And I-I-I Will Always Love You-oooo

We recently rewatched Moulin Rouge and I must admit, it ranks right up there in my top 50 movies ever made. Not because I'm a big Nicole or Baz fan. No, no. It's the costumes and the sets, the dance numbers, the colors, the songs and of course, Ewan McGregor, with his sparkling baby blues. One of the best scenes is atop the Moulin Rouge in the Elephant Room when Satine and Christian sing a medley of love songs. It reminds me of a game we used to play at camp on rainy days when we were confined to the dining hall and the counselors had to find new and creative ways to entertain us. My husband and I sometimes play it on long car trips. It essentially consists of breaking off into teams, or one person playing against another. One person picks a word as the theme like "love" and you have to then sing snippets of songs that contain that word. As in the movie:

Love is a many splendored thing,

Love lifts us up where we belong,

All you need is love!

I was made for loving you baby,
You were made for loving me....

In the name of love!
One night in the name of love!

And so on and so forth until you run out of songs. The last person who can come up with a song including the agreed-upon word wins.

I thought the movie and the game were relevant to bring up here given the theme of this month's Iron Cupcake: Earth challenge Passion where bakers were asked create a cupcake based on or inspired by ANYTHING related to love and passion. The cupcake I am entering, La Vie en Rose, was created for the most passionate of holidays: Valentine's Day. But I thought it would work equally well as a contender and so here you have it.



My original La Vie en Rose cupcake is a pistachio studded, rose-flavored cupcake with rose buttercream and crystallized rose petals on top. Though I have since tried several variations and I can tell you that each one is as good as the next. I've done it with a vanilla cupccake, rose buttercream and crushed pistachios on top. As a rose cupcake with a strawberry-rose buttercream, and more recently a pistachio cake with a raspberry-rose buttercream. Yum, yum and yum.



This is a fairly easy recipe. To make your own, whip up a batch of your favorite vanilla cupcake recipe (here's a link to a recipe for Billy's Bakery's famous ones) and substitute a high quality rosewater for the amount of vanilla that is called for. (You really want to buy the best quality rosewater you can afford cause this stuff is strong and will dominate the flavors; I buy mine at a specialty middle eastern store in the 2nd). Just before you divide the batter into the cupcake tins, throw in a cup of shelled, roughly chopped unsalted pistachios and mix to incorporate.

For the buttercream, mix 110 grams unsalted butter that you've brought to room temperature with 1 teaspoon rosewater, 50 cl mix of heavy whipping cream and milk, and about 300 grams of confectioner's sugar using an electric hand beater. Gradually add in another 200 grams of confectioner's sugar until you have reached good spreading consistency. If you so desire, mix in a few teaspoons of raspberry or strawberry jam and voila! Enjoy!

As a reminder I am competing for a prize pack comprised of items from these generous Iron Cupcake : Earth sponsors:
The Demy™ by Key Ingredient
Hello, Cupcake by Karen Tack & Alan Richardson
Bella Cupcake Couture
Cupcake Stackers by Gourmac
The Cake Mix Doctor Returns! by Anne Byrne
Beautiful Baking Liners by Vestli House
Sweet Cuppin' Cakes Bakery & Cupcakey Supply

Voting will begin no later than Sunday, February 28th at 8 p.m. at NO ONE PUTS CUPCAKE IN A CORNER and will be open through Thursday, March 4th at 12 noon. Until then, you can content yourself with the other love and passion entries on offer at the Iron Cupcake : Earth flickr pool.