When the sweet tooth has cravings, the heart wants what the heart wants. Mr. Sanders has a wicked sweet tooth, and yet he is slim and slyph-like. I, perversely, tend to eschew sweets, yet I am the family Butterball here. Life is not fair.
Mr. Sanders had a birthday in February, for which I baked the ritual family fave, a Boston cream pie. Since we no longer have eager extra trenchermen at the ready, I did not bake the towering two-layer pie of old. I poured half of the batter into a spring form pan, and the other half into fluted paper liners in the cupcake/muffin pan. And, voilà – a reasonably sized Boston cream pie for the modest birthday celebration, and 8 cupcakes, which I stashed in the freezer, for future emergencies.
I have relied on our versatile chocolate ganache icing for many cakes and pies that I have gotten lazy about learning anything new. The idea of a shiny, austere ganache coating these impromptu yen-feeders was not appealing. We needed the mouthfeel of something rich, and sweet, and creamy. I am sure I was listening to my inner child, who remembers discarding the bodies of a school-celebration cupcakes, in favor of gobbling the deep, swirling sweetness of clouds of bakery buttercream frosting. Ah, youth. We needed gobs of it.
Last weekend, when it was gloomy and cold, and we were contemplating the possibility of tornadoes, Mr. Sanders needed a treat. It was time to root out the cupcakes, cleverly held in reserve for such a day. I turned to my trusty companion, the internet, to help me find a decadent buttercream frosting recipe. It was important that the recipe that would not require another trip to the grocery store, and that it was one with just enough icing for eight cupcakes. I did not need the sorcerer’s apprentice concocting buckets and pails of tempting icing in our tiny kitchen.
Chocolate Ganache Icing Glaze (you know this one by now)
3 ounces bittersweet chocolate
3 tablespoons butter, softened
1 tablespoon brandy or bourbon or whatever you have in your desk drawer for emergencies
Melt the 3 ounces of bittersweet chocolate and butter together in a saucepan, stirring until smooth. Add the generous splash of bourbon and stir some more. Now pour the glaze over the cake, assuming that you have placed it on a serving dish, and have prepared said dish with some waxed paper. The glaze will drip down the sides. But we like that shimmering pool of molten chocolate.
Here is Food52’s recipe, which will make enough to cover lower Manhattan: Food52 Buttercream
This is my adaptation:
Chocolate Buttercream Frosting for Emergencies
1 cup confectioners’ sugar
1/2 cup Dutch-processed unsweetened cocoa powder
1 stick butter, at room temperature (I use salted butter, because I think the sweetness of the confectioners’ sugar needs to be tempered.)
1/4 cup heavy cream, at room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Cream the butter in a large bowl with an electric mixer until fluffy and light. Stir together the confectioners’ sugar and cocoa powder by hand (to avoid cloud cover). Add to butter. Mix until blended, add the half the cream and mix again. Add the remaining cream and vanilla extract. Beat until smooth and fluffy, 3 to 5 minutes, a long, long time.
The next time Mr. Sanders has a yearning for something sweet I might root around in the darker recesses of the kitchen cabinet for the Wilton Icing Kit. I am useless at decorative piping, so I could use the practice so I can make beauteous cupcakes, instead of my usual efficient frosting-delivery-devices. I frosted these cupcakes with an offset icing spatula, which is rather like troweling mortar on bricks. I paved over the entire surface of the cupcake; thick, with total coverage, but not with a light-hearted and deft topography of plumes, or whorls, or cunning niches for colorful sprinkles. You might have more skill (and patience) than I.
Be festive! Make merry! Spring is hurtling around the corner!
“A party without cake is really just a meeting.”
-Julia Child
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