Rose and vanilla cupcakes.....part 2

 

Yum. In the end I did a bit of experimenting and settled for rose essence in the batter and vanilla essence in the icing, and then as you can see I decorated with the petals.

Two points for improvement. I used dried egg powder and you can tell.. Last winter Mr India and I purchased some dried free range egg. We decided that we could never knowingly eat battery egg and wondered what would happen to organic free range should there be an outbreak of bird flu. This seeems to us to be a reasonable compromise. There is a definite difference in texture when the powder is used. It is drier and more reminiscent of the texture of shop bought cake .I added more liquid to make up the difference but next time I am going to make it extra-sloppy and see what difference it makes.

Point two - my buttercream sucks. Well, at least in terms of texture. It's too hard. I want soft, buttery clouds - not something that I need to attack with a pick axe. Any suggestions?