Pudding Stuffed Cupcake w/ Chocolate Whipped Cream

i am one of those people that, fortunately, is easily amused. or maybe the better way to phrase that would be that i am a person who is often amazed by things. now that i have made myself appear to have an underdeveloped brain i will try and explain that.

i am about 95% sure that my infatuation with producing extraordinary chemical reactions between seemingly ordinary things (hence the freakish baking fetish) comes directly from my father: the self proclaimed "professional hobby-ist". that. is. brilliant. yes, my dad came up with title when he was about 10 years old and i am damn proud of him for it. so legend has it my father would write to numerous companies asking for a vast assortments of very serious chemicals, claiming to be a professional "hobby-ist". ok, so obviously this was before any kind of terrorist threats or mega lawsuits etc, etc and they would send it along. and from there my dad would be a mischievous boy - a very dangerous mischievous boy. he produced varying specimens of bombs, rockets and other varying explosive reactions. that is until he almost brought the family kitchen down to ashes. he was moved to a little storage shed located a safe distance from the house.

does any of this sound vaguely familiar to any of you bakers out there? how can you not feel like a little scientist measuring, weighing, folding not stirring, wood spoon only, whisking to stuff peaks, carefully watching the clock, noting in your scrappy book your equations and formulas, aiming for fireworks just to almost burn down the kitchen - or at least your taste-buds. well i do i. and my favorite reaction is whipping. i'm amazed every single time. so much so i always feel the ridiculous need to call someone into the kitchen to see what has happened. yeah, like retelling a dream: no-one cares unless it was theirs.

all of this just to share with you my whipped cream icing. oh and there is chocolate caramel pudding stuffed cupcake underneath a cloud of it. yum. the batter is the carmel cake batter from my previous post. since i can never get fresh whipped cream to stay i "stabilized" it with a tiny bit of gelatin and it worked perfectly.

CHOCOLATE WHIPPED CREAM

1/4 tsp gelatin powder

1 1/2 tsp cold water

1/2c whipping cream

2 1/2 tbs powdered sugar

1 1/2 tbs dutch processed cocoa

pinch salt

1/4 tsp vanilla

*pour gelatin into a cup

*sprinkle water over the gelatin and let sit for 5 minutes

*submerge the cup in simmering water until the gelatin mixture has melted. let cool back to room temp

*whip the cream with the gelatin until fluffy and thick (you know what whipped cream should be)

*quickly beat in the vanilla, sugar, salt and cocoa

*keep chilled