Pink Princess Cupcakes

The Art.

    I made some birthday cupcakes for a friend recently, and I made her princess cupcakes because every girl is a princess on her birthday. (In the spirit of equality, boys can be princesses too, if they want.) The real magic is imparted by lightly spraying the cupcakes with a touch of shimmery silver Wilton Color Mist, as well as adding edible pearl accents. While I usually hate it when people use foil baking cups--I think they look industrial and shoddy--I have to say, this is one of those times where I think the foil offsets the cupcake decorations in an attractive way. These cupcakes feature a rosewater buttercream icing and delicately flavored almond white cake.

The Science.

    As usual, the science portion of this post is was inspired by an unexpected problem I ran into while baking. Since I ran out of cupcake liners, half the cupcakes were baked in paper and the other half in foil. When I pulled them out of the oven I could see a striking difference between the size and doneness of the cupcakes, depending on which liner they were in. The foil cupcakes we smaller and more brown, because they received the reflected heat from the foil and cooked up faster. Thus, it is important to shorten your bake time by a couple of minutes if you are baking with foil liners.

The Recipe.

Almond white cake:

6 egg whites, divided
1 1/2 cups sugar, divided
2 1/4 cups cake flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 cup salted butter
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 1/3 cup buttermilk

  Preheat oven to 350°F and line two cupcake tins with liners. In a medium bowl, beat three egg whites on medium speed until frothy. Gradually beat in 1/2 cup sugar and continue to beat until soft peaks form. Set aside. Sift together flour and baking powder in another bowl. In a large bowl, beat together remaining cup sugar, butter, remaining egg whites, and vanilla. Alternately add one third of the flour mixture and buttermilk, beating between each addition just until combined. Fold in beaten egg whites with a spatula. Fill cupcake tins using 1/4 cup measure, and bake on center rack for 20 minutes, or until tester comes out clean. Cool on wire rack.

Rose buttercream:

1 cup salted butter, room temperature
1 cup vegetable shortening
5-7 cups powdered sugar

1 teaspoon rosewater

gel icing colors

    In large bowl, beat together butter and shortening on medium speed until fluffy. Beat in powdered sugar, one cup at a time. Add sugar until icing makes stiff, jagged peaks. Beat in rosewater. If icing tastes too sugary or grainy, add a couple tablespoons of milk. Tint 3/4 of the icing pink (I used Wilton Icing Colors "rose").

Decorating:

    Using a 1M tip, pipe a swirl of pink icing onto each cupcake. For a tutorial, visit this post. Then, pipe stars of white icing with a #17 star tip, following the contours of the swirl. Very lightly spray with the silver color mist, and place edible pearls on the tips of the stars.