Mom's Birthday Cupcake Cake....

 "A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie."  ~Tenneva Jordan

     I'm officially converted... I'm a Buttercream believer!! Italian buttercream that is. I have always been a bit afraid of making cakes because I didn't like buttercream, the kind thats just butter and sugar. And even worst with shortening. Don't get me wrong, I know there are some who like it that way and thats just fine, but I can't stand it. Don't like the after taste, the greasy feeling on my mouth. Therefore, the only frosting the cakes I  have made (which are just a few), were with cream cheese chocolate frosting. But like I have said before, mom doesn't like chocolate, so I decided to try buttercream one last time.... It was just perfect. No after taste, no greasy feeling ... Just perfect. I wanted to achieve something like Gail from One Tough Cookie.... have you seen her cakes? They a re adorable!! cookie decorated cakes...how clever is that? She uses Swiss meringue buttercream (ill be sure to try that one next time) but I read somewhere that the Italian version is more stable, and with my luck, I need all the stability I can get.  They are similar in terms of ingredients, egg whites, sugar and butter. But the technique is different. On the Swiss version you heat the eggs along with the sugar over a double boiler, on the Italian version you make a sugar syrup and pour over the meringue. Either way, the result should be a silky smooth buttercream with an excellent taste. The recipe I used is Joe Pastry's Italian Meringue buttercream. If you have never done these types of buttercream before, visit these sites, they both have great tutorials ;)

For the cake part  I used the same recipe from Dad's birthday cake, you can find it here. But instead of a cake, I made cupcakes ;)  I Filled them up with a bit of passion fruit, and decorated them with the IMBC. Since Mom loves flowers, I sort of did a cupcake garden...

I absolutely love this picture

Don't they look cute!!! I'm so happy with them!!!

And Now.... the master piece!!!

(What you see on the cake stand is condensation, I forgot to wipe it ....)

Its two small cupcakes, filled with passion fruit, frosted and decorated with IMBC.... I love it!!!!! 

See how cool... she cut it just like a regular cake... lol

Happy Birthday Mom!!!