Seriously.
I don't think anybody tested the recipes in Martha's Cupcake book. And I am beyond irritated, as this is the second time I have had a disaster on my hands as a result of bad info from the people behind Martha Stewart.
Of course, I should have been tipped off at the beginning, when, in the intro to Strawberry Cupcakes with Strawberry Meringue Buttercream, it was written that the buttercream recipe appeared on page 316 (it does not -- it is on page 306) AND it says the frosting was made with jam (the recipe on page 306 called for pureed strawberries, not jam.)
So, once again, with blind faith, I am following a Martha recipe without doing research. Isn't Martha the Doyenne of All Things Cupcakery and Such? Ha. Let me say... uh... that would be a no.
The cupcake cake turns out well enough. I am no expert at baking (hence all the baking lately -- trying to self-teach, which doesn't work so well when I am dealing with the numbnut Martha Stewart editors) so I can't blame small imperfections in the cake when I am dealing with timing, bakeware, and oven issues.
But when making a frosting, and the ingredient list is only 4 or 5 lines long, and the instructions are pretty clear, well f#%k me, but this should be a no-brainer.
Uh-huh. Making the frosting, it says to add 1 1/2 cups of fresh strawberry puree to the whipped egg whites, sugar, and butter. So, I do. And it immediately turns into a god-awful clotted mess. Really. It was like Walt Disney threw up.
Once again, The Mayor comes to the rescue and says, just dump powdered sugar in and whip the hell out of it. Which, TTT readers, you will recall I had to do last week with the Poo Problem. Only problem was I had just two boxes of powdered sugar in the house, and as the strawberry clotted goo had 3 sticks of butter, I really needed another box of sugar to save it. But, I didn't have it, so I got super soft frosting... and I don't even know what you'd call it now, as it sure ain't meringue, even though there were cooked, whipped egg whites in it. Whatever. I was cursing Martha yet again.
I get online to find out that her effing website now calls for 1 1/2 cups of strawberry jam. You'd think the editors of the book would get together with the editors of the website and compare notes. Sheesh.
These mistakes are EXPENSIVE -- when you are talking about nearly a pound of butter, etc... some people who made the same mistake end up throwing it all away.
Well, thankfully, the people at work seemed to like even the disasters so I didn't waste the money. But I will be damned if I follow another Martha recipe without researching reviews on it. The editors should be shot.
But, in the end... the co-workers didn't seem to notice, as once again, I arrived in the kitchen two hours later to find all three dozen gone, along with a note:
That makes everything worth it!
