Birds nest cupcakes

Anyone that knows me knows that Spring is Mini Eggs season for me. I don't care about anything else, but mini eggs.


On Thursday we finally got our oven fixed after a few weeks of it being non operational, so I had to celebrate with cupcakes! I had seen these cute cupcakes at a local shop where the baker had made tiny chicks out of mini eggs and put them on a nest of toasted coconut. Now, I didn't have the patience for the faces, but I thought eggs in a nest would be just as cute!
So, here are my recreations! They were super cute and tasty, and I'm beyond thrilled to have an oven again ;)

Those cupcake liners are from Paula Deen and they say "A balanced diet is a cupcake in each hand", lol! My mom bought them for me and I was excited to get a chance to use them.

I finally filled up my cupcake stand that I got for Christmas!

p.s. if anyone is local and wants to know the name of the business I got this idea from, shoot me an email or leave me a comment, and I'll email it to you! While I'd love to support her, I don't like to share with the interwebs exactly where I live~

Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate Cupcakes

Have you tried the Salted Caramel Hot Chocolates at Starbucks yet? If not, you should probably go get one right now. I'll wait.
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If you're like me, you're now addicted to these tasty treats. I don't know why they're SO stinking good!!
Last weekend we were having friends over for a horror movie marathon, and I knew I wanted to make salted caramel something. I settled on mini cupcakes after finding the beautiful TasteSpotting and sorting the recipes by the "salted caramel" tag.
I made the salted caramel buttercream from this recipe, and I highly recommend! For one, it was really, really easy. For two, it was so good!
For the cupcakes, I cheated. I used a box milk chocolate cake mix, and substituted strong brewed coffee for the water. They don't taste like coffee, but for some reason I felt that it would be more of a hot chocolate tasting cupcake, and I was happy with the result.

Mocha Cupcakes

To me, there's really no better pairing than coffee and chocolate. Chocolate and peanut butter makes a close second, but chocolate and coffee is really where my heart is. A few weeks ago we had some leftover coffee after breakfast and I decided that a mocha cupcake would be the perfect use for it. Of course, I couldn't find a recipe that only wanted coffee, so I ended up going and buying instant coffee granules as well.
I found a recipe (and I can't remember where. Bad blogger! Bad! But I know it was not from any of the blogs I'm linked to because I would remember that.) and in the end, I didn't love it. It didn't give the vavavoom that I was looking for, and I think a store bought chocolate cake mix would have been better.

The frosting recipe was a keeper, though, and I'll happily share that. I decided to make these mini cupcakes since my mini cupcake pan hasn't seen any love since last Fall's pumpkin cupcakes, so I cut the recipe I found (from C&H sugar) in half, and then I altered it to make it more coffee flavored.

• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 1 tsp. instant coffee granules
• 1.5 tbs unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/6 cup butter, melted
• 1/2 teas vanilla
• 4 tbsp. brewed coffee (room temp)

Mix together first 5 ingredients, then add the brewed coffee one tbsp at a time until you get the consistency you want. Made enough to frost 30 mini cupcakes (with some left over!)

Adventures in Fondant (pt.2)

These are fondant covered cupcakes I made awhile back. I'd posted a picture on my facebook page, so they never made it to my blog. Oops!




Not bad for my first time using fondant to cover something! I can't wait to try it on a cake next.

Doctored Cake Mix: Cherry Chocolate Cupcakes

I took these tasty little cupcakes to a BBQ. It was a lazy Sunday and I wanted to make something simple. So, I took a "milk chocolate" cake mix, chopped up about 25 maraschino cherries and tossed them into the batter and baked. Easy Easy.
The frosting was a wee bit of a disaster. Here is the recipe I was supposed to use:

3 3/4 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted
1/2 cup butter, softened
4 tbsp. (or more) maraschino cherry juice


But I thought "hmmm....if 4 tbs of cherry juice is good...8 will be better! Or, I'll just pour the whole thing into the mix!" um, no, it doesn't work like that. The frosting was weird and chunky, and couldn't hold those pretty cherries. By the time we got to the BBQ it looked like a brain explosion in my container :(

Oh well, they are still delicious and you should still make them...but follow the recipe for the frosting :)

Berry Limeade Cupcakes

On Friday I was considering making cupcakes as an excuse to use these adorable new liners I bought, but I wasn't so sure it'd be a good idea being alone with 2 dozen cupcakes all weekend. Then my Mom called me and asked me to make a dessert for a family gathering on Saturday, perfect timing, and perfect excuse.
So I searched a few of my favorite blogs for a white cupcake (because chocolate would have hidden the designs of my cute liners. Is that superficial of me? Oh well!) and I found these amazing looking Cherry Limeade Cupcakes from Annies Eats. And the best part: I had all of the ingredients on hand except the cherry juice, but I did have frozen berries so that was an easy substitute. Score!

I am very happy with how these came out, I think they're just adorable. And, as a bonus, they were pretty easy (although very messy) to make. A tip, don't fill up the cupcake well 3/4 of the way like you would for a rounder cupcake. You want these to be sort of flat and end below the wrapper so the glaze has somewhere to go.

Cherry Limeade Cupcakes
Yield: 24 cupcakes

Ingredients:
For the cupcakes:
3 cups cake flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp. limeade concentrate
3 eggs
3/4 cup milk

For the lime syrup:
3/4 cup limeade concentrate
1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar

For the frosting:
3 3/4 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted
1/2 cup butter, softened
4 tbsp. (or more) maraschino cherry juice (I used frozen mixed berries, pureed in the mini chopper)
red food coloring (optional)

For decorating (optional):
fresh lime slices
maraschino cherries

Directions:
To make the cupcakes, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line two muffin pans with paper liners. In a medium bowl combine the cake flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda. Stir together and set aside. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter until smooth. Add the sugar and beat on medium-high speed until creamed. Add in the limeade concentrate and mix to incorporate. Add the eggs one at a time, scraping down the bowl between additions. Add in the flour mixture in thirds, alternating with the milk, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Mix ingredients just long enough to incorporate but no longer.

Divide the batter evenly between the prepared cupcake liners. Bake for about 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow to cool in the pans for 5-10 minutes, then remove to a wire rack over wax paper to cool completely.

Once the cupcakes have cooled, whisk together the limeade concentrate and confectioners’ sugar in a small bowl to make the lime syrup. Poke several holes in the top of each cupcake with a skewer and pour the syrup over the cupcakes, allowing it to soak in.

To make the frosting, combine the confectioners’ sugar, butter and maraschino cherry juice in the bowl of a stand mixer. Mix on low speed until sugar is incorporated, then increase to medium-high speed and beat until smooth. Add more maraschino cherry juice as needed to achieve desired texture. Add red food coloring if desired.

Frost cooled cupcakes. Garnish with lime slices and maraschino cherries, if desired.

Source: From Annies Eats, adapted from Baking Up Chaos

So...go make these now!