Anne's Bridal Shower

My really good friend Anne is getting married this September and these cupcakes were for her bridal shower.  I knew ahead of time that I wanted to make her some really cute cupcakes.  Her colors are themed around orchids (green and purple), and her and her fiancé love Disney.  So what better theme to do for her bridal shower than Minnie Mouse and Orchids.

I talked to Anne, and asked her what her favorite cupcakes were and she told me Green Tea.  I thought to myself . . Green Tea?  Gross . . . and I didn't have a recipe for that.  So I knew . . I had to do a test run before the actual day, because I did not want to bake nasty cupcakes and have all Anne's friends think that.  Additionally, I'm not a big green tea fan, so I wasn't sure what to look for in terms of flavor.

So as usual, I consulted Pinterest for ideas and came across the The Sweetest Kitchen, Sugar, Spice and Everything Really Nice.  This is where I found the recipe I used for this cupcake, which is really a Magnolia Vanilla Cupcake recipe with Matcha added in.  I added the Matcha into the dry ingredients.

This is the brilliant color that came out when mixing the wet and dry ingredients.

I didn't use the cream cheese frosting from the blog, because it lead to a deactivated page.  So I used the one from the Bourbon Pecan Carrot Cake Recipe and did not add Matcha as I wanted to allow some flavor contrast.  However that recipe only provided enough cream cheese frosting to cover 12 cupcakes and I had baked 2 dozen.  Additionally, I had no more cream cheese and did not want to run to the store again.  I decided to make a buttercream . .  but again when I looked in my fridge I only had 1 stick of unsalted butter, but I had like 5 sticks of sweet cream which has salt.  Did I really want to go to the store? Nooooo!!!!! Soooo . . I said whatever, how different could the buttercream taste?  Plus I've been on a salted anything kick anyways.  

The buttercream turned out better than I expected.  I loved the contrast of the salty and sweet.  Here's the recipe, which makes about 5 cups, this will be a little more than enough to heavily frost 12 cupcakes.

Buttercream

• 5 large egg whites
• 1 cup sugar + 2 tbsp sugar
• 1 pinch of salt
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter
• 1 1/2 cup salted butter
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tbsp. Matcha 

1. Combine egg whites, sugar and salt in a heatproof blow over a pan of simmering water.  Whisk until mixture is warm and sugar has dissolved.  Remove from heat.
2. With you mixer, whisk on low gradually increasing speed.  Continue whisking until stiff peaks form, mixture should be fluffy and glossy (about 10 minutes)
3. With the mixer on a low speed, begin to add the butter.  Add butter a few tablespoons at a time mixing well after each addition.
4. Once all butter has been added, add the vanilla.
5. Change your whisk attachment to paddles, beating on low speed for about 2 minutes to remove the air bubbles.
6. Add in Matcha 

Just so you know this is why I called this blog "Madness" Behind the Cake, because sometimes things happen that are unexpected, mixing bowls break, you run out of ingredients, you have deadlines and you stayed out or went to a concert the night before and couldn't start baking until 11:30 at night or you just didn't manage your time well, or you just had a brain fart and forget to add an ingredient like sugar when making creme brûlée (disgusting).

Well on this night  . . while making my buttercream . . . my glass mixing bowl cracked.  I guess my mixing bowl was not tempered glass like I assumed.  I had only made this same buttercream recipe like 20 times before and in this same fashion.  

While heating the egg whites and sugar over a pot of simmering water I heard a pop, which was the crack in my mixing bowl.  So I had to find a bowl close to it's size, and hold it to my mixer to ensure it didn't fly off.  It was not fun trying to cream that butter.  In the end, the buttercream did turn out, but it just took me twice as long . . . .   

So in the end, I frosted 1 dozen with the cream cheese frosting, sprinkling matcha powder on the tops.  Then the other dozen I frosted with the green tea buttercream frosting placing the minnie mouse heads into each one.  Minnie mouse heads were made out of rolled out black fondant using a cookie cutter.  The same was done with the flowers.  Additionally I used a luster dust on the white flowers to add dimension.   Congratulations Anne!  Can't wait to see you walk down the aisle!