Cupcakes

I finally got around to making Nigella’s cupcakes. They’re very simple, flour, sugar, butter, leavening, egg, vanilla and milk all mixed together in a food processor. When I took the top off, the batter smelled divine (tasted good too). On TV she said it would probably look like you don’t have enough batter but not to worry. You can see from the photo that it only fills the cups about half full. When they bake, though, they puffed up in the center.

Instead of the Royal Icing from the recipe, which uses raw egg whites, I made a 7-Minute frosting. That’s egg whites, sugar, cream of tartar, a smidge of corn syrup and water. It’s mixed in a double boiler for 5 minutes, then 2 minutes off heat to cool. I added some coconut, inspired by an episode of "Good Eats" earlier this week about coconut cake.

The cake had an angel food taste but denser texture. It’s simple yet not lacking in flavor one bit. One of those recipes that make you swear off using boxed cake mix, it's so simple.