Cupcakes For My Better Half

When you're married to someone for a long time you become an expert at mood changes. Today was a stressful day of work for my husband. I heard it in his tone, saw it in his expression when he wandered out of the home office. Unfortunately there's nothing I can do to fix the corporation that employs him. Dust kicks up every so often when the higher ups decide to implement some ridiculous new plan. He's survived for 15 years. He'll survive this latest round.

My secret weapon is baking. He loves my cupcakes so I thought I'd whip up a batch today.

I had a box mix lingering in the pantry so I baked the cupcakes then whipped up a batch of lemon curd and Italian meringue. If you've never made Italian meringue you need to give it a whirl. I admit I was intimidated by meringue but after watching John Kanell's video for his Lemon Meringue Pie I threw caution to the wind and baked it. I've included the video below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lh54oX52ld0

The Italian meringue brought the pie to a whole new level and it's the only recipe I use when it I need to whip up my son's favorite pie. I also use his recipe for lemon curd. You just can't go wrong with recipes from Preppy Kitchen.

I managed to get a little video of my own while making the cupcakes using my iPhone. It's time to start setting up my DSLRs in the kitchen so that I can shoot video without using the "one hand on the phone, one hand attempting to do things" method! But here are the little clips.

https://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-QjNN9JG/0/70ee5725/1280/i-QjNN9JG-1280.mp4

Several months ago I purchased a pancake batter dispenser since my son has gotten into making funnel cakes of all kinds. This little, okay not so little, gem makes filling cupcake pans so much easier when using boxed cake mix. The batters are always so thin compared to many of the "from scratch" recipes I use. It's fast and it prevents me from making a mess of the pan, the counter and me.

https://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-WhtdKvF/0/fe7f6a0d/1280/i-WhtdKvF-1280.mp4

The result?

We enjoyed the cupcakes but J says he prefers the cream cheese frosting on cupcakes with lemon curd filling. That's what I normally use but I had egg whites in the fridge and needed to use them. I also wanted to give Italian meringue another spin. We both think we'll stick to putting the meringue on pies, tarts and maybe a S'mores style cupcake.

The cupcakes did what they were supposed to do.

They put a smile on hubby's face and he forgot about his craptastic work day.

Win-win.

Peace