Cupcakes, cupcakes, and more cupcakes

I told you guys how I was going to be selling cupcakes at the local "trade days" for our little town.  Well....I stayed up all night finishing them.  They looked AH-mazing!  Then, we drove up there at 6 AM (well, it's technically, a hop, skip, and a jump in front of our neighborhood.), and it was raining.  There were about 3 of us at that point, who waited until about 7:30.  Then, it started raining harder and the thunder and lightning came, so I told Nate it was probably time to go home.  He was holding out that the rain would quit -- it didn't for the rest of the day.  His compromise was we could leave if we could go eat breakfast out.  So, we went and had a lovely breakfast at the Old West Cafe in Denton.

My mom came over and bought a bazillion cupcakes to take to my brother's house for his daughter's birthday.  Then we gave a couple boxes to the neighbors.  But, we still have about 3 dozen or so.  

Oh well, maybe next time. But I'll share pictures and recipes.

I found this idea on Pinterest for single cupcakes.  At Walmart, a bag of 40 of these plastic cups is a couple dollars, 100 pk of spoons is less than $2, a bag of 20 bags of these plastic bags was 97 cents, and the ribbon was 47 cents a spool.  And they are easy to stack together without ruining the icing.

I also made some cake plates with plates, candlesticks, and E-6000 glue.  Super easy and about $3 foe a tiered cake plate.

From left - Dreamsicle, Chocolate Peanut Butter Caramel, Cherry Limeade, and Pumpkin Cheesecake. 

Cherry Limeade

Tart it up! Luscious lime cupcake drizzled in sweet lime syrup, topped with maraschino cherry buttercream frosting

Chocolate Peanut Butter with Caramel

Sweet & Salty! Chocolate cupcake with peanut butter cheesecake center, topped with salted caramel cream cheese buttercream frosting

Dreamsicle

Creamy orange and vanilla cupcake, topped with light and fluffy vanilla buttercream frosting

Pumpkin Cheesecake

Spicy pumpkin cupcake with cheesecake center, topped with cream cheese buttercream frosting

A couple of things I should mention:  

On the Cherry Limeade recipe, I used Key Lime Pie yogurt instead of plain.  I originally used milk and wanted to make it a bit more tart.  I also tried both cake flour and all purpose flour.  Nate felt the ones with all purpose were better.  Weird. 

On the Dreamsicle recipe, I used clementines.  I had 2 bags of them and no regular oranges and figured it would be a little twist.  I also added 1/2 cup of juice instead of the 1/4 cup in the recipe.  These were my favorite cupcake.  They were SOOO good.  My eldest daughter said these were her fave too.  

Enjoy!

Jumbo Ombre Cupcakes

 

My son is still talking about the rainbow cupcakes I made from a few months ago, so I thought I'd try this ombre thing everyone is doing.  I could not get a decent picture, but they sure look cool in real life.  

It's super easy if you haven't done it before.  I was a bit worried they'd bake weird. 

I made 6 jumbo cup cakes.  Here is what I did:

1 box white cake mix

3 egg whites (no yolks to prevent yellowing of the batter)

1 1/4 cups water

1/3 cup oil

Preheat oven to 350.

Separate batter into 4 bowls. 

1 bowl: white

1 bowl: 3-4 drops food coloring

1 bowl 6 drops of food coloring

1 bowl 10 drops of food coloring

 Then I layered the cupcakes.  I used a regular ol' flatware spoon and but 2 spoonfuls of each color batter starting with dark, then medium, then light, then white.  I filled these up about 3/4 full as I wanted big tops.  This yielded 6 jumbo cupcakes (which is probably about the same as about 18  regular cupcakes only filled 2/3 full of batter. )

Bake for 20 minutes.  

And Voila! Ombre cupcakes. 

I also made a cream cheese butter cream frosting

6 oz cream cheese

3-4 tbs butter

3-4 cups of powdered sugar

Allow cream cheese and butter to sit until close to room temperature.  Then beat together until smooth.  Gradually add powdered sugar until the frosting makes stiff peaks.  

I used a large star tip and swirled it on the cupcakes.  Then, I dusted them with pink sugar crystals. 

Enjoy!!