This month’s challenge was equally as intense as last month’s. This time Lauren came over to help out and I’m so glad she did – I DEFINITELY would not have been successful with this challenge without her help! Not only did she catch me about to melt two whole sticks of butter when I was supposed to melt only 3 tablespoons (hah!) but she had so many tricks up her sleeve that made this challenge a ton more easy than it could’ve been.
Alright, so the traditional Opéra Cake is a large, square cake with multiple layers – instead, we went with the “Daring” part of Daring Bakers and attempted cupcakes. Here is Lauren’s hard work, cutting out parchment for the cupcake mold:
Here’s a sliced cupcake. Normally you don’t cut the cake in thirds like this, but we needed to do this for our little creations:
In between the layers was buttercream, flavored with some orange zest, as well as some syrup flavored with limoncello:
Yum, huh?
After they were refrigerated for a while with the buttercream, we added a glaze to the top and sides:
Let me tell you, although they look messy, they were delicious. And SWEET. The final product:
Not too shabby, huh? Check out that neat layering. Thanks, Lauren, for all your help. And thanks, Daring Bakers, for posting your frustrations and messiness and surprises and successes so we can all learn from them! I can’t wait for next month!