Thursday, March 13, 2008

Spectacular Cupcakes 2008



Cupcakes have always intrigued me. I've always thought of them as some fancy food phase that'll come to pass in time. Pretty as they are, I think the sugary frosting is usually just plain overkill. Or maybe I'm used to the idea that a good cake doesn't need much adornment and should be flavourful straight up.

Yep. Only 2 things seem to be guaranteed out of a cupcake: toothaches and an expanding waistline.

So when I stumbled upon Spectacular Cupcakes 2008 by Arfi of Homemades, I thought tis time for the cupcake to redeem itself. If I dont like what I find out there, why not tweak it to a standard that I'll enjoy?

And if there's one flavour I totally adore but always totally manage to screw up, it's gotta be green tea. The both times I've tried it were in the form of cakes and I've always encountered the same problem - the amount of tea is never enough! I can't bring out the hint of tea no matter how much tea I add! (If anyone knows why, pleeeeaase drop me a note.) The saving grace in this cupcake was the sencha frosting - I omitted 3 quarts of the sugar in the cream cheese frosting but it was still sweet and deliciously tangy. Yummay.. I could polish off the frosting by itself! The recipe can be found here. I used double the amount of sencha and decreased the amount of sugar. I would also decrease the amount of flour by a little for a moister cake. Can't wait to check out what the others have come up with!

Alright to bed...I'm so exhausted! Thank goodness the weekend's almost here. TGIF! :)

4 comments:

Unknown said...

These look sinfully creamy, Cynthia although you cut some of the measurements! Thank you for participating on Cupcakes Spectacular 2008!

Cheers,
ab

Y said...

I love sencha, but have you tried maccha? I wonder if maybe it's stronger. Usually 3 teaspoons of maccha powder to any standard recipe is enough, I find. I use it in friands, biscuits, cupcakes, white chocolate ganache etc., and the flavour really comes through.

Cynthia said...

yeah i think i have to try the bright green powdered version instead! i just used normal drinking green tea bags. that could be the problem! will try it the next time round :)

Y said...

Oh, normal green tea isn't the same at all! I hope you give maccha a try. It's quite addictive, I find - soon you'll be trying to sneak it into all sorts of baked goods! I absolutely love the flavour.