Cupcake Nightmare . . .

Yesterday, my boyfriend and I went over to my brother's and his girlfriend's new place for dinner. She is German and they made potato salad and tender pork schnitzel for dinner. It was a great time; the food was tasty and the wine was flowing. I made delicious Devil's Food Cupcakes I found from the Martha Stewart website. There's 1 1/4 tsp. of coarse sea salt in the mix. With every big, moist, rich chocolate bite, you get a bit of sea salt that deliciously reminds you to appreciate the sweetness of that Devil Food. I had three of those cupcakes yesterday.

They were delicious but they took a little extra time to prepare (or I was just slow in the kitchen) and didn't get to frosting them until the last minute. I was just about to enjoy spending the next 10 minutes beating the melt-y egg white/sugary mixture until it was cool and had stiff peaks, when I learned that I had burned out the motor of my hand mixer after making the cupcake batter. I continued to whisk it by hand. I made my boyfriend take turns whisking with me for a long time, while I made panicked phone calls to my dad and brother begging for a hand mixer. I would take my butter, my melted morsels, and the egg white/sugar mix to their house and finish it there. My dad would be bringing his electric hand-mixer.

I was getting very upset at what was happening to my cupcake experience. I would like to add that I was already in a pretty irritable state, having cycled through about 6 moods earlier that afternoon, and was running late to my brother's first dinner party without the pretty piped frosting and sugar pearls! We packaged everything up and ran out the door. I was trying to be so careful because the melt-y egg white syrup was only plastic wrapped, and NOT in a Tupperware, where I knew it should have been but was too lazy and worried about being late to do anything about. You should always take the extra time to fix something you know needs fixing or it will cost more time and money and emotions later!

Anyway, at some point between leaving my apartment and getting half-way to my brothers, that egg syrup leaked in the cloth bag I was carrying it it. I was holding this bag on my lap for extra special support and so tons of it leaked out of the cloth bag and onto my jeans and my coat, which must now be dry-cleaned. It got all over my car and my hands. When examining my hands, I notice the enormous blister on the inside of my middle finger. My whisking finger. I want to cry in the car. I'm a hot, sticky mess.

Well, I don't cry in the car. I don't want to be that crazy emotional woman who ruins the whole party crying over cupcakes. So I try to leave it at the door and make light of it and have a good time, and I do. Even after spending my first half hour there cleaning syrup off of everything from their chairs to the bottom of the unfrosted cupcakes.

 I put the goo in the fridge and left the chocolate and butter at room temp. After dinner, I whip the goo for over ten minutes and nothing happens. It never catches air. It never thickens. All hope of frosting these things is lost, along with 10 eggs and 2 1/2 cups of sugar, and possibly 8 sticks of butter and 24 oz. of semi-sweet morsels. I dump the goo. I feel like goo getting dumped. I want to liquefy and wash down the drain, too. When I look up, the hostess is presenting a can of chocolate frosting! Hooray! Most of them got piped with frosting and sprinkled with sugar pearls and they looked pretty good and tasted great.

There is so much to be learned from this nightmare experience. Hopefully we know where I could have given up earlier and saved a lot of time and mess. We know to always travel with liquid in a sealed Tupperware which is also in at least one plastic bag. We know to always keep a can of frosting in the pantry for emergencies. We should know now that there is a tiny window to whip your egg whites in. We also know that I need a table mixer and everyone should have a backup hand mixer (thank you for the electric mixer daddy!).

But there is still a lot more to find out, like: can you use cupcake batter that has sat in the fridge overnight? When making butter-cream frosting, can you use butter that got to room temperature, then re-refrigerated, then brought to room temperature again? And the melted morsels. Those have been in the fridge all night too. Can I warm it up again and use it?