A Sunday in January
January in Chicago is cold. Actually, cold is an understatement. What’s colder than cold? Bitter? Frigid? Freezing? Numbing? All of the above? Definitely. In the time immediately following the holidays the last thing I want to do is to go into the kitchen and pull out the old Kitchen Aide. But by the time mid January rolls around, turning on the oven to warm up the house doesn’t sound like such a bad idea anymore.
Yesterday my boyfriend asked me if I’d mind making 3 dozen cupcakes for him to take into the office for an employee’s birthday. When I ask him what kind he would like, he responds, an assortment. An assortment? An assortment of what? He says, yellow and chocolate. Well I’m sorry, in my opinion, two choices hardly counts as an assortment! He eventually gave me permission to make whatever flavors I want as long as it’s nothing too out of the ordinary.
So this is what I did, I made him 6 cupcakes of 6 different flavors. Two of the flavors being traditional yellow cake with chocolate buttercream and chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream. You know, I need to have some safe flavors for those picky eaters, like my boyfriend. Then for my other flavors I made yellow cake filled with raspberry with a raspberry buttercream, yellow cake with a coconut buttercream, chocolate cake with a cappuccino buttercream, and last but not least the grasshopper cupcakes. If you’re not familiar with what grasshopper means, it means that it’s chocolate with mint. Other than the cute little insect, Grasshopper sometimes refers to the alcohol beverage made of Green Creme de Menthe, White Creme de Cacao, and light cream. But Grasshopper cake is chocolate cake with either mint icing or filling. Traditionally the mint part is dyed a lovely pastel shade of green.
Now I chose to get creative with the frostings since I was making only 6 of each different flavor. It’s much easier to make two different flavors of cake and just mix up small batches of flavored buttercreams than it would be to mix up several batches of batter for just 6 cupcakes. But that’s alright, by just making small changes to the frosting it creates a whole different experience!
A great way of doing this is just adding small amounts of extract or flavoring. We have a pretty nice stock of extracts in our pantry which makes it easiest. The little McCormick bottles usually run about $4-5 each depending on the flavor and where you’re shopping. They’re not too cheap, but a little goes a long way. So they should last you a while. McCormick’s are a good quality for everyday home use and they can be found at most grocery stores. You can also find higher quality extracts and specialty kitchen stores. They make several flavors and it can be tempting to buy one of each. But unless you’re ready to spend $30 or more on extracts, I suggest sticking to the basics. Vanilla or Almond are must haves in my opinion. I buy the imitation Almond because my brother has an allergy. Second I like to go for a mint (it comes in mint or peppermint) extract and/or one of the many fruit extracts. Those are 4 types that we always have on hand. But depending on what your family likes, there is also butter flavoring, coconut, rum, anise, maple, and even root beer!
And time for the cupcake picture…. Drum roll please….
So here they are! My easy and yummy creations! The coconut, the raspberry, the cappuccino, and the grasshopper! I hope they’re a big hit at the office tomorrow. That is if they even make it there. All these flavors ended up being approved by my oh so very picky boyfriend, so who knows how many might get eaten while in the morning rush hour traffic!
