I was honored that they asked me to make desserts for the event. But I must admit, as much as I was thrilled to contribute to this amazing occasion, I was equally nervous and terrified. This was my first official "gig" as a baker, which is daunting enough, but I also wanted to create something truly special, delicious and beautiful for my friends.
Being the highly anxious person that I am, I started planning months in advance. My frantic mind went back and forth between stunning tiered cakes or adorable, sweet cupcakes. After about a month of unnecessary indecisiveness and trepidation, I finally landed somewhere in the middle. How about BABY CAKES?! Little tiered sweet bites with the perfect ratio of fluffy frosting to compliment the Baby-Que event!
My friend loved the vegan vanilla chai cupcakes I made last year, and she is having and eggless pregnancy, so I thought they would be the perfect flavor for the tiers of my baby cakes. However, I did want to do something different and divert from the original frosting. So why not white chocolate buttercream? I mean, go big or go home, am I right?
In the end, I surprised myself with how well the little sweets turned out. I acutally multiplied the origial recipe by 12 (if you can belive it) and baked the batter in 4 large 12 x 18 sheet pans. I then used a buscuit cutter to cut out cute little circles of vanilla chai goodness once the cake cooled.
My cakes never bake perfectly evenly, so unless I wanted slightly drunk looking leaning baby cakes, I had to trim the little circles so they were flat and even and could sit nice and cozy on top of each other. After that, it was just slapping on the the white buttercream frosting (which I tripled in this case), and a few blue blue sprinkles and they were done! In the end, the recipe made about 60 two-tierd baby cakes!
Looking back, I think this was an eye-opening experience. I felt priveleged that my friends trusted my baking abilities enough to ask for my help. However, if this is something I want to for reals, it's no joke. It took a lot of prep, work and obvously some uncessary anxiety, but that's just me. I know the more I do this the easier it will get and I truly do love baking and I'm constantly learning new things. So I guess we'll just have to wait and see...
For the Vanilla Chai Cupcake recipe, see my original blog post here.
White Chocolate Buttercream Frosting
1/3 cup heavy cream
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1 (2 lb.) package confectioners' sugar (about 7 cups)
1/4 cup heavy cream or milk
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/8 tsp. salt
1.) Break or chop white chocolate into small pieces. Combine chocolate pieces and 1/3 cup heavy cream in a small microwaveable bowl. Heat in the microwave at 50% power for 1 to 1 1/2 minutes until melted and smooth, stirring after every 30 seconds. Let cool to room temperature (approximately 30 minutes).
2.) Beat butter with an electric mixer at medium speed until creamy, about 1 minute. Gradually add confectioners sugar and 1/4 cup cream, beating at low speed until blended after each addition. If mixture becomes too thick, add a little of the white chocolate mixture and continue beating.
3.) Add salt, white chocolate, and vanilla extract; beat at low speed until combined. Increase speed to medium and beat until light and fluffy, 3 minutes.
