg 2

 4. Add the flour.                                              5. Whip the cream and add

Consider your batch size when you pick your equipment. Whipping half a cup of cream in a medium sized bowl is not a good idea.

6. Mix until combined.

7. Fill your pan and bake =)

And Tada!

I wish I had made more because they turned out really well, but this batch was just for Mom. So seven was more than enough.

The Blueberry Buttercream was just something I made up based on a basic buttercream recipe. I found a basic recipe online. This one needed a lot of tinkering but I think it turned out well. I still need to get feedback from my baking fairy god er... sister.

So I mixed in my blueberries in with my fats, cause I figured that would be the best way to mash/mix them. and then the added sugar, based on the basic recipe, and then added some more, then some more.... and then some more. It was really liquidy and starting to get really sweet. so I stuck it in the fridge to thicken up a bit. It was still waterier than I'd like it but it would have to do.

Meringues

Oh how I love meringues. Meringues will have a post of their own one day, I promise you that!

it's just amazing how this:                                              can turn into this:

I had no idea eggs could do that. It's not an exaggeration to say that I was thrilled at my new discovery. I think it's my favorite baking phenomenon; yeast in action comes second.

So I made little meringues, I added a bit of red food colouring to make them pink!

And after those came out of the oven, it was time for assembly:

Meringue on top of

Blueberry Buttercream on top of

Cupcake

I didn't cover the entire top of the cupcake cause I was afraid the blueberry buttercream would leak over the side and it would be a big mess but once I figure out the buttercream, they'll creep right up to the edge.

I presented this to Mom right before dinner. It's hard to make it a surprise when you live in the same house but I think she still appreciated it.

Happy Mother's Day!

Update: I brought these into work and they were gone real quick! Yay for me! =D