2009's Great Missed Dish #3, Vanilla Terrier Cupcake Experiment

Note above is the outcome we attempted to replicate.

In continuation of my 2009 personal quest to experiment and explore the vast ocean of culinary knowledge, may I present the curious case of the Vanilla Terrier Cupcake Experiment. In late Fall I called up my darling friend Michelle Milu to see if she wanted to head to my place for some early Christmas baking. On the phone she did my offer one better explaining she needed to make terrier cupcakes as a gift to her girlfriend who was getting married the next day. The bride-to-be and fiance were intensely proud owners and lovers of terriers. Food to celebrate love cute doggies; how could I not want to help with that cupcake gift?!?!?

Once I heard the story I was absolutely sold diving straight in to the very deep pond that is pastry decorating. We discussed who had what in their pantry to accomplish this experiment/mission and shortly after Michelle showed up, cupcake cookbook Hello, Cupcake!, decorating implements, and mini-cupcake pan in-hand ready to throw-down. After chatting it up and deciding its best to order pizza first since decorating on an empty stomach is an awful and honestly ridiculous idea, we cracked Hello, Cupcake! waiting for delivery to see what exactly we were in for.

At first (post-pizza), I was all homemade all the way gun-ho Sally. "Make box cupcakes?! No, we will make our vanilla cupcakes from scratch!" "Use can frosting for decorating?!? No, we will make our own three flavors and colors of frosting with our four hands!" Looking back now on how incredulous my expectations were, I try to remember what in the hell was my motivation? Ah, yes I remember. It's important to keep working on your chops in all the are as you wish to excel even if failure is imminent.

Milu herself mixing up the vanilla cupcake batter.

Hello, Cupcake! suggested using the Ziploc bag to pipe the batter in a swirl formation into the muffin pans to achieve a flat-topped cupcake.

Peeking in the oven on the mini's and the regulars.

Baked up and golden delicious!

The homemade vanilla cupcake part was successful. They turned out golden and yummy! Our major issue was making homemade frosting firm enough and soft enough to pipe out of a Ziploc bag in the form of large sections of fur. Oh, as well as disburse evenly alternating colors of the frosting to also mimic the quality of fur inside the Ziploc-piping bags. My movements with the runny frosting were awkward and frantic. I might as well have been trying to play the bagpipes at a large Irish funeral. Our first frosting attempts melted away from shapes into sag nearly immediately looking like we set a poor terrier on fire and slowly let it deform.

Sadly, I have no photos of that horror but I have a few snaps of the frostings.

The milk chocolate frosting mixture being melted with butter.

Best shot I could grab of the vanilla butter cream frosting.

Pink sugar pressed into diagonally-cut mini marshmallows creates the cute and pointy ears.

In the end, we simply iced the top cupcakes and sprinkled it with coconut flakes for our fur. We did successfully make the marshmallow nose and ears, so yea for us! For the eyes we turned mini semi-sweet chocolate chips point side into the mini cupcake face to anchor them as sturdily as possible. Lastly, we cut tiny pieces of pink Laffy Taffy for the tongues. Our Vanilla White Terrier Cupcake experiment may not have looked like the model in the book, but our experiment was successful because we both learned A LOT about decorating and we accomplished our mission of baking and making cute as they are sweet terrier cupcakes. Santa origami contribution by my boyfriend, Orlando Tattoo Artist Pete. PS - this whole event took about 3 plus hours in case you think you can give this kitchen project a shot.

Our Snowy Terriers and Santa.