Dream Cream: Round 1

And so it begins! I'm excited to be turning over a new leaf and blogging about my adventures in cupcaking with the folks out there, rather than wallowing in my own miseries alone (i.e spending hours of my day trying out a new recipe, only to witness it end in disaster) and even better, my successes! There's no greater feeling than finally baking that perfect batch of cupakes/muffins/cookies, or whipping up the perfect combination of buttercream.

Sometimes I get lucky and a recipe gets it just right on the first attempt...but more often than not it takes quite a few tries to reach the Holy Baking Trinity: Flavor, Texture, and Physical Appearance. Yes...the cupcake world is quite vain.

But anyway, tonight marked my first attempt at developing my latest cupcake, Dream Cream. I knew I wanted it to be something fluffy, vanilla, white, creamy, and generally heavenly.

All I had to do for the cake itself was tweak my Missionary Style (aka vanilla cupcake) and gave it more of a white chocolate flavor (with a staple secret ingredient) rather than a straight vanilla flavor.

And I have to say...they are DELISSSSSSH! *Cue choir of angels...ahhhhhhhhhh*

The trickier part has been deciding how to make this lil' cake the dreamy creamy delight that it's just waiting to become.

Idea #1: I could top said cupcake with a white chocolate buttercream frosting.

Now...i've never tried to mix melted chocolate into my standard buttercream frosting, so I decided to search around online to see if anyone else had any ideas. I came across a recipe for what sounded to be exactly what I was looking for so I decided to give it a whirl, and would change it up as I saw fit.

Decided to do just a small batch to test it out, and quickly decided this wasn't going to be a winner. Not enough butter, not enough chocolate..and too much sugar. Regardless...decided to see it through just to see how it ended up.

Overall, the texture was a little too grainy than it was smooth, and was way too sweet. But alas, the idea of white chocolate buttercream or some sort of white chocolate topping is still too attractive to abandon, so the journey continues to find that perfect combination.

Hey, I tried.

Idea #2: Fill said cupcake with marshmallow filling.

I love cream filled treats. As a kid, i was a little too fond of Swiss Cake Rolls and Twinkies, so as an adult i think it's only fair that I develop one that at least doesn't have high fructose corn syrup and enough preservatives to withstand a nuclear bomb.

My only issue with homemade marshmallow cream is the use of raw egg whites in ready-to-eat food. So I think I'll try this with either pasteurized egg whites (downside...could get expensive) or something I didn't know existed until yesterday: powdered egg whites (shelf stable = yay!) - needless to say i'm pretty excited to try this out!

So, stay tuned to see how the next attempts turn out. Who knows...maybe the winning batch of white chocolate buttercream and the marshmallow filling will each be so yummy that I just have to use them both! Now THAT sounds like some Dream Cream.