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.

EggNog Cupcakes with Rum Buttercream Frosting, 12/16

Although these cupcakes aren't embellished much, and there have certainly been cuter looking cupcakes, I do have to say, these ROCKED. For the last installment of Christmas-themed cupcakes, I chose eggnog cupcakes (from Crazy About Cupcakes) frosted with rum buttercream (from 125 Best Cupcake Recipes). I was worried about the eggnog cupcakes turning out too muffin-y and heavy (from the looks of the batter, that was the direction we were going). However, they were just as light and fluffy as cupcakes should be. The eggnog flavor was potent, but not too overwhelming or spicy (by spicy, I mean nutmeg-spice). So they are good. But the best part of this cupcake is the Rum Buttercream frosting. I did use rum extract since I took them to work, but I can't imagine real rum making any difference. I could literally just eat the frosting. Topping it on the eggnog cupcakes was really the (pardon the pun) icing on the cake.

Gingerbread Cupcakes with Vanilla Cream Frosting; Chocolate Gingerbread Cupcakes with Fudge Frosting, with Gingerbread Men, 12/09

Second on the list of Christmas-themed cupcakes are the gingerbread cupcakes. I wanted to try two recipes to satisfy everyone's wants and likes, plus they made small batches. The regular gingerbread cupcakes are from Crazy About Cupcakes, and one of the ingredients I was excited about (yes, I got excited--I'm lame) was sour cream. All the cupcakes in which I have used sour cream have turned out SO MOIST. These were no exception. My only issue is that their consistency was more of a muffin (which subsequently made them exceedingly hard to frost). The frosting was from 125 Cupcake Recipes, a vanilla cream frosting with which I have fallen in love!! It's essentially vanilla frosting, but with whipping cream in the mixture and it makes the frosting very light and creamy and divine! The second batch of cupcakes were from the 125 Cupcake Recipes book, while the frosting was from Crazy About Cupcakes this time. Chocolate and gingerbread was an interesting combination and despite the fact that it seemed there was more chocolate than ginger, the ginger came through as the aftertaste, which satisfied me. I topped it with fudge frosting, so this cupcake is definitely one for the chocolate lovers. To finish it off, I quickly whipped up (yes I just said that) a batch of gingerbread men, a recipe from Crazy About Cupcakes, and the first time I have attempted this type of cookie (I'm usually a sugar cookie kind of girl). The mini gingerbread men were a fun way to decorate the tops of the cupcakes for the holiday season, and Kelli even named her little guy!! (Shhhh, we'll keep it a secret.)

Peppermint Cupcakes with Peppermint Frosting and CandyCane Sprinkles, 12/02

With three weeks left until Christmas vacation, I have gathered all the Christmas-themed cupcake recipes I can find and have them lined up for the next three Wednesdays. The first Christmas-themed Cupcake Wednesday was peppermint. Peppermint cupcake. Peppermint frosting. Peppermint sprinkles. It was like a giant cupcake breath mint. The recipe was out of Crazy About Cupcakes, and, true to the rest of my experiences with the cupcakes out of this cookbook, they were DELICIOUS. I liked how there was a TABLESPOON of peppermint extract in the recipe (and that is even when I halved the recipe) and a whole bunch of crushed candy canes. The cooking temperature and time seemed a little off, so I kept them in a little longer and upped the temperature about 25 degrees, but still the cupcakes stayed VERY moist (Marnie and I enjoyed that aspect the most--they were sticky:)). I think the candy cane pieces must have something to do with that when they melted. Tasty nevertheless. The peppermint frosting was creamy and I think an even better topping would have been peppermint cream cheese frosting (but I've been pretty reliant on cream cheese frosting lately and I wanted to branch out). These cupcakes reminded me of Candy Cane Lane--perfect for an introduction to the holidays!!

Spice Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting OR Vanilla Frosting, with candy garnishes, 11/24

With Thanksgiving looming on the horizon (and a FIVE DAY WEEKEND), Cupcake Wednesday was 1) on Tuesday, and 2) dedicated to an "early" Thanksgiving. I owe credit to my nana, who alerted me to a fun episode of Paula Deen where she made some fun looking cupcakes that looked like peas and carrots, a turkey/chicken leg, and mashed potatoes. I'll be honest, the verbal description left me a little confused. How do Starburst candies make a cupcake look like mashed potatoes? Well, I caught a re-run and was HOOKED. I HAD to try making these adorable cupcakes, the brainchild of the authors of "Hello Cupcake." So, the base cupcake is spice, one batch from each of my two cupcake cookbooks (the early favorite is from "Crazy About Cupcakes"). The peas and carrots frosting is cream cheese frosting, and the rest are frosted with store-bought vanilla frosting (which normally I would oppose but the amount of frosting used to create the turkey leg is a semi-ginormous). The "peas" are M&Ms, the "carrots" are cut-up Starburst, the "butter" is the yellow Starburst, the coating for the turkey leg is cornflakes, and the "bone" is white melting chocolate in the shape of a leg bone. The "gravy" is leftover caramel frosting from the week before (how fortuitous!). They were super fun to make and received rave reviews (for both the decorations and the actual cupcake). I was so excited to share these because they are just so fun to look at, and now I think I need to add to my cookbook collection "Hello Cupcake."