Chocolate with Tangerine Frosting: It's no Golden Glow

Grandma and Grandpa came to visit this weekend. I'm not quite sure that Grandma understands my cupcake project. She is one of those people that finds a good recipe and sticks with it. Why bother messing with perfection?

Grandma makes a cake called the Golden Glow cake that has an out of this world chocolate cream cheese icing. "Just make the Golden Glow and be done with it." I, however, think the whole fun of this is the experimenting. I already know the Golden Glow is fabulous, so I don't need to make it.

Obviously, before the project is done I'll let the couple taste the magic of the glow. If in fact they think it is the best one, they will get it at their wedding and Grandma will be right. However, with many many months to go before the big day, the experiments must continue.

This week's recipe came from La Mi Cucina:

http://llcskitchen.blogspot.com/2007/01/deep-dark-chocolate-cupcakes-with.html

She got her idea from a chocolate cake recipe . This cake was moist and gooey and yummy, but a little messy for a cupcake and a bit labor intensive for just a basic chocolate cupcake. I would, however, really recommend it as a layer cake and if you like your chocolate cake to have a subtle coffee flavor. I bet with the chocolate ganache (recommend on the cake site) between the layers it is really really good.

The tangerine icing I made, however, was a disaster! I added and added and added tangerine to the recipe, but it did not taste at all tangeriney. Utterly disappointed, I got desperate and added in some orange juice as well. By now the icing consistency was shot and where was the pretty orange color from the La Mi Cucina site? Either using food coloring was implied or she just left out some kind of step. Maybe she used jumbo tangerines from outer space?

Anyway, I grabbed the food coloring from the pantry and with the help of my artistic husband who has full comprehension of the color wheel, I was able to get a color I was happy with. But color shmolor, at this point the icing was drippy and unappealing.

I looked for advice on the web and found some tips about putting it in the freezer, beating it, and then repeating (doesn't that sound like some kind of awful child abuse). I tried it, but to no avail.

Eventually, 3+ hours into the cupcake making process, I gave up and just poured the dripped orange colored but not orange flavored goop onto the cupcakes.

Final note: The picture posted is of my cupcake sitting on top of the printed recipe. Note how in the recipe the icing makes a nice swirl, while in mine it just spread out. If I had taken it to the edge of the cupcake, it would have just dripped off.