Cream Chantilly

I attempted to bake another set of cupcakes for my daughter's celebration in school.  Since I don't have much time from the celebration on Saturday, I did a very simple one.  Just my usual cupcakes filled with fresh strawberries and topped with cream chantilly, fresh berries and Kungfu Panda and Strawberry Shortcake cupcake toppers.

Unfortunately, the cakes were not up to my expectation.  I think it must be the cups.  I have used this recipe dozens of times without failure.  It was probably because I placed the square cups too close together resulting in insufficient circulation.  Many of them did not rise sufficiently, resulting in a very dense cake.

The chantilly cream was so so.  My last attempt was too watery.  This time, I managed to get quite a stiff consistency which allowed for piping.  It also set quite nicely.  Unfortunately, I placed the portion of chantilly cream with gelatine in an iced bath and some of the geletine solidified.  You could taste some bits of the gelatine in the cream chantilly.  Must remember not to do this next time.  I think it should turn out quite nicely otherwise.

Here is the recipe for the cream chantilly.

Ingredients:

500 ml UHT Whipping Cream
50g icing sugar
20g gelatine crystals/powder

1. Put small amount of cream in a bowl over a hot water bath, add gelatin, stir to dissolve.
2. Whip the rest of cream and icing sugar till mixed.
3. Pour gelating mixture into whipped cream and continue beating till soft peaks form.

Here are the cakes.