Chocolate Chip Cookie Cupcakes with Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting, 02/17

Milk and cookies anyone? These cupcakes were unique on a couple levels. First of all, they really were like chocolate chip cookie in cupcake form. The batter was a little denser, the cupcake came out a bit heavier and chewier. These cupcakes were from Crazy About Cupcakes, although I must admit I adapted them a little bit. I added mini chocolate chips to the batter (which did NOT sink to the bottom) in addition to the topping the book suggested (a mixture of chocolate chips and brown sugar on top of the cupcake before the frosting). I would have nixed this component of the cupcake, though, and instead just filled the cupcake up to the top, instead of halfway to the top as the book directed. To compensate for a lower cupcake, I swirled the frosting, which was also a new attempt on my part to create my own little recipe. So I already found my perfect cream cheese frosting recipe (to my personal liking--not necessarily the perfect combination and consistency for all), and instead of the last 1/2 cup of powdered sugar, I added cocoa powder. Although it was less cream cheese-y than I had wanted, the frosting came out very light and airy--not what I expected from cream cheese frosting. It almost had the texture of a mousse, which pretty much rocked. I enjoyed making these cupcakes because all pieces were new, and I have discovered I like finding minor adaptations to make them my own creation. Also because it was the last cupcake (or sweet for that matter) that I will be tasting without the punishment of my own self-inflicted penance because I gave up sweets--cupcakes and all--for Lent.

Pina Colada Cupcakes with Pineapple Pudding Frosting; Valentines Day Mini Cupcakes, 02/10

There were two cupcake themes today. First of all it was Claudia's birthday, and her request was from one of my favorite cookbooks, but not one I ever expected to use for Cupcake Wednesday--Hungry Girl!!!! I kid you not, these books (and website) has changed my life. Healthy, low-cal options for "regular" food, like cupcakes, dips, ONION RINGS. But I digress. So the first cupcakes were pina colada, and the frosting is a mixture of pudding, cream cheese and pineapple that tastes divine (I could eat it by the spoonful). The great thing about these cupcakes is that--despite the few ingredients--they are SUPER moist. In fact, they are such a favorite I was threatened by my brother if I did not bring some home (so as to not repeat the Runts Cupcake incident--oops!). They will reappear--Courtney is changing her request to these. So seriously, BUY THIS BOOK because it ROCKS.
The second installment was inspired from Hello, Cupcake!, a valentines day theme (and as much as I despise this holiday--and no I'm not lonely--I thought they were cute) that looked easy enough. I made some mini cupcakes from last week's batter, and then just a chocolate cake batter mix to make little chocolate ones. Then some big marshmallows and lots of valentines candy transforms these cupcakes into a box of chocoloates!!! Special shout out to mom for saving the heart shaped box. And from far away, they actually kind of look like chocolates (to quote Cher from Clueless: "It's like a Monet...from far away it looks good...")!

White Chocoate Cupcakes with Vanilla Frosting, 02/03

There is really only one thing that the phrase "White Chocolate" conjures up in my mind--the guy that had it tattooed on his arm with whom my friend thought it would be funny to set me up. We both got a good laugh out of that and occasionally reference him (but only to make fun of someone as lame as he has to be). But the cupcake recipe did sound good, I hadn't tried it yet, and I had white chocolate chips. The cupcake recipe is from Crazy About Cupcakes, from which I have yet to experience an icky cupcake. They are definitely flavorful with not only white chocolate chips but melted white chocolate in the batter as well. The frosting has a story behind it. I just used Pillsbury Vanilla Frosting, but there was a purpose (and laziness was not it). In the book Hello, Cupcake, they discuss how the store-bought frosting holds color better than homemade, and since I had the idea of coloring it, I stuck with store-bought and will save homemade frosting for next week. So, obviously, I dyed the frosting orange, but then rolled the cupcake in orange sprinkles (pour a whole bunch into a shallow bowl so that you never see the bottom of the bowl, that way the frosting does not stick to the bowl). And to celebrate the near-end of basketball season (high school--one of the Cupcake Wednesday-ers is the coach here), I designed it like a basketball--or as close as I could. The inspiration came from two places--Hello Cupcake for the sprinkles part (they have this AWESOME cupcake platter of "pool balls" for the pool lover that uses color sprinkles for the different colors of the balls) and Martha Stewart's cupcake book for the actual basketball. She, however, used black licorice strings for the design, and for the life of me I could not find them, so I just piped chocolate frosting dyed black instead. Then I thought they looked like spiderwebs on a Halloween cupcake, so I lined a few with white frosting. I'm not sure which looks more authentic but the whole cupcake was a neat concept and I'm glad I learned the whole sprinkle thing because it really does add to the decoration aspect of the cupcake and there are so many directions you can go!

Crazy Cake, Friday, January 29th

Alright, so it's not Wednesday and it's not a cupcake but I have to display this newest creation--CRAZY CAKE!! For Kelli's REAL birthday, I had been saving this cake for about a year. She sent me a picture of this cake on another website, and asked how on earth this was possible. I did some clicking and found the process, except I added my own little touches. First of all, it is just a regular cake mix (Fresh and Easy), and made according to the box (this is different than the other example, which did it the "Weight Watchers" way). I divided the batter into 4 portions of 1 cup, and two portions of 1/2 cup.Three colors made up each of the round cakes, because I wanted three colors per layer. Because of the watery nature of this batter, I tried my best to place a little cardboard divider as I was pouring so it didn't spread out too much--it worked out just ok. Bake the cake according to the directions, and then I repeated the process for the second cake while layer one cooled off. I even sliced off the top so it was as flush as possible (it wasn't 100 percent successful, but good enough). After everything had cooled off, I spread a little vanilla frosting on the top of the bottom layer, and put the top layer on, adjusting for maximum color exposure once cut. My next step (a day later) was to frost the cake with Kelli's favorite frosting, Vanilla Cream Frosting, and it frosted very well. I was unsure of how well I would know how to frost a cake without making unsightly dents in the frosting, but this frosting did not pull on the cake or do anything that would make my nightmares come true. I dyed some leftover Pillsbury Vanilla Frosting purple (Kel's favorite), and piped on some shells on the top and the bottom. There are so many different angles you can take with this cake (Cardinal and Gold anyone? :P ) for so many different occasions, and it's really not very hard. The one suggestion I would make is to have a second person there to help you pour (I was standing there wishing my cat Nan had opposable thumbs to help me--nothing came of it though).

Funfetti Cupcakes with Vanilla Frosting, 01/27

Happy Birthday Kelli!! Two days early. :) This design was inspired by my new cupcake book, Hello, Cupcake! It was the perfect amount of cupcake hoopla for Kel's birthday, because, as we all know, she is the queen of hoopla (and other things as well!). The cupcakes were just a Pillsbury Funfetti Mix topped with Pillsbury Vanilla Frosting. Then the decorating began. The little candies are Runts, because they all came in the right colors. You could also use M'n'Ms and it would have the same cute effect. The candles are chocolate Piroutte cookies, frosted with vanilla frosting and wrapped with a Sour Patch straw (microwaved, cut in half and rolled out flat). The "flame"is a banana Runt, outlined with orange tinted frosting. These cupcakes took a bit of prep time, and I had to put them together at school (which led to a few nightmare-ish dreams that the set up wouldn't work), so it was kind of like do-or-die at lunch when I was putting them together. Luckily there weren't any huge problems, other than they were kind of tilt-y, but hey, it still stood up until people started digging in--which didn't take too long :)

Lemon Cheesecake Cupcakes with Lemon Curd AND Lemon Yogurt Cupcakes with Vanilla Cream Frosting, 01/13

Cupcake Wednesdays is celebrating a birthday a week early. Fellow cupcake-er Art's birthday is next Wednesday, and since finals fall on that day (and thus a minimum day), we get out of school early. No one--trust me, NO ONE--wants to stay late, even for cupcakes. So in honor of Art's birthday (and NOT the Lame, I mean, Lane Kiffin hiring--Art's theory), we had two types of lemon cupcakes, lemon being his favorite flavor. Well, similar to the last cheesecake cupcake I made (no thanks to Marnie, but more on her later), there were none left, save for the one I especially reserved for my mom. Without that reservation, they would all be gone. To top off these cupcakes, I made lemon curd (honestly, I didn't know you could make lemon curd at home, but I guess I didn't have an explanation of how to make it otherwise...). It turned out well. And much cheaper than store-bought, so VICTORY. Now, because of picky Marnie (really, how much do you weigh? Tuck your man-purse), I made another cupcake, still lemon, but more of a true cupcake--Lemon Yogurt. Both were from 125 Best Cupcakes book, although I adapted this one by adding lemon flavored yogurt instead of the plain yogurt it called for. I did NOT like how these cupcakes did not rise very much. I might want to add a touch of baking soda next time. I just piled on a load of Vanilla Cream frosting and all was well. :)

Raspberry Cupcakes with Raspberry Vanilla Buttercream Frosting, 01/06

Well it happened--I created my own cupcake recipe. I sat down and--no joke--analyzed a bunch of different cupcake recipes to determine wet to dry ratio, sugar to butter ratio, sugar and butter to egg ratio, and then all that to flour. This is how I spent my winter break. But don't get me wrong, it was fun :) Anyway, this cupcake has raspberry puree and raspberry extract to make sure it tasted enough like raspberries, and to my pleasant surprise, they turned out! Light and fluffy and not poisonous! The frosting was an improvisation on the Easy Buttercream recipe from 125 Best Cupcakes book, and the decorations were inspired by my NEW Hello, Cupcake cookbook (a Christmas present) in that I used their technique to make the leaf without a specific decorating tip. And if you look at the close up, the leaf does look pretty realistic--for frosting at least. And well, I am pretty proud of myself for creating my own recipe, so proud that I did a little dance. My co-workers laughed, but that's ok because their mouths were full of cupcake.