Cupcakes with Italian Meringue Buttercream Frosting

It's funny how things happen sometimes.

Someone is flipping through the TV channels. They linger on Food Network on which a show is airing that has cupcakes.

I remember that we wanted to do something special for the woman who is the girls' liaison at the charter school. Cupcakes would be nice.

Surf the web looking for photos of cupcakes to get inspired. Find some cool daisy themed ones like here and here and here. Look for a tutorial to figure out how to make those cool daisy decorations and found a good one here.

Head to the pantry for a cake mix. Whip up some lemon cupcakes. Decide they deserve a fantastic frosting. Then back to surfing the web and locate this great article, "How To Make Buttercream Icing; Two Delicious Buttercream Frosting Recipes" here. Wonder if we could perhaps pull off the Italian Meringue Buttercream version as somewhere rattling around in the back of my head it seemed to be synonymous with "incredible". All this just because of a little inspiration from a glimpse of a cooking show.

But by this time, people wandering through the kitchen had eaten nearly half of the first batch of cupcakes, so we frosted the remaining, and then of course had to sample the almost finished product. So, so good. Not grainy like regular buttecream, just smooth and silky. As you can guess, now there were only a few cupcakes left, and we still hadn't even embellished them of all things.

That would mean tomorrow's agenda will include baking another batch of cupcakes, getting them frosted with the remaining buttercream...which I'm sure glad there is still plenty left...a pound of butter for one batch? Wow. Then it will be off to Michael's Crafts is search of fondant and then back home to attempt the daisies.

But it's all good. A little snack for us. Something special for April, the girls' ES. A little girl time in the kitchen.  And a fantastic new frosting recipe for when you need something a little spectacular.