{"id":93,"date":"2011-06-14T23:01:21","date_gmt":"2011-06-15T06:01:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ryotakahashi.com\/blog\/?p=93"},"modified":"2011-06-14T23:01:21","modified_gmt":"2011-06-15T06:01:21","slug":"lychee-cupcakes-revisited","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ryotakahashi.com\/blog\/archives\/93","title":{"rendered":"Lychee Cupcakes Revisited"},"content":{"rendered":"

My last attempt<\/a> at lychee cupcakes was a semi-disaster. Only semi, because the cupcakes themselves were pretty good (or at least I thought they were), but the frosting was a disaster. I added too much liquid, and so it ended up being this weird, cottage cheese-like mess.<\/p>\n

I haven’t had the best relationship with frosting. Before I took a cake decorating class, I actually used to never frost my cupcakes. People would tease me that they were muffins, not cupcakes. But it’s not the frosting that determines whether it’s a cupcake or muffin, dammit! It’s the proportion of flour, sugar, and fat. Cupcakes have a higher proportion of sugar and fat in relation to the other ingredients, compared to muffins. And so cupcakes feel more sinful.<\/p>\n

Anyway, after I took that cake decorating class, I realized that making frosting is really not that hard. It’s basically just fat (butter or shortening), combined with a bunch of powdered sugar, some milk to thin it out, and some vanilla extract for flavor. The frosting we made for class was disgusting, I thought. It called for shortening but no butter, because shortening gives the frosting the stiffness it needs for us to do various tricks with decorating tools. I think shortening tastes like cardboard. The stuff is creepy, too. I mean, here’s this creamy substance that can sit on your shelf, unrefrigerated, literally for years. Well, since I wasn’t going to be doing anything fancy with the lychee frosting, I used butter instead of shortening. Butter just tastes so much better.<\/p>\n

OK, so to recap, here’s the cupcake recipe. I didn’t make any changes from last time.<\/p>\n

Lychee Cupcakes<\/strong>
\n3\/4 cup butter (that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one and a half sticks)
\n3\/4 cup sugar
\n2 eggs
\n2 teaspoons vanilla extract
\n2 cups all-purpose flour
\n1\/2 tablespoon baking powder
\n1\/4 teaspoon salt
\n1 14-ounce can lychees (drain the fruit, save the syrup)<\/p>\n

\"IMG_4634\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Here’s the batter. The butter and sugar are first creamed together, and then the eggs are added, followed by the vanilla extract. I added 7 tablespoons of the lychee syrup after that, but I had trouble getting the liquid to combine with the fat mixture. It wasn’t until I added the dry ingredients, along with the drained lychee fruit cut into pieces and coated in some of the flour, that everything came together.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_4635\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Into some cupcake liners they go, since these are cupcakes after all.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_4636\"<\/a><\/p>\n

They’re done after baking for 20 minutes in a 350F oven.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_4637\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Here they are, naked. I think they’re fine like this, but since I didn’t want to be accused of making lychee muffins…<\/p>\n

Lychee Frosting<\/strong>
\n1 stick butter
\n2 cups powdered sugar
\n2 tablespoons lychee syrup<\/p>\n

\"IMG_4638\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Thankfully, this time the frosting came together into a creamy mixture, instead of falling apart. It was pretty soft and not stiff, but since I wasn’t piping anything, it didn’t matter to me.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_4639\"<\/a><\/p>\n

After frosting. I don’t know how the bakeries make them look perfect. Well, I guess they are professionals…<\/p>\n

\"IMG_4640\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I used an offset spatula, but I just can’t get them to look that pretty.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_4641\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Not as strong of a lychee flavor as last time, with the decreased amount of lychee syrup in the frosting, but it still tasted like lychee.<\/p>\n

I’d actually rather have whipped cream on top, I think. Frosting is a little too heavy. Whipped cream flavored with lychee sounds really good. Maybe next time…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My last attempt at lychee cupcakes was a semi-disaster. Only semi, because the cupcakes themselves were pretty good (or at least I thought they were), but the frosting was a disaster. I added too much liquid, and so it ended … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[20,168,107],"class_list":["post-93","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-baking","tag-cupcakes","tag-frosting","tag-lychee"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ryotakahashi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ryotakahashi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ryotakahashi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ryotakahashi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ryotakahashi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.ryotakahashi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ryotakahashi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ryotakahashi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ryotakahashi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}