White cake cupcakes with color!

No food blogger that I know of ever talks about baking disasters.  Is there anyone else out there who doesn't always make a perfect baked good the first time, every time?  Please fess up!  :) You're about to read one of these baking disasters on this very here blog. . . 

I have this crazy wonderful new day job that has kept me incredibly busy over the past 6 weeks.  However, it has REALLY cut into my cupcake making!  As a result, I double booked myself last week.  It was so crazy, because I never do stuff like that.  I told my great friend and photographer extraordinaire that I'd make her some colorful cupcakes for a one-year-old photo shoot, and in exchange, she'd give me some of her beautiful photos to use on my website.  I was going to make them on Thursday night in order to get them done for Saturday morning, but on Thursday night decided I would make them on Friday.  Just kidding!  I got an IM from Marlo around noon on Friday wondering if I wanted to meet her downtown for dinner before our chocolate tour at a local artisan chocolate shop.  Well, of course I had a bit of a freak out, but Marlo being the awesome friend she is, she offered to help me make the cupcakes after the tour.

I wanted to make white cupcakes because I personally love white cake.  Did you know that it is white because you don't use the egg yolks?  Whites only!  And, this particular recipe called for egg whites that were first beaten to a stiff peak.  I had no idea white cake was so persnickety.  Of course I decided to use my Swiss meringue buttercream because it is so beautiful and shiny (also made of egg whites) and I (wrongly) thought it would be super bright when colored. 

Well, let me just tell you, that Swiss meringue buttercream was not meant to be bright blue, bright green OR bright yellow.  We used entire bottles of gel coloring and it just was not making the vibrant colors that we wanted.  I had to make do with these six cupcakes, topped with these slightly less-than-vibrant shades of icing. 

Now that it's a week ago, I can honestly say these are some nice looking cupcakes.  However, they just weren't what I was thinking I was making when I set out to make the vibrant colors.  Interestingly enough, the photo shoot was cancelled and we didn't have to end up using them at all!  I certainly learned a lot about coloring and Swiss meringue and had a great time doing it, so I can't complain one bit!

I also ended up with some super tasty cupcakes that were soon to be shredded and mixed with my basic buttercream for cake pops the next week!