Bake #8: Tina Bakes Mocha Cupcakes

I have never met a cupcake I did not want to eat until I baked this. Sounds too harsh, huh??

Jen, don't feel bad - I think it's the recipe (can it really be, coming from Martha?) Anyone out there who have tried this recipe and absolutely love it, please please let us know how you did it!!

Like Jen said, the cake did not taste awful, but lack that moist, cake feel to it. I don't know how to explain it in English, but in Malay (Malay Language) it's called bantat (pronounced bun-tut). And bantat is not goood :) it means that the cake failed to rise to its potential. To put it short, it's a FLOP!! :( I am not putting the entire blame on the recipe. Honestly, it could very well be just me.. I guess I'll never know as I shall never attempt this cake again :)

On the other hand, I had fun making the meringue. Yes, it's Italian meringue and supposedly the most difficult meringue to make of all meringues. Fun in making does not equate to fun in eating, though. It tastes a bit like soft marshmallows to me.. not that that is bad.. just not as a cake frosting. That's just how I feel.

I enjoyed slathering the cupcakes with the luscious meringue!

I halved the recipe and got 13 cupcakes. My daughter took a bite and kept the remaining in the fridge. I tried the first cupcake that came out of the oven - half of it. Tasted the meringue a little and that was it. That's quite rare for moi, the cake-lover :)

I feel somewhat bad about my intention to bring it to the office tomorrow. But I'm bringing them anyways haha... cake testers need to taste the good... and the bad!! (verdict by office testers: meringue tastes too eggy, cake moist but bantat, no one was crazy over it, basically!! and one commented that it doesn't taste like something Tina baked!! :)

Let's hope our next choice of bake makes up for this!! and if it doesn't, there's always another one to pick the next week!!

Keep on baking!!

Bake #8: Jenny Bakes Mocha Cupcakes

I'm afraid this is it. This is the bake. The bake that has "done me in"! We've had such a streak of great picks  the past couple months and then I had to pick this one!

There's nothing wrong with the taste - it has enough caffeine to keep one awake throughout the day, I suppose. WARNING: probably not suitable for kids (unless your kids are like me; yours truly got hooked on Nescafe even before I turned 7!) Coffee is my vice. Although I've stopped my Starbucks habit,  I've picked up another worse habit of downing Nespressos like nobody's business! And those capsules aren't decaf ones, mind you. Suffice to say my mocha cupcakes didn't lack any coffee flavor. But what it did lack was the soft moist texture that I was expecting in a cupcake. The portion of the leavening was a tad too much, resulting in a baking soda aftertaste. Not what I had expected at all. Whether there was a problem with the recipe or my execution, I was just terribly disappointed with the results and even contemplated to not bother with the frosting, which is in and of itself a lot of work!
Commitment. Follow through, follow through, follow through......the resolution I had made for 2010 got the better of me.
So here's my Mocha cupcake complete with Martha's 7-minute frosting (which is really an Italian meringue).

Well, you live and you learn!

Bake #8: Mocha Cupcakes

I totally forgot to post an intro. to this week's bake! Too many things to do, too little time.....but bottom line is, too many memory brain cells lost to aging!

So here's this week's pick - Mocha cupcakes. Why? I was mesmerized by the soft peaks of the meringue topping. Simple as that! And oh, this was flooding my mind (and ears) while driving home the other day.

Have a go at it and let me know what you think!