Baking hiatus

There has been a noticeable lack of making things recently.  Partly because Christmas is over and I really needed a break after the extensive amounts of stuff that I made for Christmas presents, and partly because I have been busy; but mainly because I have been unhappy and nothing that I make when I am unhappy ever turns out well.  I tried baking lemonade cupcakes last weekend.  They ended up in the bin.  They didn't rise properly, I burnt half of them, I under cooked three (somehow), then I put too much milk in the frosting and it was far too liquidy.

I suspect that this is all psychosomatic and that I just need to man up and try harder.  So I am making Red Velvet Cupcakes for work on Monday.  When these work properly, they're amazing cakes.  Light, moist and a stunning deep colour.  They're also fairly easy to get wrong, so I'm actually going to have to concentrate not to cock them up.

FOR THE SPONGE
120g butter
300g caster sugar
2 large eggs
40ml red food colouring
1tsp vanilla essence
240ml buttermilk
1 tsp salt
1tblsp white wine vinegar (yes really)
1tsp bicarb of soda

FOR THE FROSTING
100g butter
600g icing sugar
250g full fat cream cheese

This recipe makes 12 cupcakes and I usually only make half quantities of the frosting.

• Preheat the oven to 190C/Gas mark five
• Cream together the butter and flour until pale and fluffy.  Then add one egg at a time.
• Separately mix together the colouring, coco and vanilla essence, into a paste.
• add the paste to the rest of the batter and mix thoroughly
• sift together the flour and salt, then add to the cake mix in two batches alternating with the buttermilk.  Mix well after each addition.
• Finally, in another bowl mix together the vinegar and bicarb and add to the cake mix.
• Spoon into cases and bake for 18-20 minutes. 

The actual cakes came out fine, but the frosting refused to thicken as it was meant to.  In the end I just stuck it on and slunk off to sulk, paint my nails and drool over Antonio Banderas in tight trousers with my housemate.

They taste fine, they just look a bit weird.

From this I concluded two things.  Firstly I need a new electric hand mixer.  Mine is definitely dead; and I'm ridiculous upset about this, for absolutely no good reason at all.  It was a cheap piece of rubbish when I bought it five years ago.  Secondly, it's not all psychosomatic, my baking mojo has definitely taken a holiday.