Last night, my brother and I went to our friend Symone's house for a new year's eve celebration. I made Symone a rhubarb meringue pie as a gift, and as a contribution to the evening's festivities, brought beans wrapped in prosciutto (How to Eat), and some Magnolia Bakery cupcakes!

The first Magnolia Bakery cupcakes I made were "white cupcake with chocolate chips topped with peanut butter icing", and they were fabulous. But I thought it was really time I tried the classic, original, famous cupcakes. Namely, they were "traditional vanilla birthday cake topped with traditional vanilla buttercream".

One thing I've realised about the Magnolia Bakery recipes which sets them apart from the others, (and no, it's not the incredible sugar content), is that they're very precise about timings, and that they're beaten for longer than you'd expect. This ensures the fabulous, smooth and light texture.


Cupcakes

The last time I made cupcakes, the specified quantity of icing ended up being far more than enough. Even though I piled the icing high on the cupcakes, to the extent that my mate Si said "it looks like someone crapped on a cupcake", there was still heaps leftover. So, I decided (for the sake of my mum's sanity), to halve the quantities of icing for these cupcakes, and only make more if required. Also, given that the icing is so temple-achingly sweet, I prefer to only spread a small amount on the cupcakes, as opposed to those big swirly masses that Magnolia does.

So, the half quantity of icing that I made (half aqua, half pink) covered 16 of the 24 cupcakes. But what about the remaining 8? I had a rootle around in my fridge, and found the chocolate peanut butter icing left over from last time. It was over a month ago, but could I still use it? I tasted some, it was good. Just to be sure, I tasted some more. It was very good. I think that the sugar in it prevents it from going off. Ever. I happily used this icing to cover the remaining cupcakes.


Icing

When icing cupcakes, it's very helpful to slice the tops flat. This makes it easier to ice, but even better, means you get to taste test the muffin tops!


top of the muffin to ya

I topped some of them with these fab gold chocolate buttons (sent to me by the fab DG for Christmas), some with crystallized violets (which complemented the icing colours perfectly), and left some unadorned.


cupcakes + rhubarb meringue pie


transport


Sym & Sash & cakes

They went down very, very well.


eating


Lewis, cupcake, I


Eva, Cupcakes