In the last couple of weeks, I’ve made a lot of delicious food for parties. The first were Black-Eyed Susan cupcakes for a Preakness Party in mid-May. (Inspired by a specialty cupcake produced by Charm City Cupcakes.) For those who aren’t up with the cocktails surrounding the Triple Crown, a Black-Eyed Susan, the official version calls for vodka, bourbon, OJ and sour mix.
I started off with the recipe for the Car Bomb Cupcakes as my foudnation (from Smitten Kitchen). For the cake part, I made a basic yellow cake (I use a recipe from the Gourmet Cookbook that was created with the intention of mimicking box cake mixes; in this case I just used regular flour instead of cake flour).
I then hollowed them out and made the ganache from the Smitten Kitchen recipe. This time I made of point of using bittersweet chocolate (I think what I used was 60% ish) instead of the semisweet I used for the car bomb cupcakes. Then, instead of adding whiskey to it, I added bourbon. I had some trouble with the ganache this time — the oil separated out of the chocolate because I got it too hot. I cooled it off and whipped the heck out of it (thanks Joelle!) and it was good as new.
I had done everything up to this point a few days ahead of time, as I was going to be out of town until the afternoon of the day before the party. At this point, I wrapped each cupcake individually in two layers of plastic wrap, put them in a plastic baggie, and froze them for a few days because I was out of town until the afternoon before the party. When I got back I took them out and let them thaw overnight on the counter, and didn’t unwrap them until I was ready to frost.
The frosting is a basic quick buttercream (I used the frosting for the Smitten Kitchen cupcakes above), but instead of putting in milk I put in orange juice. Then I just slapped the frosting on top, no fancy piping this time. (And no photos either, sorry.)
They came out pretty well. The cake was a little dry, and I’m not sure if that’s just the way the recipe works out, if they were slightly over baked because they were cupcakes and not a cake, or if it’s related to the freezing. (This was really only a problem because they were falling apart after you took a couple of bites. If they were a little bit more moist, I think they would have held together better.) If I make these again, I might start with a cake recipe developed specifically for cupcakes and see if that makes a difference. As for the ganache, it was great. Not too sweet, and I liked it better. You couldn’t really notice the bourbon flavor, so if you want that to be strong you’ll want to add more. I also think in the future the orange flavor of the buttercream needs some oomph, perhaps by the addition of some fresh orange zest.
Overall these were a big hit. I don’t have any photos of them, but you’re probably relieved that I’m not sticking pictures of cupcakes you can’t have in your face this time, right?
An acquaintance once compared the food network to the gold channel – because it’s so tantalizing, you know it would make your life better, and you can look but you can’t touch.