Cake Ideas...

Sometimes, on my way home from walking my son to school in the mornings, I will have an inspiration for a cake flavor, especially if it's been a few weeks since I've baked one. A week or so ago I had this image of a salted caramel buttercream over a chocolate cake, and chocolate cupcakes filled with the same buttercream and dipped in ganache, sprinkled with edible gold glitter. So this weekend I embarked on a mission to see about making those come to life. One obstacle after another, and I finally had to settle on the pictures you see here. Grrr! I kept having issues decorating the cake, and I should know by now that sometimes it's better to leave things well enough alone...but, I had to toss on some grated chocolate. Naturally, that gives it a little "furry" look. Oh well.

The icing turned out tasty, but not how I'd imagined it. I didn't want to cook a caramel and have it fly all over the bowl when I tried to beat in into a butter mixture (as can

sometimes happen when making a candy base icing), so I used brown sugar instead of regular in my French Buttercream icing, doubled the vanilla, and added a teaspoon of smoked sea salt.

My cupcakes didn't dome as I'd hoped, turning out flat-topped. Sometimes this is desirable, but NOT when you want to dip them! So, I opted for a thin layer of the caramel buttercream with a flower design of ganache instead. Oh, and Michaels doesn't carry edible gold glitter, so that idea was squashed too (they were also out of the size of cake circles I needed...).

One success, however, are my adorable sundae cupcakes (above), topped with whipped, sweetened cream (I used powdered sugar to give it some stability), drizzled with chocolate syrup, and topped with an all-natural Maraschino cherry (from Whole Foods, and an Oregon product!). I only made four of those (for dessert last night); a whipped cream topping, even when stabilized, doesn't hold up for very long, so it's not very practical to share with friends!

Well, at least everything tastes yummy, even if it didn't turn out exactly that way I wanted it to!