too much is never enough

So this thought has been swirling around in Saucy's brain for a long while: how much stuff could she possibly jam into one cupcake?

Could a single cupcake be baked, filled, crumbled, stuffed, frosted, sprinkled, piped, topped and finished?

Today, the answer came... and it was yes.

She got into the kitchen and started with a basic vanilla cupcake recipe. Not unlike any she has ever shown you before. Until she decided to add a crumb topping.

She mixed 1 cup flour with 1/2 cup butter and 1/2 brown sugar in a bowl, cutting the butter into the mixture until it was sort of sticky and, well... crumbly. Like this:

Now do you see how much crumble that makes? No worries. It stores in the freezer nicely. Unused crumble topping is nice to have on hand for desserts, muffins, pies and baked apples.

Now, if she had this entire step to do over again, Saucy would add more crumble to the tops of the cupcakes. Why not? There's absolutely no reason why not. Everyone loves crumble topping and this creation is going to end up like some amazing orgy of key lime pie and a cupcake, so the extra crumbs would look kind of like a pie crust around the edge.

Anyway, she threw them in the oven and while they baked, she melted white chocolate over a double boiler:

About white chocolate... Saucy uses Wilton brand Candy Melts because it melts smoothly with no lumps. Just make sure that you use a large bowl over a smaller water source/pan. Water is the enemy of melting chocolate. If you've ever ended up with lumpy, dry melted chocolate that was impossible to work with, chances are you splashed some of the boiling water in it. That's why some bakers prefer to melt it in the microwave, but Saucy likes to melt it old school.

Today, she melted about 6 ounces of the stuff, old school. That's like, a half a bag.

When it is all smooth and free of lumps, turn it out onto a cookie sheet that has been lined with a piece of that silicone parchment paper... you know... the stuff from Dollarama.

Lift the pan - and give it one good smack on the top of your counter! This will eliminate any air bubbles and get the mixture evenly distributed.

If you like making lots of noise while you cook, keep slamming the pan. Otherwise, spread it around with your spatula a bit and give it a few more smacks until the whole thing looks about 1/8" thick.

Really... the possibilities here are endless, aren't they? Today it was just a selection of crazy coloured sugars from the pantry, but what about nuts? Crushed candies? Dried fruits? Broken pretzels?

This won't take too long to set, just put it someplace at room temperature and away from Duke.

It's probably about time to pull the cupcakes out of the oven by now... has it been fifteen minutes yet? They should be placed on a wire rack to cool.

While the cupcakes cooled, Saucy made a small batch of lime curd. That's lemon curd, but with a lime. Because she was shooting for a sort of key lime thing, right?

For the lime curd, lightly whisk 6 tablespoons corn starch with 1 and 1/2 cups granulated sugar and 1/4 teaspoon salt together. Gently add 1/2 cup freshly squeezed lime juice and 2 eggs and stir until smooth. In a heavy saucepan, heat 2 cups water to a boil and add the egg mixture while stirring constantly. Cook and stir over medium heat until it thickens. Remove saucepan from heat and stir in 1 teaspoon butter - this will make the mixture smooth and creamy and eliminate any fuzzy little bubbles that appear on the top. They'll just melt away with the butter.

Saucy whipped up a batch of cream cheese frosting. She got busy and piped it around the top of each cake, like a donut.

The sprinkles! Man... she was jonesing for sprinkles today. She shook the container hard.

Next, Saucy used a piping bag fitted with a nice long tip and she jabbed that tip right into the middle of each cake and pumped some of the cooled lime mixture - the lime curd - in there. Check that out. It's sort of oozing out of the top right there.

After all the cupcakes had been filled with lime curd and a ring of cream cheese frosting had been put on top with some sprinkles, she added some colour to the rest of the frosting, fitted the bag with a different tip, and she dolloped the rest of the frosting onto the top.

Man, that was a horrible sentence. It's like Saucy failed seventh grade. That was a one sentence paragraph, right there. That is why Saucy teaches art and not English.

You didn't forget about this stuff, did you? It's cooled and set and ready to break into crazy pieces... go for it.

Just slap them wherever, onto the top of that crazy, filled, stuffed, crumbled, frosted, sprinkled, topped creation.

What do you think of that? Saucy will tell you what you're thinking.

You're thinking: yes.