the urban baker: Eli turns 12

This past Saturday we celebrated Eli's 12th birthday. His actual birthday is this Wednesday, the 24th. However, he will not be here. Yesterday, he left for Yosemite with 40 of his classmates and won't be back until Friday. He and I were both very sentimental about not being together on his birthday. He was really struggling with the idea of being away, hence it did not stop him from getting on that bus yesterday! The sad part about all of this for me, is that this will be the first birthday we don't spend together, however it won't be the last. Boo Hoo!

In the spirit of Salzman celebrations, we decided to celebrate early. Glad we did. Eli included about 10 of his friends for Go-Kart riding, dinner and cupcakes. He enjoyed his evening. Plus it was a good distraction for him of what was to come the next morning.

I wanted to make a Hostess Cupcake style cupcake, with the cream filling, etc. I found this recipe (here) on epicurious.com for devils food cupcakes. OMG. So amazingly good! I read the reviews and although they were mixed, I went for it anyway. These are pure perfection.

I searched many sites as well as many of my cookbooks for a chocolate glaze. The one I found was perfect and fool proof. I made the Lacquer Glaze (page 306) from Rose's Heavenly Cakes. I love Rose. She and I go way back. Then I made a very simple, basic buttercream (4 oz. softened butter, 4 cups sifted confection sugar, 1 Tbl. vanilla, 3 or more Tbl. milk - mix to your desired thickness) to pipe on the top. Had I had more time, I would have piped some of this yummy buttercream into the center of each cupcake. I had enough buttercream, but my morning was so full that I just didn't have the time to create the ultimate Hostess Cupcake.

Even without the buttercream center these were AMAZING. These are worthy and should be made often!
I cannot get over how delicious these are. And even after two days (in the fridge) they are still as good today as they were on Saturday.