With the new found discovery that icing does not like me, I approached this new cooking venture with care, and a slight touch of resentment. My friend can bake awesome cakes such as brownies, fudge cakes, coffee cakes, rainbow cakes, but I’m a little lot less talented then she is when it comes to baking. Although this time they didn’t turn out like the Bird Leg Cabin Gingerbread House and didn’t spontaneously combusted just as I put the final designs on! Go team! Also, I swear, I’m not bad at all cooking, but confectionery bemuses me to impossible lengths!
Ingredients for (12) Cupcakes
110g – Butter
110g – Caster Sugar
2 Eggs
Self-Raising Flour (or 1 teaspoon of Baking Powder with plain flour)
1 Teaspoon of Vanilla Extract
1-2 – Tablespoons of Milk
Tools
Bowls
Tablespoons
Teaspoons
Scales
Oven (or pet dragon)
Cupcake cases
Cupcake tray
Baking Tray (if you have a silicon cupcake tray)
First of all, I cut 110g of butter in cubes and placed it in the microwave, The recipe called for the butter to be at room temperature, but with it being both winter and so very cold in the room I was in, the chances are that the butter would be the same temperature as the fridge. In the meantime I weighed 110g of sugar and, once the butter had warmed up, mixed it with the butter until it was fluffy.
When it was soft and fluffy enough, I put down the cat, washed my hands and added two eggs to the mixture. The eggs made the butter and sugar go extremely gooey and quite unpleasant, despite putting one in at a time and stirring. Around this time, I was doubting that the final product would even be classed as a bakery product and but still added the teaspoon of vanilla extract...Although I was fully convinced that if I had left it and returned the following day, I would be the ruler over a new civilisation of gooey-egg people which smelled like vanilla. My only salvation would be the flour...
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| Y U NO LOOK APPETISING EGGY-SUGARY-BUTTERY-VANILLARY MIXTURE! |
As I only had plain flour instead of self-raising, I mixed a teaspoon of baking powder into it, pretending that I was completely prepared for making cupcakes today and not trying to attempt this project/article the day before it's intended to be published. *shifty look* I added the flour to the eggy-sugary-buttery-vanillary construct, and began to stir. I had hoping for the mixture to assume mystical properties and to look more like cake mix, but I was preparing for it to develop into a portal for Helheim.
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| Optimstic flour is optimistic |
The case seemed to be the former, with the flour actually improving it greatly. It went from a disappointing porridge to cake mix in a surprisingly short space of time...Yay! I'm not totally useless at following instructions...And yes, that line is going on my CV now.
I preheated the oven to 180c which took a few minutes, giving me time to sort out the cases and the separation of the mixture into half (as I only had a 6 cake tin) and then in sixths. I had bought in special silver cases for this project but the kitchen was rearranged recently. On a related note, I'm thinking of selling my fresh-back-from-university brother on eBay.
The recipe stated that it would take 10-15 minutes in the 180c oven, but mine took around 30 minutes for just one batch. Still, it allowed me to focus on some small decorations for the cakes when all were done. Once they had all been baked, I could finally see the final product...they turned out better than what I had expected!
Next came the decorating!
Decorations
Flaked Almonds
Red Icing
Blue Icing
Black Icing
White Icing
Golden Edible Spray
Golden Edible Baubles
Milk Chocolate Buttons
1. Remedy logo in blue icing
2. "Psycho" in red icing with a drawing of Mr Scratch's knife in black and white.
3. Alan's flannel shirt from "American Nightmare" in blue icing, with the game's colour scheme and golden baubles.
4. "Flaming Eye" in red icing, the first of two cupcakes with the quotation "Flaming Eye of Mordor"
5. White icing on milk chocolate buttons, mimicking the large typewriter in "The Writer" DLC.
6. Poets of the Fall inspired cupcake featuring the woman with the gasmask from the "Carnival of Rust" music video.
7. "of Mordor" in blue icing, the second of two cupcakes with the quotation "Flaming Eye of Mordor"
8. The second flannel shirt design from American Nightmare with black icing and gold baubles.
9. Almonds circling a blue swirl made out of icing, mimicking the Bird Leg Cabin Gingerbread House design.
10. A coffee thermos made out of blue and white icing, with Rusty's line "Try the Coffee" in black icing.
11. A drawing of Bird Leg Cabin in black icing with blue icing representing the darkness. Two gold baubles mark the windows.
12. The words "The Sudden Stop" in black and red icing.
