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Monday, July 13, 2009

Lavender Lady


This is my first entry for Iron Cupcake this month. Isn't she the sexiest little cannibalistic lavender cupcake alien you've ever seen?


Vanilla-Lavender Cupcakes
Makes 12 aliens or 24 regular cupcakes

1 ¼ cups whole milk
2 teaspoons food grade lavender
2 ½ cups cake flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
4 large egg whites
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 ½ cups sugar
1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature

In a small pan scald the milk until it just starts to make little bubbles around the edges.
Stir in the lavender and remove from heat.
Let steep for 15 minutes and chill in fridge for at least 2 hours.
Preheat the oven to 350 and prepare 2 muffin tins with Baker's Joy and cupcake liners in just one of the tins.
Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt.
Whisk together the milk and egg whites in a medium bowl.
In your mixer's bowl beat the butter and sugar for a full 3 minutes, until the butter and sugar are very light.
Beat in the extract, then add one third of the flour mixture, still beating on medium speed.
Beat in half of the milk-egg mixture, then beat in half of the remaining dry ingredients until incorporated.
Add the rest of the milk and eggs beating until the batter is homogeneous, then add the last of the dry ingredients.
Mix the finished batter for 2 minutes to ensure it is all incorporated. (This would be a great time to add a little green food coloring if you're making aliens. I wish I would have thought of it before!)
Divide the batter between the two pans.
Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until the cupcakes are well risen and springy to the touch.
Transfer the cakes to cooling racks and cool for about 5 minutes.
Invert and cool to room temperature, right side up.

To make the aliens: you'll need a bit of frosting. I usually have a bit of buttercream left over from something or other hanging out in the back of my fridge. Lately my favorite buttercream is a pound of softened butter beaten with about 2 pounds of sifted powdered sugar, a tablespoon of vanilla extract and a few tablespoons of cream. Yum!
Set the fondant out on the counter to come to room temperature while you make the aliens.
In a large bowl, crumble up the dozen cupcakes not in cupcake liners. Add in just enough frosting to make a playdoh like consistency. You can then use this mixture to make aliens! I used one ball for the body and one for the head. (and, of course, two small balls for the, ahem, bust.)
Tint the fondant to your desired color(s). (save out a couple of walnut sized lumps of fondant if you want to make the 'cupcakes'.)
Take a small ball of fondant and roll it out until it is about 1/4 inch thin.
Carefully mold it onto your alien, gently shaping it around the curves. Form arms from two 'snakes'. Roll out another piece of fondant in to a rectangle about 4 inches by 6 inches and use it to 'skirt' the cupcake. The 'cupcake' was made from two tiny bits of fondant and a red non-pareil.
For the antennae, I melted some white chocolate chips and tinted it green. Then I piped it onto wax paper on a tray and popped it in the fridge to set. I made a hole in the head of the cupcake with a toothpick and stuck the antennae in. I used a smidge of frosting to glue on some big sugar eyeballs.

This is the July prize package for Iron Cupcake Earth: Herbs
Last and certainly not least, don’t forget our corporate prize providers: HEAD CHEFS by FIESTA PRODUCTS, http://www.fiestaproducts.com, HELLO CUPCAKE by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson, http://blog.hellocupcakebook.com, JESSIE STEELE APRONS http://www.jessiesteele.com; TASTE OF HOME books, http://www.tasteofhome.com; a t-shirt from UPWITHCUPCAKES.COM http://www.upwithcupcakes.com/. Iron Cupcake:Earth is sponsored in part by 1-800-Flowers, http://www.1800flowers.com .




5 comments:

Carol said...

Wow, that turned out really well! Looks like another alien came along and ate her!

Megan said...

You gotta win with entry. It's just to cute! And may I say, she is a well endowed alien!

PinkBalloons&Macaroons said...

looks so yummy!! I hope you have a fabulous weekend!! hugs!! Britt :-)

Becca said...

I voted for you! She is so cute! I'm glad you entered Iron Cupcake so I could be introduced to your blog (I'm an Iron Cupcaker too). I'm looking forward to exploring it and seeing what else you've cooked up.

Jennie said...

Thank you all! When I was, um, molding her, uh, bosom, I kept thinking, 'is this going to be big enough?' Then when I put the fondant on I was like, 'Hello Dolly!' LOL!