Birthday Snickerdoodle Cupcakes

Happy Birthday to Bridget (8/2) & Bethaney(8/10)! A couple of weekends ago Maria and I drove up to Camp Kawaga in Minocqua, WI to help the girls celebrate their birthday's......for those of you that don't know, they are camp nurses there for the summer, not campers. I was pretty excited to give Martha's Snickerdoodle cupcakes a try. I'm glad that I got over my funk since the chocolate chip cupcakes didn't turn out, because these are absolutely delicious! These have the perfect amount of sweetness and the frosting is so light and airy it's hard to stop at just one. The cupcake batter is quite easy to whip together, but the frosting is a little more delicate. I'm convinced that the only reason the frosting turned out is because I bought back-up ingredients for an easier vanilla frosting in case the Seven-Minute Frosting didn't turn out. Also, don't be fooled by the name of this frosting. The only thing that takes 7 minutes is beating the frosting until it is cool to the touch. I made a half batch (which was more than enough) so I can only imagine that it would take even more time had it been the full batch. I have yet to buy a candy thermometer so I took a chance and once the broken meat thermometer got to 210° I waited about 5 minutes and then started to combine the sugar mixture with the egg whites and it worked perfectly.

The only mistake of the weekend was packing for summer....I think we reached a high of 65° all weekend. There were a few other highlights of the weekend, including lots of cheese curds, learning to play 'Yee Haw' a newfangled drinking game that I may even remember how to play, kayaking, and of course the general experience of seeing what an all boys camp is all about.

Martha's Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

I have been putting this entry off long enough and it's time to face the facts that I screwed these cupcakes up. I was so excited about them, so even though they tasted okay I have not wanted to think about them since. I will definitely try to make these again, because I have confidence in Martha that these can be fantastic. I think there were a few problems with my approach:

1. I need bigger bowls (see photo)

2. I made them too far in advance (lesson learned: pick a quicker recipe when having a busy week prior to leaving for a long weekend)

3. Don't double a batch that calls for gently folding in egg whites.....I'm pretty sure this is the reason they turned out way too dense.

Most people still seemed to enjoy these, but considering I brought these to a flip cup tournament and 'Super Simons' Sunday' (a yearly party with my family in Door County), where there may be just a bit of alcohol involved, I'm not convinced these were that good.

I did get to make use of my new handy dandy cupcake carriers, which worked liked a charm, super glad I made the investment. Something tells me my co-workers and out of town friends will enjoy the investment as well.

Check out the following links for the recipes:

Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

Dark Chocolate Frosting

I also had some issues with the frosting and needed to add quite a bit more confectioner's sugar. I think I may have let the butter get a little too soft and perhaps I should have selected a thicker frosting since I was concerned about it staying in tact for my travels.