Felt really left out last week when I chose not to choose a cake. Call it a case of “spoilt for choice” that I couldn’t decide which cake to make. In the end I decided to make the White Velvet Cupcakes with the Golden Neoclassic Buttercream which, in the end did not get made.

*shakes head in disgust*

I gave a week’s leave for my helper to go home to Indonesia and she unilaterally extended her leave to 2 weeks and left us high and dry. MrGart and myself took turns to watch the kids and the last few days, we had to get my parents to come and help.

Well, she’s back now and so does me, the baker!

Excuses mexcuses aye?

Anyhow.

My camera’s battery’s dead as a dodo, and this came off my phone. Sigh!

I’ve never baked or even cooked anything with poppy seeds before. Images of poppy flowers came to mind, with people swaying in the wind singing. Wild, I know!

Well, I could not find a normal poppy seeds, assuming they are black. The bakery supplies store I frequent only had the BLUE poppy seed. I thought they looked awesome. In a cake, hmmm. Aliya had already frowned on the idea that I was putting those seedly stuff in a cake. But I read Rose’s page and again and thought that it’d be a shame if I bake a Poppy Seed cake minus the Seed. Plus, Rose said that the seeds give an interesting crunch. Aha!

As usual, sour cream isn’t widely available where I am and amidst the laundry and the dust in the house and the sprawling toys and Ben10 aliens of all manners and sorts everywhere I walk, I had to subs the sour cream for yogurt. And get this. The only version I could find was low-fat. Shucks!

Well, the mixing was fun. The poppy seeds got distributed evenly. I was afraid that it clumped up at one corner but it didn’t and the lemon syrup was easy enough.

I left it sitting in the fridge for a night and cut a slice to taste. What a tangy cake! Gosh! It looked benign and rather harmless but a bite and it just jolted you back to your senses.

The lemon tasted really great and Rose was right, the crunch was worth taking the risk of the blue poppy seed.

I sent the cake (minus one tiny slice) with these White Velvet cupcakes with Dark Ganache with Ariz to school this morning. Well, MrGart did. I had to rush to work before the sun comes up.

It’s his little birthday do with his classmates. I know I know. 2 weeks late. Yikes!

Note: My Golden Neoclassic Buttercream is currently sitting frozen stiff in my freezer. The only reason why it’s in the freezer and not on the cuppies is because I let it whip and whip and no way would be whipped and it stayed pretty much liquidy. I think when I put the butter in, it was much too warm. I tried cooling it a bit but no real progress.

So, I figured I’d freeze it and try again later. I wanted to do swirls but clearly that didn’t happen. I slathered ONE cupcake with this liquid-y buttercream which after a night in the fridge firmed up .. and Aliya raved about how good it tasted. i knew it was good as it smelled good. Guess the Lyle’s Syrup did the trick perfect. Any tips to salvage my buttercream?