Just a Little Rusty

It's been a while since I made cupcakes. Or cookies for that matter.

Really. I can't remember the last time I did. So needless to say it wasn't my best showing. But  I was insistent that make something for a meeting at work. A good dose of sugar to keep people focused on the subject at hand kind of thing. Anyways, the plan was yellow cupcakes with chocolate frosting and chocolate chip cookies with espresso chips. Sounds good, right?

The cupcakes were fine, except I experimented a bit with dishers. A disher, if you don't know is an ice cream scoop. Aside from scooping ice cream, they are also used for uniform portions of cookie dough and cupcake batter. I made half a batch with #24 and another with #24 and a small scoop, not sure of the number. #24 barely fills a liner halfway. Perhaps I should buy a 26. 

The frosting for the cupcakes had problems from the beginning. The recipe calls for mixing cocoa powder with melted butter. I probably should have mixed it with a whisk to blend it better. Or perhaps a double boiler to keep it warm. What I ended up with was a chocolate blob at the bottom of the bowl. Whatever, I figured it would resolve with the additional of the powdered sugar and milk. Nope. A nice think frosting, but there were little chocolate bits throughout. Instead of leaving it be, I added more milk. Bad idea - the frosting turned runny. Dumped in more powdered sugar and it corrected the runny frosting, but only slightly. At that point I gave up and frosted the cupcakes and called it a night.

As for the cookie dough, the recipe called for an all-purpose flour/bread flour mixture, but I don't have any bread flour. I just haven't needed bread flour lately so I switched my supply to AP. Lesson learned. All AP lead to a flatter cookie. They were crisp on the edges and soft in the center. Perfect texture and taste wise, but they looked... bleh.

I completely get this is all in my head because there were none left - everyone loved them. Next round of treats will be better.