master of meringue

i've been toying with the idea of making a meringue for a few weeks now but i keep freaking myself out about the difficulty. last night i decided i wanted to make s'mores cupcakes and for that i would have to make a marshmallow meringue.

for s'mores cupcakes i used a little recipe i found for a graham cracker crust that goes at the bottom of each cupcake.

1 package graham crackers, smashed up into crumbs

1/2 cup sugar

3/4 cup butter, melted

graham cracker crumbs, butter, and sugar

pre cake batter cups

alright, just so y'all know, that is too much butter. the "crust" on my cupcakes turned out a little greasy and it just tastes like butter, not graham cracker. so next time i'm going to use less butter.

for the cake part i used a betty crocker super moist devil's food and replaced the water with buttermilk. i've said this before, i'm not too good for a cake mix. it really just saves time which is nice because the crust and the topping for this cupcake were both labor intensive.

the cupcakes right out of the oven

then came the meringue. it didn't actually take all that long in the end but at the time it felt like it took forever. 

here's the recipe i used for "creamy marshmallow frosting"

1/2 cup sugar

2 tablespoons water

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

2 egg whites

2 cups marshmallow cream (1 7oz jar)

combine sugar, egg whites, and water in double boiler. beat over boiling water until soft peaks form. add marshmallow cream, beat until stiff peaks form. remove from heat, beat in vanilla.

sugar, water, and egg whites...looks like saliva :( 

tada! marshmallow meringue!

the finished product

if i had a mini butane torch i totally would have toasted the meringue once it was on the cakes but i don't. i was a little lazy when i decorated these so they're a bit sloppy. my arms were tired from wrastlin' the meringue so i quickly, using just my right hand, slapped the frosting on top. i know better than to use an icing bag with only one hand but i didn't care. i didn't make these for any particular reason other than the fact that i got off work early today and decided to use my extra time experimenting in the kitchen. 

the next recipe i plan to experiment with is pineapple upside down cupcakes. yum!

trying not to title this with a jimmy buffett song lyric

well, i made the margarita cupcakes i mentioned in my last post! i ended up just doing a classic buttercream with lime and orange because i'm way too tired to fight with meringue tonight. that shit calls for 8 egg whites! you can find the cupcake recipe here and i used wilton's buttercream icing recipe and added 1 teaspoon of orange juice and probably 5 tablespoons of lime juice instead of the 2 tablespoons of milk the recipe called for. oh and a pinch of salt. my cupcakes don't look anything like that picture with the recipe because a) i used a tiny bit of green food coloring in both my cupcake batter and icing b) i used a different icing technique and c) i topped mine with sugar (some with salt) rather than lime zest because, guess what, people don't actually want to eat lime zest. at least i don't. it's fine baked into something but not as a topping. also, i brushed some of the cupcakes with tequila before icing them.

i should also add that this was enough for more than 24 cupcakes. after i filled both cupcake pans i had enough batter to fill a small bread pan so i baked a little cake as well. and the after i iced the cupcakes there was also enough icing left to ice said little cake.

anyway, here are a bunch of pictures that i took of the whole process.

step one: creaming 2 sticks of butter with 2 cups of sugar

lime zest/juice!

dry ingredients

green and white gingham cupcake liners

adding eggs to the butter and sugar 

green food coloring

i cheated...i bought this just in case my 6 limes weren't juicy enough and, sure enough, they were super dry

batter just before being scooped in to the pans

fresh out of the oven

brushing tequila 

butter, shortening, and vanilla for the icing

finished icing

tada!

the ones that are brushed with tequila are also topped with salt

the rest are topped with green sugar