Wacky Cake

First off, please forgive the pictures in this post. My camera is sporting some sort of digital disease and my photo editing skills are deeply lacking, but I didn't want to leave you with nothing to look at. With that said, we enter a world where chickens are of no use to us. Let me explain.

Running out of eggs last week sent me on a journey through wacky cake land. If you've never heard of it, wacky cake uses baking soda and vinegar for leavening instead of eggs. It's not the best cake in the world, but it's not bad - it certainly does the trick - especially as a vehicle for gobs and gobs of frosting. It's also a great base for a vegan cake.

So last week I had a bunch of ingredients I needed to use up (dulce de leche, chocolate ganache and a cookie crunch topping that fell off of some unsuccessful cookie bars) and no eggs. I remembered wacky cake and looked up a recipe for a simple chocolate version.

I baked it up and after it cooled slathered on a very thick layer of dulce de leche frosting. Then I sprinkled as much of the cookie crumb topping as I could fit on top, drizzled it with more dulce de leche and then drizzled on my left over chocolate ganache. Although impressive looking, the flavor was good, but not spectacular.

This is what was left after I took a fork to half of the cake.

There is something quite happy and fun about taking a fork to a whole cake and just digging in. It's like a lot of things that you think are very important are suddenly thrown out the window and you find yourself smiling about it. Don't take that analogy too far.

This week I got inspired and decided to use up some overripe bananas in another wacky cake recipe. I frosted it with a cinnamon scented peanut butter frosting and topped it with a few banana chips so as not to leave the cake too naked.

I now find myself in a wacky cake frenzy contemplating the endless wacky cake possibilities. If I really think about it, it's the perfect cake for me as I mostly care about frosting anyway and if I ever had to live in a world without chickens, I'd be okay.

Feeling Grinchy?

Now that my business is on hiatus I am turning my attention back to blogging to keep my cupcake muscles in shape. I was continuing to experiment while my business was running, but didn't have the will to keep you all abreast of my exploits. Blackberry chocolate wine, lemon white chocolate coconut, and cranberry chocolate are some of the experiments you didn't get to read about.

This week lychees were on my mind. I bought a can months and months ago and finally decided to get to experimenting. I spent time online looking at what other people had done with lychees in cupcakes. Most people added rose and raspberry or paired the lychees with coconut. I decided to open up the can and taste them for myself before I planned my flavor profile.

Working with the canned fruit was kind of like being back in science class. If you haven't experienced canned lychees, they look like little brains and feel like them too; and when you chop them up they look like chopped up fish. The flavor is exotic - closer to star fruit or papaya than apples or oranges - with the consistency of pears. It wasn't my favorite flavor, but I figured I might as well move forward with my adventure.

I chose to pair the lychees with green tea. I thought the flavors would compliment each other. Also, I love green tea buttercream with all my heart (okay, a little dramatic, I know). I patted the lychees as dry as possible and tossed them with a little flour before I added them to my green tea cupcake batter. They baked up perfectly and I could taste both flavors - a success! Yippee! I had anticipated using the left over lychees and syrup for the frosting, but as I could already taste them in the cake and again, the flavor was not my favorite, I went with my beloved green tea buttercream (more drama, but I know all you green tea lovers are feel'n me). I also decided to bake minis in my toaster oven to avoid heating my whole house with the regular oven.

I added a tiny pink heart sprinkle atop each mini cake for the color contrast. They reminded me of the grinch, so I call them Green Tea Lychee Grinchy Cupcakes. They are quite cute if I do say so myself.