Autumn


Cupcakes, but I didn't make them.

Had a busy Sunday. Met a freind at the cupcake store, so I had to do my usual morning sample. We ate some of these with coffee. The icing was a butter cream, made with icing sugar. Too grainy for my taste. And I have become spoiled by using organic butter, (thank god my mate doesn't read this because he always gives me hell for using it because it is going to break us), but it tastes soooo good, while leaving icing made with regular butter somewhat lacking. The cake part of the cupcake was good, but if these cupcake places insist on putting so much icing on the cupcake, they should make sure it is perfect, because it is all one remembers.

Then I went to my cake decorating class. Hmmm....we made flowers.



Now, the flowers are not my thing. As I look at them on the counter I find them hideous... but endearing. But while I am making them I kind of get into it, in a paint by number or doodle art sort of way. The one compensation for spending 4 hours in an icing class, resulting in 11 flowers, (one got trashed for being a mess), is that the kids are pretty impressed that I can make candy flowers.
I didn't learn a ton in the class. We only worked on Royal Icing...(I'm not sure what I was expecting), and after one covers the 5 points about it there really isn't much to it.
BUT - it is the perfect vehicle to do research on salmonella, and that is what I am off to do now, a little refresher course on food safety - unless someone can answer these questions for me.
If using fresh eggwhites, (verses freeze dried), and you dry royal icing decorations, will the salmonella bacteria continue to grow in the dry icing enviroment? (Assuming that the delicate little decorations dried out within a couple of hours) How does the sugar content effect the bacteria growth? What happens if the decorations got damp and stayed that way for a few hours?