I spent yesterday in the kitchen. I attempted to make my own Hostess cupcakes, but had a few issues.

1. I don’t think I whipped the egg whites for the buttercream long enough before adding the sugar-syrup. And then I think I rushed adding the butter to the too-warm mixture. I stuck the mixing bowl, with about half of the butter added, to an ice bath and then continued to add butter after the mixture was cool. The icing then seemed to be fine and I filled the center of the cupcakes and stored the rest of the vanilla buttercream in the refrigerator.

On to the ganache to coat the cupcakes—I added the chopped chocolate to slightly warm cream, began to stir the mixture and then it separated! I did some quick research and found that if I added a little bit of cold cream and beat the mixture it would re-form. It did and I poured the ganache over the tops of the cupcakes.

After the ganache cooled I took the vanilla buttercream out to pipe little swirls on top of the cupcakes. Guess what, after bringing the buttercream to room temperature, it too separated. I tried putting it in the mixer and even adding a touch of cream – in the end it looked liked cottage cheese.

Btw, the picture is that of the cupcakes (tops sliced off for flatness) filled with cream, awaiting the ganache.