Crème Fraîche Cupcakes-Part Sept

The last thing I have time to do this week is experiment with new formulas. Mom's Day is, unfortunately, one of my less favored holidays of the year on a personal level, and perhaps it's a good thing that the cafe is pretty busy at the moment. At least it keeps my mind off of other things.

So while I am grateful for all the recent patronage and how busy it's keeping me, how can I still compelled to pump out new Crème Fraîche Cupcakes? Don't I have better things to be doing with my cafe time? Don't I have a brunch to plan? Or train my first full-time manager? More on that one later, but I digress...

The truth of the matter is as simple as our basic chicken egg. One part white, one part yolk, each of these halves lend themselves to varied applications without which the pastry world would be lifeless and nonfunctional. And what does one do with stockpiles of egg whites left over from the coveted egg yolks that are making their way into my yellow cupcakes? Well, develop a crème fraîche white cake, of course.

Yellow cake (or butter cake) and its white cousin are striking similar, except that the first focuses on richness from extra egg yolks and the later on lightness from an all-egg white batter. No better way for me to begin using the vast amounts of egg whites hanging around here. And while I'm sure I'm not the first to try this out, this is a pretty unusual cake formula in that it features both the egg white-only batter AND the crème fraîche. At least I couldn't find a single reference online or in my many baking books about such a monstrosity. The result is a sort of dense and rich cake that is trying to be light and fluffy at the same time. A bit of an identity crisis, but yummy nonetheless.

So there you go. Two more. Now with white ganache glazes! And more white cupcakes to come:

Blueberry-Lemon-White-crème fraîche cake+vanilla bean-lemon curd filling+white chocolate ganache glaze+dried wild blueberry topping.

Lemon-Ginger-White-crème fraîche cake+vanilla bean-lemon curd filling+white chocolate ganache glaze+candied ginger topping.
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