Anyway, I was making cupcakes for a friend and used the Black Magic as a base (it's a surprisingly easy recipe and continues to surprise me each time I make it) only I half-ed it for a 12 muffin-sized pan. Since a majority of these cupcakes were a gift, I thought they'd look nicer if we used frosting on top. This meant I needed a recipe and a quick tip on how to frost cupcakes.
I can always use a little Black Magic
Turning to trusty Martha Stewart, I found a recipe that was shared with Martha Stewart on her show by a man named Billy Reece, who owns a well-known bakery (or is it just a cupcake shoppe?) in New York City - on 9th, somewhere between 21st and 22nd. I also half-ed the recipe for this though it still produced more frosting than I needed, and watched the video. He mentions having a handy cupcake sized off-set spatula since an "ordinary butter knife" isn't sufficient for making those swirls. Well Mr Reece, a plain old kitchen butter knife is all I got, so it'll have to do.
I didn't use my stand mixer; I probably should've
...And if you ask me, it did quite well!
Guess which one my husband frosted...
And so you have it: Black Magic cupcakes with Billy Reece's Vanilla Buttercream Frosting.
I still prefer my cupcakes naked - even though Mr Reece's frosting is very smooth, it's too sweet for my taste. My husband also prefers the cupcakes naked; he says that you can't taste the cake with the frosting being so powerfully sweet. But who knows: Maybe I did something wrong. (I did add less confectioner's sugar than listed in the recipe, though I can't see how that would make it more sweet than it's supposed to be...)
