The final piece of the Inaugural Bakextravanganza was mini-cupcakes. Originally I had planned to supply only red velvet mini-cupcakes (as usual, I frosted the red velvet cupcakes with the cream cheese frosting from the pumpkin-raisin bar recipe on epicurious.com; a triple batch of the frosting provided ample coverage for the cupcakes made with a single batch of cake batter). But after my biscotti failure, I was short a few baked goods and I decided to kill two birds with one stone by making some Restaurant Eve mini-cupcakes as well. My friend Dorothy had specifically requested a Restaurant Eve cake for her birthday, which happened to be the day before the inauguration. So I made her a small 4-inch diameter two-layer cake, and then I used the rest of the cake batter to make mini-cupcakes.I frosted the Restaurant Eve mini-cake and mini-cupcakes with pink frosting, using a pastry bag with a star tip. There was quite a bit of leftover frosting, and so I went a little crazy decorating Dorothy's cake with excess stars and embellishments (fortunately, I knew that Dorothy could care less how tacky the end result turned out to be... the finished cake looked like something that a five-year old girl who likes Disney princesses might get really excited about).
When I frosted the mini-cupcakes, I left a small exposed perimeter of cake along the edges. I personally like the way this looks, especially with something like a red velvet cake where you can see the vibrant color of the underlying cake. However, it was also a necessity in this situation, since I had to pack these cupcakes in bakery boxes for transport. I used 10-inch square bakery boxes, which perfectly hold 25 cupcakes in rows of 5. If you tightly pack cupcakes that are frosted edge-to-edge like this, all you'll get is the heartache of smushed frosting.
In the end, I delivered 100 mini-cupcakes along with the cookies and bars from my previous two posts... It was a whirlwind weekend of baking, but I was happy to have the opportunity to make a contribution on this historic occasion!Recipes:
- Restaurant Eve's Cake from the Washington Post, April 23, 2006.
- Red Velvet Cake from Cake Man Raven, recipe available online here.
- Frosting recipe from Pumpkin-Raisin Bars, from epicurious.com.
- "My Cup(cakes) Runneth Over: Mini Red Velvet Cupcakes," January 14, 2009.
- "Holiday Party Recap, Part III: Ready For a Throwdown!," December 17, 2008.
- "Alexander's Birthday Party," September 21, 2008.
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