Nanny Diaries… Pinkalicious!

If you have a little girl or know one, I would hope you've heard of the book Pinkalicious.  Elizabeth Kahn, the author, wrote an extremely popular (and for good reason!) book all a little girl who loved pink.  And cupcakes.   More specifically, pink cupcakes.  Not listening to her mommy, she eats far too many of her pink cupcakes and before she knows it, she has turned pink!!  The rest of this charming little story tells how she gets "un-pink" and reveals whether or not she reverts to her old ways !

I introduced Little M to this book a couple of weeks ago when I learned her favorite color was pink - a girl after my heart!  Of course, she adored the book, and you should have seen the look on her face last Wednesday morning when I told her it was PINKALICIOUS DAY!

What is Pinkalicious Day, you may ask?  Why, it's a day where we make pinkalicious cupcakes, of course!  ...And wear a lovely shade of pink with a pink ribbon in our hair, paint our nails a pinkalicious hue, color Pinkalicious coloring pages (found on the author's website) with every shade of pink, watch a Pinkalicious movie or two (Belle in Beauty in the Beast has a pink dress in one of my favorite scenes... Cinderella's stepsister has a pink dress), and tell everyone we know that it's PINKALICIOUS DAY!

How I woke up with such a random idea, I have no idea, but it was definitely a hit with Little M!  (And my inner 3 year old!)  In hunting for the perfect cupcake recipe, I found a Pink Velvet Cupcake recipe on the author's site, and here's what it calls for:

PINK VELVET CUPCAKES

Ingredients:
1 stick butter
1/2 C. sugar
2 eggs
1 C. buttermilk
1⁄4 cup strawberry juice *(see below)
2 T. cocoa
1 t. vanilla
1 T. vinegar
1 t. soda (sifted)
2 1/2 C. cake flour
1 t. salt

*2 Tb red food coloring (optional, instead of strawberry juice)

Directions:
Cream butter, sugar and eggs. Add strawberry juice and cocoa. Add salt to flour and sift. Add flour and buttermilk alternately, mix well. Add vanilla, mix well. Add soda and vinegar and don’t beat, just blend. Bake in 8 cupcake tins about 20 minutes at 350.

For the strawberry juice: cook a pint of strawberries with 1⁄2 cup sugar and juice of 1⁄2 a lemon. Let cool. Strain. If the juice is very liquidy, reduce over medium heat to obtain a syrup consistency. OR use food coloring

CREAM CHEESE FROSTING

Ingredients:
1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
1 box of confectioners sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
Don’t forget to add some PINK!

Directions:
In bowl of electric mixer, beat the cream cheese and butter, on low speed, until very smooth with no lumps. Gradually add the sifted powdered sugar and beat, on low speed, until fully incorporated and smooth.

In baking this interesting recipe, there's a few things I'd do differently in the future, so I figured I'd share in case any nannies or mommies or aunties are reading this...  First of all, do not go to Target to buy your ingredients.  Even though they are the best store in the world, they don't have the majority of what you'll need for these pinkalicious cupcakes.  As for the cupcake recipe, we used the 2 Tb red food coloring as opposed to the strawberry juice, but next time I'm going to try the strawberry juice simply because we used about 1 Tb red food coloring and  the cupcakes were a reddish brown because of the cocoa - not truly pink - and I thought adding another Tb of red would possibly make them well, redder.  For the buttermilk, you can substitute this alternative: Put 1 T lemon juice into a measuring bowl and then fill with milk until it reaches the 1 C line.  Let it stand for 5 minutes before using in the recipe.  Easy!  Then for the frosting, 1 box of confectioners sugar is equivalent to 16oz.  I couldn't find a box anywhere so you might want to remember that.  The frosting consistency seemed a little too runny though, so next time I'll add a little more powdered sugar.  (Sifted, remember!)  To make the frosting pink, I just put a tiny dab of red food coloring in, and I happened to get the color right on the first try.  Start small and add if needed.  To actually frost the cupcakes, I used a frosting bag with a big round top to make the frosting "swirly."  We topped them off with Maraschino cherries which are not in the recipe - put them on your list if you want to add a little flare.  I couldn't find a pack of solely-pink cupcake liners, so I had Little M pull out all of the pink ones we had, and then we had to "pretend" the yellow and blue were pink.  Make sure you include your kiddos - pour the ingredient in the measuring cup/spoon if they're too young, and relax your hand while you tell them to "pour" it in.  That's what we did, and she loved it.

This is a great, exciting day to plan for your little girls.  Nannies, this is perfect to take up an entire, entire day!!  In the car on the way to Target/the grocery store, Little M said, "Amanda, I'm the luckiest girl in the world!"  "And why's that?" I asked.  Her retort?  "Well because God made me that way!" With a little help of the excitement of Pinkalicious Day, I think.  ;-)  And her cupcake-tasting response made me smile -  "These are the goodest cupcakes I've ever had!"  They're different, I will say that.  Good with a big glass of cold milk.  

For a few more pictures, visit my Flickr photostream and search Pinkalicious.