Leftover Frosting Bits & Pieces

Banana Cupcakes with .... all kinds of frosting!

Yesterday while cleaning up the Triple-Berry Vanilla Cake I noticed the stacks of leftover frosting bits.  And like dinner leftovers, it seemed a waste to simply toss these perfectly good remains into the rubbish.

Whipped chocolate ganache, peanut butter cream, Mascarpone cream, vanilla buttercream, and white chocolate ganache were the most plentiful.  With this cornucopia of flavors...banana cupcakes sounded like a perfect vehicle.

I popped a status to this effect on The Sugary Shrink FB account...and one lucky client was able to score the prettiest, best looking, and tastiest cupcakes of the whole lot (at least I hope they were tasty!).

Almost always, I choose the color of the cupcake liner carefully.  On test-kitchen days (or days working with frosting bits) I was wanting to see how different cupcake liners work with different types of batters.  Today, I used three different colors of cupcake liners: Yellow, White, & Dark Brown.  I preferred the white but the yellow worked out as well.

The Elvis Cupcake - Banana Cupcake with Peanut Butter Cream Filling and a generous Swirl of Peanut Butter Buttercream (I know bacon would make a lovely and perfect topper for this cupcake, I'm just don't know if I'm ready to introduce savory to my sweet treats).

The Peanut Butter Buttercream is delicious.  This is about the quality of ingredients: real butter, Mexican vanilla, heavy whipping cream & smooth JIF peanut butter.

The Banana Split Cupcake - Banana Cupcake with Mascarpone and Strawberry Cream Filling, a layer of Whipped Chocolate Ganache, Vanilla Buttercream, and a fresh Strawberry on top (some would say I should have placed a Maraschino Cherry on top, but I don't like'm).

Banana Chocolate Cupcake - Banana Cupcake, Chocolate Cream Filling and a mountain of Whipped Chocolate Ganache sitting on top.

I was just messing around with frostings and such...in almost all the cupcakes, I popped in a cream filling or a berry, then piped on in varying amounts of frosting.

All but three landed in the trash can.

I was disappointed that I had so many of these cupcakes explode during baking.  The best batch was by far the first dozen that baked...then each subsequent batch worsened.  By the last dozen, only three cupcakes maintained their shape.  I know this happens when berries (sugar) aren't fully integrated in the batter, but this was bananas!  I have to do some research to understand this and avoid it when I bake these again.  It could be as simple as stirring the batter each time before filling the cupcake liners.

Down side to losing so many cupcakes, I still have leftover frosting.  Upside, I know I will work with these amazing flavors again.

Today was totally fun.  A few of our friends took a couple cupcakes off our hands - these were only slightly exploded from batch two.  Perfectly edible, though somewhat pitiful on appearance.

I love what I get to do.  I would love even more to be working in rehab.  In a bloom-where-you're-planted outlook...I'm doing ok.  And together, my life partner and I are doing very, very well. 

It works if you work it...you're worth it.