Is that I am a lousy photographer. I could blame it on my camera (which, truth be told, isn't all that great), but it really wouldn't be fair. Mostly the problem is just that I take bad pictures.
Like this one, to give you a for example:
After four tries, that's the most decent shot I could come up with of one of the orange cupcakes I made yesterday. It's blurry and overexposed, and generally not worthy of posting.
I've been a cupcake-making demon the last two weeks. My friend Julie got married this past weekend, and a bunch of us are throwing a party for her in October, and I'm in charge of dessert. Going with the current trend, I decided on cupcakes. For 100 people, many most of whom I do not know. A little advance testing is in order here.
Fortunately, I am blessed with a church full of guinea pigs, and an office that is less full, but still very willing. The first tests consisted of a red velvet cupcake with cream cheese icing (yes, I know, blasphemy) and a chocolate cupcake with cinnamon coffee icing. Today's selection was an orange cupcake with citrus icing, and ooooooh, it is yummy. Here's the recipe:
Orange cupcakes
1 box yellow cake mix (could also use lemon)
4 eggs
1/2 cup oil
1 11 oz. can mandarin oranges, undrained
Mix it all together and bake, in cupcake cups, at 350 for about 20 minutes. (N.B.: this cake does not scream "orange" on its own, although it is very nice when combined with the frosting below. I'm going to try it again next weekend with a little orange extract tossed in. It's also tempting to add a bit of red food coloring to make the batter more orangey, but I'm going for citrus, not Halloween, so we'll see.)
Citrus Frosting
1.5 Tb. Orange zest, minced fine
1 tsp. lemon zest, minced fine
1/3 cup butter, softened
3 cups powdered sugar
2 tsp lemon juice (I didn't measure, I just squeezed a bit in)
Orange juice
Combine all ingredients except orange juice and mix well. Add orange juice a tablespoon at a time, beating well after each addition, until the frosting is of spreading consistency.
These were pretty good when freshly made yesterday, but I think they're even better today--the flavors have developed a bit. The cake is a wee bit on the dry side; I may try to remedy that with some buttermilk next time. The frosting is lovely--white with teeny tiny flecks of orange and yellow (be sure you mince the zest really, really well. You do not want crunchy frosting.)
