Experimental Baking

On Friday night, I spent quite some time baking 3 batches of cupcakes and a 4-layer cake. Though i loved every minute of my summer travels, i had not done any baking since May, and my hands were doing the withdrawl shakies from my need to mix some batter.

Batter up! *groan*


You see, the reason why this is experimental is because I had been brainstorming all summer, thinking about cupcakes while trekking across a Hong Kong mountain or up a San Franciscan hill. I thought of all these what-ifs and I-wonder-what-would-happens, and I had to put them into play. I had too many unanswered questions that needed to be resolved.

I needed to bake it out. This is therapy.

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Q: What happens if you bake a marshmallow into a cupcake?
A: It kinda shrivels a bit and becomes tough. That is disappointing.


Sad, sacrificial marshmallow.

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Q: Can you drill a hole into a cupcake and fill it with something?
A: Absolutely. I used my trusty potato peeler that has a eye remover, and i used it to cut a hole in the middle of the cupcake. (Matt ate the middle pieces. He is a good sport.) However, if you decide to fill the middle with marshmallow creme, like i did, you'll have to expect it to deflate after a while...which is why i had to fill some of the holes with a mini-marshmallow. I'd use frosting next time.


These cupcakes, however delicious they were, did not turn out very pretty. But that is the point of experimental baking.

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Q: What happens if you mix frosting with fruit preserves?
A: It becomes a little liquidier. It would probably be better to buy raspberry flavoring instead of mixing raspberry preserves into buttercream. I mean, it tasted fine, but when making a 4-layer cake, you want your in-betweens to really show up. It didn't. People seemed to like the cake, but I was indifferent. Maybe they were just being polite. It doesn't help that i don't really like cake and i abhor frosting. I can't be a very good judge.


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Q: How do you make coffee-flavored cake?
A: Well. Here's what i did, anyway. I took instant coffee granules (which i ONLY use for baking, you have to believe me) and dissolved it in water. Then instead of using water for the cake, i used that. Next time, I'm gonna try using brewed coffee. And brew it extra strong. Extra extra strong. The cupcakes turned out fine, they just didn't have the strong coffee flavor i wanted it to have. Whatever.

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Overall, it really was a fantastic night. I am excited that i have learned a few things from my experiments. Now i know what to do in the future. I'm a little smarter, a little wiser, and my hands have stopped shaking violently from baking withdrawl.