Baking

Mami & Daughter baking

Mini Cupcake Making!

Tonight was the first time we finally used the mini cupcake maker my daughter received for her sixth birthday back in January. 

I set my daughter up w/all the things she needed, I measured out the water to make positive it was indeed the correct amount, she grabbed two eggs I cut the corner of the cupcake mix open, and we melted two tablespoons of butter because we did not have vegetable oil. She cracked the eggs into the bowl with out getting one single shell in the dish, then she whisked the eggs (she felt like doing so) and added the remaining ingredients. I walked away for maybe five minutes to do something else. As I walked back into the kitchen she is attempting to get the beaters in the mixer.

However, she was unable to. They are even tricky for me to get locking in place correctly sometimes. After I help her get the beaters locked in place, then I look over at the batter and there is no need to even hand mix anymore!! She did an amazing job. 

 Next, came trying to figure out how to use the brand new mini cupcake maker. Lets just say I did NOT read the directions before doing anything with the device. I immediately plugged in the device and THEN I picked up the directions. Well I soon found out I missed TWO steps!! Step 1: Wipe down the cook surfaces with a damp rag and dry. Step 2: Lightly grease the cook surfaces with vegetable oil on a piece of paper towel or a non-stick cooking spray. .... well, now what? As we know from making the batter, we do not have oil nor do we have spray! So I unplug the device, attempt to wipe it down with a damp rag, but the cook surface is already HOT! The water from trying to wipe it down dries as soon as I touch it, so I take my left over stick of butter and grease the entire cook surface. 

 NOW it is ready to be PREHEATED! So I plug it back in, close the lid and wait about five minutes, as the directions (which I am now following) state to wait a minimum of three minutes to about seven minutes, so I figured five was fair. Well the GREEN light comes on after about a minute or two of having the lid closed and the device plugged in. 

So we wait... 

  After the five minutes I add batter to each of the seven cupcake wells. My daughter wants to help, but just with using a long tablespoon, the heat from the cooking surfaces is rather hot on my hand. So I fill all seven wells, under her "coaching" ;) Close the lid, make sure it locks shut. While waiting my daughter and I chit chat a bit and after five minutes I open the device and we have seven beautiful mini cupcakes!

After I remove them, I "stuff" the icing thing. This is a bit messier then I had thought it would be.... Can't really see all to well in the photo below, but there is frosting all down the "handle" and around the bottom of the frosting holder thing.

  She decorates some cupcakes and then it runs out so as I go to pull the handle back to take the handle part off... the pusher part falls off INSIDE of the frosting holder thing! 

  







Below: Jada frosting with no problems.

 Above: I "broke" it after holding it for all of two seconds!

Well I fixed it and she continues to frost as I continue to make cupcakes. With a box of cupcake batter we made nearly three "batches". I was one scoop of batter shy on the third batch. So we had a total of 20 mini cupcakes made in about 30 minutes. Not bad! By the time I was done making cupcakes and the batter was gone, Jada was about done with frosting so she handed it over to me. I "stuffed" about six of the cupcakes with the frosting. Honestly, I was waiting for the cupcake to explode from me putting too much frosting in it, but none of them exploded. 

Four of my stuffed cupcakes and two of Jada's already frosted and decorated cupcakes. Lots of GREEN on the one cupcake as that was the first cupcake she sprinkled and forgot to put some in her hand and then SPRINKLE them on. There wasn't a big mess, no biggie. 

 By the time she finished frosting and decorating half of the cupcakes it was way past her bed time and I guess cupcake making is super exhausting.