Little Bit(e)s of Love, An explination

"Little Bit(e)s of Love"

My parent's affectionate name for me has always been Little Bit. So it felt appropriate to include that name in this little blog and baking project I'm undertaking. Anytime that I've cooked or baked for my family and friends I've always felt that I was feeding them little bits of my love. It's no secret to anyone who knows me that what I so desperately want in life is to be a mother and until that time comes, I mother my friends by feeding them my love in cupcake form.

Meyer Lemon Raspberry Cupcakes

Ingredients

Makes 2 dozen

• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla bean paste or 1 vanilla bean, scraped
• 5 large eggs, separated
• 1 3/4 cups plus 2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon all-purpose flour
• 1 cup plus scant 1/3 cup cake flour (not self-rising)
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup sour cream
• Meyer Lemon Curd
• Vanilla Bean Buttercream
• Sanding sugar
• 24 raspberries

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 standard muffin tins with cupcake liners; set aside.
2. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add vanilla; beat to combine. Add egg yolks, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
3. Sift together both flours, baking powder, and salt into a large bowl. With the mixer on low, add flour mixture; mix until well combined. Add sour cream; mix until well combined.
4. In a clean bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat egg whites until stiff peaks form. Gently fold egg whites into batter.
5. Fill each muffin cup half full with batter. Transfer muffin tins to oven and bake until a skewer inserted into the center of one of the cupcakes comes out clean, 20 to 24 minutes. Let cupcakes cool completely.
6. Using an apple corer, make a hole in the top of each cupcake, taking care not to push the corer through the bottom; remove cake from hole. Fill a squirt bottle with lemon curd and squeeze curd into holes.
7. Fit a pastry bag with a 3/8-inch plain round tip and fill with buttercream. Pipe buttercream in a circular motion on top of each cupcake; sprinkle with sanding sugar. Pipe a dollop of buttercream in the center of each cupcake and top with a raspberry.

I spent a really wonderful Thursday with my mom. She had come on Wednesday night to meet, (and drink tequila!!) with my Seattle friends. In the morning we took a sweaty walk through the Sculpture Park and Myrtle Edwards with Gracie Lou. Then we went to Pike Place where we had delicious peaches, bought some Beecher's cheese, honey sticks, paintings, and chicken club sandwiches.

We spent the rest of the night in the kitchen, we made an AMAZING macaroni and cheese with penne pasta, garlic, and a mix of the Beecher's and a cheddar cheese. The majority of the night though was spent on trying out the recipe from Vanilla, a cupcakery in Santa Monica, CA that was shown on Martha Stewart during Cupcake Week.

The really incredible part of these cupcakes is in the surprise lemon curd filling. I LOVE a cupcake with a surprise inside. This one was especially wonderful because of how bright and fresh tasting it was! I loved watching peoples reactions as they ate the cupcakes, especially since it really wasn't until the second bite that you got to the filling. The base for these was a simple vanilla cake and I have never seen a more gorgeous batter. It heavy and thick and it glistened. The result was perfectly white fluffy cake that was a perfectly bubbly texture. This was also my first time making a butter cream. Wow! So MUCH butter. I'll have to look at other recipes to see if this was normal because no matter how much powdered sugar I added I could still taste butter. I think I would have preferred something a little lighter, fluffier.

The end result was just incredible! I don't know if I'll ever be able to use a cake mix again. Betty Crocker doesn't have anything on me now!