Washington... Washington

Maybe it’s because I’ve been watching a lot of Netflix, particularly “The Revolution” as narrated by Kelsey Grammar, but I am certain there is no bigger badass than George Washington. People were like – “Oh hey George, could you do us a solid and win the war against the British? No biggie, but uh… we don’t yet have a military with real training, or guns and food, but … you can handle that, right?”  And Washington was like, “Sure, guys. No prob. Shouldn’t take too long to defeat the greatest military power of the age. Maybe afterward I can run whatever government you hippies dream up? I got you.”

You think Chuck Norris or John Wayne or the Dos Equis guys are BA? Not compared to George Washington. He was, and still is, the original badass. So hell yes I’m going to outline his profile in chocolate and immortalize him on top of a cupcake.

I started by laying down a piece of wax paper on top on some silhouettes of GW. After heating some chocolate chips in a double boiler and pouring it into a little baggie (re: Valentines Day Panty Cookie post) I was ready to pipe out an outline of Washington’s noggin. After the outline hardened, I filled it in with chocolate and set everything inside the refrigerator to harden up. 

Then it was onto to the cupcakes. I recently purchased the Magnolia Bakery cookbook so I was excited to turn my little kitchen into an award winning Bakery. I chose classic Magnolia chocolate cupcake with a vanilla buttercream. The cupcakes went together fairly easily, and with a standard sized oven, I was able to actually bake at a normal rate. After 40 minutes, the cupcakes were successfully baked.

Moving on to the vanilla buttercream, I whipped the butter and sugar together for several minutes to make sure that enough air was incorporated to make the frosting nice a fluffy. After the cupcakes cooled, I started icing. But something wasn’t right – the cupcakes looked really sad. 

At first I thought it was too warm (my kitchen was at least 85 degrees) and the icing was melting. After looking at the icing it seemed like maybe it just need another cup or two of powder sugar to hold everything together. So I scraped off the icing and added another 1½ cup of confectioners sugar to make everything more solid.

In a tiny kitchen, cupcake overflow happens

Icing take 2 and cupcakes look good, but seriously, but would GW want to adorn a plain black and white cupcake? I think not. So I mix a little gel food color with some sugar to create some red and blue topping for George to grace. Looks like freedom now.

With a little patriotic arranging we have ourselves a Cupcake Old Glory. Happy Birthday America and thanks for all your badass ways Mr. Washington.