Vanilla Cupcake with Rose Buttercream & updates!

I'm such a bad blogger. I abandoned this my food blog for a while without updating, even though I did promise I was going to update. It's not that I haven't been cooking or baking. I guess, I've been lazy to write up a post. There are, however, a lot pictures of food on my desktop/SD card waiting to be uploaded. It's just like I've said, I'm being lazy.

To make up for my laziness, I've baked these cupcakes to apologize. (Ok, that's a lie. I baked these for mother's day months ago, but was too lazy to write up a post).

I've seen people making these cupcake bouquets before and wanted to try them. Instead of buying my mom a bouquet of roses, I've decided to bake some cupcakes, and presented them in a bouquet. And instead of having real roses, why not replace them with vanilla cupcake with rose buttercream? They taste (a bit) like roses, and smell like roses.

These cupcakes bouquet was really easy to make and assemble. They're super cute and fun! Perfect as a gift, don't you think?

Chocolate & Vanilla Cake with Strawberry Swiss Meringue Buttercream

Foodies by ai reverts back to pink! How do you like it? The banner was actually drawn by my little sister. I asked her to draw that picture for my blog, and she did. I thought it was quite alright, although she needed to improve more on perspective.

Anyway, I made this Chocolate and Vanilla Cake with Strawberry Swiss Meringue for my brother's birthday. He turned 26 this year! Congratulation!

But, I couldn't decide between Vanilla or Chocolate. So, I made both for him. I thought I wanted to experiment on the checkered cake, once more. 

Yes, I made the checkered cake years ago. It was Vanilla and Chocolate with Coffee butter cream. I remember making them for my parent's anniversary :)

And the good thing about making a checkered cake is that, you'll get two cakes instead of one :) So, I make one for my family, and the other one for my brother to bring them to his office. It's part of my giveaway plan. But, the first cake turned out like this. It doesn't look as appetizing as I'm out of butter cream. And, it was too late to went out to buy more ingredients to make one.

I bought more ingredients and prepare more butter cream the next morning.  And this is how the cake looks like after decorated. I think it looks quite alright. What do you think about it?

• Vanilla Cake Recipe
• Chocolate Cake Recipe
• Swiss Meringue Butter cream Recipe (add in 1 cup of strawberry puree to make a Strawberry Swiss Meringue Butter cream.

Chocolate Swiss Meringue Buttercream

Made this on a friend's request. She requested some cupcakes to give away to a few friends, and I suggested vanilla and chocolate flavor. I made her some vanilla cupcakes with Swiss meringue butter cream and some brownies cupcakes with chocolate Swiss meringue butter cream.

I love meringue butter cream! They're fluffy, light and it's not as sweet as the usual butter cream. I made some adjustment in the Swiss meringue butter cream by adding in some melted chocolate. They taste really good!

Chocolate Swiss Meringue Butter Cream

500g sugar
10 large egg whites
500g unsalted butter, cut into pieces
100g chocolate, melted

1. Place sugar and egg whites in the heat-proof bowl of an electric mixer. Set bowl over a pan of gently simmering water, and whisk until sugar has dissolved and egg whites are hot to the touch, about 3 minutes.

2. Transfer bowl to mixer stand. Using the whisk attachment, beat on high speed about 10 minutes, until mixture has cooled completely and formed stiff and glossy peaks.

3. Add the butter, one piece at a time, and beat until incorporated after each addition. If the butter cream appears curdled after the butter has been added, continue beating. It will become smooth again.

4. Switch to the paddle attachment, and beat on the lowest speed to eliminate any air pockets, about 5 minutes. 

5. Melt chocolate in microwave, and let it cool a bit. Then, gently pour in the melted chocolate into the butter cream on low speed.

Related Recipes:

• Swiss Meringue Butter Cream

Swiss Meringue Buttercream

I've never really make any Swiss Meringue Butter Cream before. I did however experimented on Italian Meringue Butter Cream. They were much difficult than Swiss, in my opinion. (I've found out about the Italian before Swiss!) So, when Aimi from burp! le feastin avec moi asked me about meringue butter cream last year, I gave her a recipe of Swiss Meringue Butter Cream.

In making Italian Meringue Butter Cream, I have to pour the sugar syrup to the beaten egg white. I have to be careful with the timing of boiling the sugar syrup and beating the egg white. There was too many works. 

In preparing Swiss Meringue Butter Cream however, all I need to do was placing the sugar and egg white in a heat-proof bowl, and  Place sugar and egg whites in the heat-proof bowl of an electric mixer over a pan of simmering water, and whisk until the sugar has dissolved. It's much more simple in my opinion.

I'm glad that the butter cream turns out really well and pretty too!

Swiss Meringue Butter Cream

(Martha Stewart's Recipe)

500gm sugar

10 large egg whites

500gm  unsalted butter, cut into pieces

2 teaspoons vanilla extract  (or any other desired flavoring)

1. Place sugar and egg whites in the heat-proof bowl of an electric mixer. Set bowl over a pan of gently simmering water, and whisk until sugar has dissolved and egg whites are hot to the touch, about 3 minutes

2. Transfer bowl to mixer stand. Using the whisk attachment, beat on high speed about 10 minutes, until mixture has cooled completely and formed stiff and glossy peaks.

3. Add the butter, one piece at a time, and beat until incorporated after each addition. If the butter cream appears curdled after all the butter has been added, continue beating. It will become smooth again. Add vanilla, and beat just until combined.

4. Switch to the paddle attachment, and beat on the lowest speed to eliminate any air pockets, about 5 minutes.  If you have taken it out from the fridge or freezer then bring it back to room temperature and whip it before use.