Accomplished...Maduros & Cupcakes

Yup, this past Saturday...I was feeling mad accomplished. My house was messy, my dogs need baths, I need to exercise, my kids needed more Mommy-time...so, I go cook. Yup...Woman of the Year here! ;o)

My kids LOVE maduros...sweet plantains for you gringos. Tai-po (the kids' great-grandmother and my maternal grandma...although I call her Po-po) fries of tons o' batches of these bad boys for Kaia & my grandfather whenever we go to Miami. Po-po knows how much Kaia adores maduros and goes out to buy plantains whenever we go visit her and fries 'em up every morning for her. Kaia doesn't even have to ask. Mind you, this is a woman in her upper 80s with two bad knees, a bad ankle, the sole caretaker of my 97 YO wheelchair-bound grandfather who suffered a stroke over a decade ago, and birthed 9 children. Yeah, this woman is simply amazing. Anyway, I purchased the plantains when they were yellow with the black spots forming and waited for them to get blacker. If you want sweet plantains, you will need to wait for those puppies to turn black for them to be sweet. I just cut 'em up and pan-fried them in a bit of extra-virgin olive oil. The munchkins were PLENTY HAPPY with my little surprise for them.

Saturday night, we were supposed to attend a get-together at a neighbor's house. One of the hubbies just got back home from training and is going to be deployed over to the Middle East for a year. So, everyone got together to hang out. It was really nice...adult time/conversation for me and the kids ran themselves silly...quickly conking out after baths & books. YEAH BAYBEE!!! So, not wanting to go empty-handed, I baked up Ina Garten's (aka the Barefoot Contessa) Beatty's Chocolate Cake...also, I'm not a fan of boxed cake mixes since they have trans fats in them...although it's very hard to find cake recipes that can come close to the moistness & fluffiness of boxed mixes. Anyway, I digress...I had leftover buttermilk and a TON of Hershey's Special Dark cocoa powder that I needed to use up...it's funny, that will be a common phrase in this blog ("I had a ton of ____ and needed to use it up"). I'm not a chocolate person but do enjoy Hershey's Special Dark chocolate. Plus, I did need to brew up some coffee to add it to our ice coffee jug that we keep on hand. Anyway...the first time I made this last year, the coffee was too strong and I overcooked the cake. This time, I made the coffee w/o the extra espresso and made cupcakes out of the batter. Paired with homemade vanilla bean buttercream and we had a winner. I even got adventurous and made it decorative (my sister is the artsy creative one...although my creativity happens in the kitchen). Half of the cupcakes that I frosted, I let the kids decorate with spinkles and colored sugar. I have to stop being so darn Type A in the kitchen and start letting the kids (and anyone else for that matter) help me in the kitchen.

Sorry for the dark photos...still trying to get a hang of my new camera. Don't laugh at my cupcake decorating skills.

A word about the buttercream. I attempted to make it once last year. I tried to recreate CakeLove's strawberry buttercream and ended up with a nasty, gloppy mess. I've recently gotten hooked to the Repressed Pastry Chef's blog. I first started reading it when I was reading something about buttercream. The author of the blog really liked it, so I decided to give it a try...despite it having shortening in it. So, I buy shortening...it's the second time in my life I've EVER bought it and have a go at the recipe. OMG...it's a KEEPER...even though it has shortening in it. SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO GOOD!!!!! I made it flavored with vanilla and vanilla beans. That vanilla bean flavor buttercream mellowed out the dark, rich sweet bitterness of the moist cupcakes SO well! YUM!!! And you would never know that I'm not a fan of chocolate! ;o) Now, I just have to figure out how to make a fresh strawberry buttercream....