A few years ago someone in the U.S decided it would be fun to make a giant cupcake. Well, it wasn't unexpected when you think about it. Americans like big portions of anything so a giant cupcake was hardly a leap. It didn't take long before this idea filtered across to Britain and last Christmas a fair few women found one of these giant cupcake moulds in their Christmas stockings. (Some men are just so romantic, aren't they?)
After watching a fair few U.S television reviews (Some good. Some not) I warily bought a silicone giant cupcake mould(I say, warily because I've never used a silicone mould before and doubted it's ability to perform!)
I googled a recipe that was supposed to be the best and set to work. But there really wasn't enough mixture in the recipe and there was no way it was going to look like the gigantic cupcake in the picture. Mine looked more like giant cupcake's little brother.
Try again.
The next time I doubled the mixture of the recipe. All seemed to be going well until I noticed the bottom half didn't seem to be very firm and was taking forever to cook. Eventually I had to take it out of the oven because I was losing the will to live and that's when I suffered what is known as 'catastrophic giant cupcake collapse!' Dismayed at my caved in cupcake I took to the Internet and found out that C.G.C.C wasn't rare. People had blogged (with pictures) their monumental giant cupcake failures (no way was I doing that!) I listened to their stories and tried to learn from their mistakes.
I decided it was the silicone mould that was the trouble and splashed out on a Wilton (creme de la creme of American cake decorating people) mould which isn't in two parts like the silicone mould but joined together. I went to Youtube and watched a Wilton 'celebration expert' demonstrate this mean piece of equipment but was worried when she said 'some of you have had issues with uneven cooking' It was that C.G.C.C. all over again. Her solution? Turn it around half way through baking. Turn it which way? Front to back? Fine if you have an American oven the size of the Titanic. Umph! It wasn't looking good. But Wilton were the experts, weren't they? Everything was sure to be fine. Just follow their instructions to the T. I also purchased 'cake release' oil to prevent the cake sticking to the pan. I set to work following the Wilton recipe that came with the pan. It was very complicated. Sour cream. Brown sugar. White sugar. Coffee. Cocoa. I stared at the gigantic amount of chocolatey mixture in the bowl. Surely this was way too much? But then I told myself Wilton were the experts. What could possibly go wrong?
I won't go into detail. I'm still suffering from giant cupcake post traumatic stress. Suffice to say half way through cooking, the cake looked like something from an episode of Dr Who.
It took forever to cook. I could have powered Denmark with the amount of electricity I used. But, strangely, despite it's horrifically deformed elephant-man-like appearance the cake itself was actually quite delicious. However, my family were now referring to my giant cupcakes as "Patti's Earthquakes" and stifling giggles whenever I talked about making another one. I was becoming a figure of ridicule!
I couldn't sleep at night. I had to master this. Everyone else was making fabulous giant cupcakes, why couldn't I? What was wrong with me? Was this American phenomenon doomed to be by nemesis? (okay, overly dramatic here)
I threw out the Wilton (not literally, I chucked it to the back of the cupboard) dragged out the silicone mould and made up my OWN recipe. And now this is my 'ta-da' moment. Below is a perfectly formed, delicious giant cupcake with giant chocolate buttons on buttercream icing. But before you look at it. Stefan and I have become bored with the photographs of cupcakes we've seen on the Internet and decided to photograph them in...er...slightly unusual settings. Hence the cupcake in the guitar case. Or in other words this is what happens when you let your child loose with a camera and the words 'take a photo of that for me, will you?'
