Mixmaster Monday

Welcome to this week's Mixmaster Monday!!

Well, I've been a very delinquent blogger this past week or so. Busy-busy-busy with work, and just too danged tired lately to get in a ranty-roary mood about very much at all.

However, I cannot let Mixmaster Mondays pass without posting a little something that is gastronomically significant, so here is this week's contribution to culinary excellence!

Earlier this year, when I first started this blog, I posted about the yummiest cupcakes on earth with cream cheese frosting, that were made by Ron Cook, the chef on the ship I was working on at the time. If you saw them (there were photos posted) - and certainly if you had the pleasure of tasting them - you would not / could not forget them. I begged and pleaded for the recipe for them, and it finally arrived today!

It seems there is no mystery to the cupcakes themselves. Rumor has it that they were made from a boxed cake mix. I don't care. They were awesome, and only grow in awesomeness in my memory.

All the magic lay in the cream cheese icing. Great creamy globs of cream cheese icing. A diabetic's nightmare. I have to post the photo again. It's just too good to pass up...

It's funny... just tonight on the NTV Evening News, Danielle Butt did her "Made Right Here" segment from Sugar Mama's, a cupcake store in Mt. Pearl. As Dad was watching it, he commented on how horrible and sweet all the icing on the cupcakes shown would be. I am assuming from this, then, that I got my love of sweet things from my dearest Mama. I thought they looked amazing, but I'm willing to bet they weren't as amazing as this little treat in the photo. Correction - it was anything but little!!

So, without further ado, here is the simple recipe for creating the cream cheese icing on these cupcakes, that I ranted and raved about back in January...

"The cream chesses icing is simple. It is any regular cream cheese icing recipe -  Cream cheese, icing sugar, vanilla, but instead of using  just cream cheese, I use butter too! So if you're using a full block of cream cheese you would use ¾ of the block and ¼ real salt-free butter.  And at the end I add oil (vegetable oil for the icing is what I used on the ship). The oil softens the icing and adds a nice shine to it." 

So, there you have it. Straight from the cook, Mr. Cook!! I did ask him to clarify just how much oil is used at the end. I will add that here when he writes me back.

I really have to try this soon. I hope-hope-hope it turns out anywhere near as good for me as it was on the ship. Sugary, creamy, shiny, happy sigh...!!

UPDATE!!!

Here is Ron's reply to my question about the oil...

"No not much oil is needed, I just eyeball it. Maybe about two or three tablespoons per 250g block of cream cheese. Just to shine and soften."

"Shine and soften"... Ooooooo... I'm starting to drool here. Oh baby!!

(Preview of next week's post - Come back next week for the recipe for Ron's macaroons, which were also a treat and a half!)

.