Homemade Hostess Cupcakes

I made these bad boys for Valentine's Day, using this recipe. For the most part, they worked out. The cupcake recipe called for sugar to be boiled in water, cooled, added to eggs, and then incorporated into the dry ingredients. I ended up with super liquidy batter. Not liquidy like cupcake batter is supposed to be, but liquidy like chocolate milk is supposed to be. I put them in the oven anyway, hoping that they didn't evaporate. 

They looked normal when they came out of the oven, so I filled and frosted them. They were supposed to chill for 15 minutes before the white frosting, so I took a 2-hour nap on the couch.

To be honest, I was looking forward to all the cool ideas to write on them. I whipped up my frosting, and put it in my piping bag (I love any recipe that requires me to use a piping bag) and went to town. 

I Cakewrecked these, so I scraped the icing off and tried again.

Oops... Cakewrecked for sure. (This was going to be three cupcakes that spelled out "I love you", but the "I" was so goofy I tried to change it into those squiggly Hostess lines. Not so much.)

Another Cakewreck. Misspelled. 

I finally got four of them that I was somewhat happy with to give to my Main Squeeze for Valentine's Day. Relief, finally....

Until I turned around and realized the mess this recipe had created. 

I would have had a few less dishes, except my first ganache never got glossy and smooth, so I tried to heat it over a double boiler, and then gave up and made a new batch.

Oh, and the frying pans. I'm not trying some sort of Richard Blais-Top Chef-avant garde method of frying cupcakes. We had that new pretty stove installed, but the bottom drawer didn't have runners, so it would just drop to the floor if you tried to use it. Those frying pans lived on the counter until the drawer got fixed. 

All in all, I would probably make these cupcakes again. I think I need more practice with my frosting writing. I'm pretty sure I have the bakery equivalent of serial killer handwriting.

See? Creepiest Valentine's cupcakes ever. If someone gave me these, I would think they spend a lot of time hanging out in the bushes outside of my house.