In September, I started a cupcake adventure. If you haven't read about it yet, you can do so here. ***
Last month, I offered to donate cupcakes to an event. Since I wanted them to have a nice variety of flavors (and because I promised myself I'd make all 113 recipes in the book), I decided to make four different batches. Yes, the idea of juggling four batches was as crazy as it sounds.
One recipe I chose was the Root Beer Floats, in which both the batter and the icing uses actual root beer pop (or 'soda' for those of you who don't say 'pop' and 'Coke' for all you crazy Southerners that call every soft drink 'Coke'. I digress...) As it is written, the recipe supposedly makes an even dozen...
You start by boiling the root beer with a whole stick of butter.
You then beat the root beer/butter syrup into the dry ingredients and a cup of mini marshmallows, which are supposed to mimic the vanilla ice cream in a float.
Then you bake them, and the fizz from the root beer and the puffy marshmallows pretty much expand and bubble all over the pan and the oven and look a little something like this:
NOT good.
So, you scrape all of those lame-excuses-for-cupcakes off your good non-stick pan and you start completely over since you are due to deliver the cupcakes that evening and you're running out of time. This go-round, you separate the batter into 16 cups instead of 12, and you press the marshmallows into the top of each one, rather than mixing it into the batter.
The second batch seemed to turn out much better than the first, but there were still giant craters in each cupcakes from where the marshmallows had expanded and then melted away. I can only assume that this is how they are supposed to look--kinda ugly, but hopefully tasty.
And up close, they do look pretty ooey-gooey-scrumptious, don't you think?
And, naturally, everything is better with icing on top. :) With a hint of root beer flavor, this creamy icing perfectly balanced out the bubbly insides of the cake. YUM!
