Hi Hat Cupckes= A Disastor!

Oh boy, where to start with these poor little things? First of all, you guys should check here on what these were supposed to look like.

Ok, so you have the idea? Now look at the picture above. Sad, isn't it? I know, I know,

Dad winter of '08

baking these cupcakes started off innocent enough. I went home to Minneapolis this past weekend to be with family, the 13th of May marked the 3 year anniversary of my dad passing away, and going to a bar in St. Paul is our yearly tradition to celebrate my dad. The following Sunday we were headed to my grandmas to celebrate some family birthdays (a lot of family time that weekend!) so I knew it would be a perfect opportunity to give these cupcakes a shot. Saturday night my Mom and I gathered all of the ingredients and started baking.

For the actual cake, I just used (again) the Pillsbury box mix since I knew the tops were pretty much the stars of these cakes.

Sugar, egg whites and cream of tarter. Mmmm.

The frosting was new for me - it was pretty much a meringue frosting meaning we needed "stiff" peaks to make sure they stayed true to the name.

continuous mixing over barely simmering water for 12 MINUTES!

Getting thicker...right?

After getting it pretty thick, my mom and I did a taste test. The result was good, but really grainy; it tasted like we were chewing on sand. So back to the mixing to try to get it smoothed out. We cranked up the heat on the stove and crossed our fingers that it would take care of the graininess.

It seemed stiff enough, and after 20+ minutes of standing over the stove mixing this together, we were ready to move on either way.

Now we needed to pipe the frosting nice and high onto the cakes. No big deal.

Oh, what's that? Mine need another couple of inches to look like the pictures of those beautiful cupcakes? Yeah... there was no way that was happening. They looked pretty decent though! Well, as soon as I put my camera down looked back up, all of that high fluffy frosting turned into white puddles. We quickly threw them into the freezer, but my hopes for true Hi-Hat cupcakes were crushed.

The show had to go on. We melted the chocolate and gave the cakes some extra time in the freezer to (hopefully) firm up.

Hi-Hat? More like Lo-Hat. Ha, ha?

Oh man, what a disaster! After dipping, the gooey frosting started to slide around and resulted in the "half dipped" look above. Plus, these have got to be the saddest "hi-hat" cupcakes ever documented. Luckily, they were still delightful to eat as long as you had a plate, fork and lots of napkins!

Obviously the frosting we did not get stiff enough. However, I challenge you to beat frosting over a hot stove for over 20 minutes and see if you still have the drive to continue! :-D

My family members ate them like champs and really had nothing negative to say about them, but in my little baking heart I knew I had failed.

I will absolutely try these little buggers again. I hope next time they will live up to their name!