Today in the test kitchen

I've been toying with the idea of starting a "cupcake for hire" kind of thing. Folks seem to love my baked goods and if they are actually willing to pay for them, even better. Of course, that also means that my "goods" have to be well... good. Today Akiko came and we tried some recipes out. We attempted mini red velvet cupcakes, classic white cake and devils food cake.

~Results~

Mini Red Velvet Minis

My friend asked me yesterday if I might be interested in making mini red velvet cupcakes for a possible pairing for a wine tasting she is doing. When asked how many she would need, the friend said 250-300. Alrighty then. I'm not sure if this will happen but I figured I better see how many minis my recipe would make. Turns out it makes 48. The tricky part was the baking time. We kind of lost track with all the "one more minutes", but overall, I think the minis are a keeper.

Classic White Cake

I came across this recipe when I googled "moist and fluffy white cake". While the texture of the cake (or "crumb") is exactly what I was looking for, the flavor was average. Even though you only use the egg whites, it still had a very "eggy" taste to me. Even with a mountain of frosting, I could still taste the egg. It was good, but not great. I'm going to keep looking.

Devil's Food Cake

(aka Ina Garten's Beatty's Chocolate Cake)

OMG.

All I can say is OMG. This cake was AMAZING!! Super moist, kind of spongy (but in a good way) I topped these bad boys off with peanut butter cream cheese frosting. Holy Yummy, Batman. Yes, these were THAT good. Not only were they delicious, they were super easy to make. If you are craving some chocolate cake, try these. You will not be disappointed.

Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Frosting

• 4 oz cream cheese


• 1/3 C peanut butter


• 6 T butter


• 1 1/4 C powder sugar


• 1/2 t vanilla

Cream everything together until light and fluffy

Enjoy

:0)