My baking dream come true

Yesterday was a fantastic day and not because it was a Sunday or that it was still sunny in September. These two things were good, but definitely did not compare to my new purchase/gift (massive thank you), a KitchenAid Professional 5 stand mixer. Canadian Tire had a sale too good to resist and I had really wanted one for so long, which is something I have mentioned many times. Kambie (every important investment needs a name) could possibly be the love of my life. It seems too soon I know, but she is just so pretty and shiny. I did have better photos to display, but I managed to accidently delete them off of my other new purchase of the week, my Sony camera, which I mentioned here. Sometimes technology isn't your friend, but I don't think I will have a problem with Kambie because she runs like a dream well once I locked the bowl in properly. Rookie error I guess, but I think no damage was done.

For the first of many uses, I decided to make cupcakes. Well actually I was going to make cupcakes this weekend anyway, but what better way to do so then with a gorgeous new KitchenAid stand mixer. I choose the flavour for the frosting before I thought about the cupcake variety. A white chocolate frosting seemed only natural even though there was chocolate overload in my last baking project. I didn't have to search too hard for the frosting recipe as it was the first one to come up in Google and can be found here. The one thing I found with this recipe was that I needed to add an extra cup of confectioners' sugar to get a thicker consistency. I also didn't add in the salt because I used salted butter.

The cupcake flavour took a little bit more effort to choose, as I was being quite indecisive. I eventually settled on a lemon cupcake using the recipe I came across here. I didn't have a lemon zester so I didn't use the zest and I found that the mixture was only enough for a dozen cupcakes. However, I felt that this was the perfect amount of cupcakes.

If I could take a minute to critique my work because I am my own worst critic, I just have a couple of things I would like to improve. The cupcakes did taste delicious, but I wouldn't have minded a more intense lemon flavour and a firmer frosting consistency. The finishing touch on the cupcakes were colourful leaves, which seemed quite fitting given the recent season change. In case you were wondering, and I almost forgot to mention this, I used the Wilton No. 12 round decorating tip to shake things up a bit with the frosting application.

I can't wait to create the next baking project with my new and hopefully lifelong investment. We work well together even if I am still a messy baker with her in my life.