Kurogoma Cupcakes Take 1 - Lessons Learned...

I finally grew some balls and tried making Delicious Coma's black sesame cupcakes and if you can believe it or not, it took me nearly 2 hours! Of course, I was dilly-dallying a bit and wanting to make everything perfect. I suppose there is no point in doing that since well, let's face it - it was my first time, chances are it's not going to be perfect.

Lessons Learned:

Lesson #1 - USE A DEEP MIXING BOWL! Andy's metal one was too shallow and my batter was flying all over the place, on my shirt, on the wall, on my feet. I would have loved to witness myself being sprayed with projectile icing.

Lesson #2 - Delicious Coma's recipe was a bit too dry. Not sure if I need to subtract flour or add vegetable oil. I want to replicate the texture of the Duncan Hines Strawberry cake recipe, but not sure if that is possible without adding artificial ingredients/preservatives?

Lesson #3 - Omit cream cheese in the frosting - blech. I knew I wouldn't like it but tried her recipe anyway - should have gone with my gut feeling but oh well. Hence the reason for this blog

Lesson #4 - Toast the black sesame seeds until you actually SMELL them, and don't be afraid to get them hot. I was so afraid to burn them that I kept on taking them off the stove, that it just smelled like, well cold sesame seeds. Once you grind them in the mortar & pestle, it'll actually smell like the "tang yuen" with the oozy sesame filling...

Lesson #5 - Um, try and not suck at frosting cupcakes? In other words, do anything in your power to make the cupcakes look like a 2nd grader didn't throw frosting everywhere and accidentally had some land on the cupcake. I clearly was not able to stay within the lines as a child.

Sigh - that's it for now. I'm exhausted so we're going to have to wait until Take 2...