These Valentines Day Cupcakes are topped with pink French Meringue Buttercream, dipped into pink homemade Sanding Sugar and topped with cute pink heart lollipops..
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Some thing very important before we get into this recipe.. This site was hijacked and infected with malware for more than a week before I realised my readers were being redirected to adult content pages 🙁 because of that Yandex blacklisted me and since finding out, it has been a little bit of a nightmare to sort it out and get the site cleaned. Thank God it´s sorted and now my site has firewall protection (why oh why didn´t I get it before!). If you guys have blogs please be sure to check if your hosting company protects you against malware!
Ok so let´s continue with the recipe.. I need to confess something else.. We all have those flops in the kitchen and mine normally happens when I least expect it.. These cupcakes were suppose to be pink velvet, staying with the theme of pink, hearts, love and all those things you would expect of Valentines Day cupcakes.. but..
..I used a little too much pink gel colourant in the batter and they turned out to be more red velvet than pink velvet.. so there you go in the middle of a crisis, I learnt something: the next time my red colourant is finished and I want to bake something “red velvet” all I need to do is use an excess of pink colourant. I can hear you say “Thanks for that super tip girl” – or that just might be my imagination..lol
Valentines Day Cupcakes topped with sanding sugar
Now let´s talk about the delicious French Meringue Buttercream I used to frost these guys with: they are made with egg yolks, soft ball stage sugar syrup, room temperature butter, icing sugar – and there you have it – one really delicious buttercream in typical French style.. since the French are renowned for being romantic, I thought these pink Valentines Day Cupcakes should be topped with some French love 😉
Ingredients
- PINK VELVET CUPCAKES:
- 1 1/4 cup sifted flour
- 3/4 cup white granulated sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- pinch of salt
- 1 tablespoon cocoa powder
- 1 egg at room temperature
- 125g plain yoghurt
- 1/2 teaspoon white vinegar
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- pink gel colourant (use a little at a time)
- FRENCH MERINGUE BUTTERCREAM:
- 3 egg yolks
- 1/2 cup white granulated sugar
- 1/8 cup water
- pinch of salt
- 1/3 cup sifted icing sugar
- 226g/8 ounce/2 sticks butter without salt at room temperature
- pink gel colourant (use a little at a time)
- PINK SANDING SUGAR:
- ziplock bag
- pink gel colourant
- 1 cup granulated white sugar
Instructions
- Line your cupcake tray with your liners and pre-heat your oven at 175ºC/347ºF
- Mix all your dry ingredients together
- In a jar add you yoghurt, colourant and vinegar. Close with the lid and shake vigorously
- Add the contents of the jar to the dry ingredients
- Add the egg and vanilla extract
- Blend until all the ingredients are well combined (don´t overmix)
- Line your cupcake liners 1/2 way and bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean
- Allow to cool for 5 minutes before removing them from the tray
- Cool completely before frosting.
- Add your 3 egg yolks to your blender and blend on medium speed
- At the same time, add sugar and water to a heavy bottomed sauce pan at medium high heat
- Don´t stir and use a silicone brush dipped into water on the inside rim of the sauce pan to remove any sugar crystals - do this regularly to avoid crystallization
- Heat the syrup until it reaches 118ºC on a sugar thermometer - you want it to be the "soft ball" stage - when the bubbles are popping slowly you know it is time (before the sugar changes colour)
- Slow down your mixer and add the sugar syrup in a slow, steady stream to the egg yolks - becareful not to touch the whisk attachment
- Once all the sugar syrup is incorporated, increase your speed to medium high (a good idea is to cover it with a kitchen cloth to avoid spillage)
- Once the bowl of your mixer is cold and your mxiture resembles a meringue, you can slowly add your cubed butter
- Whisk at a high speed until the buttercream comes together (even if it looks like it is separating just continue to blend on high and it will come together nicely)
- At this stage you can add your salt and any colourant or flavourant you would like to.
- Pour your sugar into a ziplock bag and a some pink gel colourant (should you not like the pink shade you made, add more sugar to lighten it or more colourant to darken it)
- Close your bag tightly and make sure all the air is out if it
- With your fingers press the colourant into the sugar until all the colourant is incorporated into the sugar - don´t press/knead too much because you don´t want to crush the sugar crystals
- Pre-heat your oven to 50ºC/100ºF and line a baking tray with wax paper
- Pour your sugar onto the baking tray and use a knife to separate it as much as possible
- Bake for 10 minutes (no more)
- Remove and use the same knife to separate it if necessary
- Pour into a jar and seal if necessary to use for the next time!
Valentines Day Cupcakes topped with sanding sugar
I also made some pink sanding sugar because many times I feel like decorate my cake pops, cupcakes etc with sanding sugar but where I live in a small Canarian village in the mountains, sanding sugar is not easily found and by that I mean never! So now I can make my own and store them in small jars for the next time. A tip would be to store your empty sprinkle jars and use them for this purpose 🙂 Another tip is to make sure you use heavy duty bags otherwise they might break while you are kneading/mixing the colour into the sugar.
I want to wish you all a beautiful Valentines Day! I believe we should celebrate our love for the people we love (husband, boyfriend, kids, family, friends etc) every single day and not just on Valentines Day but there is no reason why we can´t do something special on the 14th of Feb! So go splurge a little.. live a little and have fun!
Until next time guys,
Johlene
xoxo
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Just found your blog, and can’t wait to try these. I am puzzled, however, by your use of EGG YOLKS to make the meringue. I have always used egg whites to make Italian meringue (French meringue doesn’t use hot syrop ….but Italy is as romantic as France!). My apologies if I am mistaken.
Hi Frederique, thank you for your comment. To make French Meringue Buttercream you need to boil water & sugar together to make syrup. Just like the recipe says. See this recipe: http://www.craftsy.com/blog/2013/07/how-to-make-french-buttercream/ @ Craftsy too.
Thank you very much for the clarification, Johlene!
You’re most welcome!
These are so pretty and sound delicious!
Congratulations!
Your recipe is featured on Full Plate Thursday. Hope you have a great week and enjoy your new Red Plate.
Come Back Soon!
Miz Helen
Thank You So Much!! 🙂
I just pinned your awesome Valentines Day Cupcakes, can’t wait to try them. Hope you are having a great day and thanks so much for sharing with Full Plate Thursday.
Come Back Soon!
Miz Helen
Thanks so much for pinning Miz Helen!! Xo
Mmm, buttercream icing is my favorite! These look great, even with the red! Thanks for sharing at #HomeMattersParty!
Thanks Hannah! This Swiss buttercream icing is super delicious. It takes a little bit more effort but the end result is so WORTHIT 🙂
These look delicious! Thanks for sharing at Merry Monday, hope to see you again next week!
Thanks so much Chelc!! 🙂
Johlene,
Cupcakes are the perfect treat for valentines day and your are very pretty with the added colored sanding sugar! Pinned to share. Thank you for sharing your recipes with us this week at Brag About It! Looking forward to seeing more.
~Laurie
I love the sanding sugar too, especially in the colour pink 🙂 And.. it´s so easy to make! 🙂
These are just gorgeous!! The perfect shade of pink!
Thanks Ashely! I love this shade of pink too and it doesn´t happen often that I get the shade I like 🙂 xoxo
I’m so glad that your blog mess has been sorted out! I haven’t had anything that dire, but I have had other issues and it is SO stressful, so I can only imagine how awful it was for you! I have Sucuri too–so glad they were able to get things fixed. 🙂
And these cupcakes are too cute! I love French buttercream but never seem to remember to make it–this is a good reminder to save those yolks. 🙂
Thanks so much Elizabeth! It has been quite a roller coaster ride, I lost a lot of momentum and my traffic has gone down significally.. but hey what doesn´t kill you makes you stronger and I´m not quitting! xoxo
Nice to see you back 😉
Those cupcakes look yummy
xoxo
Thanks so much Aisha! It´s been a nightmare but the good thing is I learnt a ton! xoxo