the world of cupcakes: holiday edition.

This past Halloween I had found these fantastic bone sprinkles while shopping for new decorations and I just had to buy them!! However, when I got home I had no idea what to do with them. They were big, bulky, but just SO cute. So, I finally decided to make them into graveyard cupcakes, with the bones coming out.

They were the cutest things I had ever made at the time! And, believe it or not these cupcakes actually prompted me into starting this blog to show all my creations and adventures through cooking! The cupcakes were just plain vanilla cupcakes, which turned out thick and dry (remember I was an awful baker at the beginning), with a chocolate cream cheese frosting. Dont ask about the frosting though, I honestly cant remember. It had smashed oreo cookies for the dirt part, and then I was alternating adding cream cheese, and chocolate ovaltine until it tasted perfect. The sad part is, is that boyfriend and roommate both liked this frosting the best...I'm going to have to experiment and find it again.

Next came Christmas. Once again I found cute sprinkles in a pack of 4: red, green sugar sprinkles, holly and berry sprinkles, and trees. I added the trees into the batter and used the red and green sugar sprinkles on top. This time using a butter cream frosting. That boyfriend and roommate didnt like so much haha. 

After two holidays this sort of became tradition. To make cupcakes for every special holiday: I go out and find the perfect cupcake cups and cute sprinkles! The cupcakes have gotten much better than the first super thick ones, but I have yet to find the perfect cupcake recipe. Also I have been trying new frosting on each one, on a mission to find the best!

Valentines day, I knew exactly what flavor I wanted to bake: strawberries. But as it turned out they weren't in season (I dont quite have that down yet), but I found a heap of raspberries!! So I dyed the batter pink, and mixed in raspberries. The frosting on this one was meringue, which was good in theory but not in reality. Way to messy and it isn't hard enough to stay put. 

    

I was also very excited to bake these cupcakes, because of the cute spiral holder I had found at wal-mart. I just used red sprinkles, but as you can see, I tried to but a raspberry in the center of one, but that just made the meringue over flow, and created an even bigger mess!

Lastly, St. Patricks Day. I added green sugar sprinkles to the batter, and colored it green. For the topping, I kept it very simple, I wanted a hard sugary top instead frosting so I lightly sprinkled the cupcakes with powdered sugar, then with green sugar sprinkles and then put them to bake. They turned out perfect!! These were my absolute favorite, but boyfriend wished there was frosting.

I guess we'll never reach an agreement with cupcakes, but no matter what frosting was used, they were all super tasty!

Vanilla Cupcakes

Ingredients:

1. 1 cup butter
2. 2 cups sugar
3. 1 ¼ tsp vanilla
4. 4 eggs
5. 3 cups flour
6. ½ tsp salt
7. 1 cup milk

1. Preheat oven to 350°, and move rack to the top.
2. Cream butter until fluffy. Add sugar, and mix until creamy. Gradually add the vanilla and eggs. Mix well.
3. Sift dry ingredients (flour and salt). Add into mixture, alternating with the milk.
4. Fill cups ¾ full, and bake 20-25 min.
5. Let cool before frosting.

Butter Cream Frosting

(With Powdered Sugar)

by Julia Childs

Ingredients:

1. ⅔ cup sifted powdered sugar
2. 1 tbsp vanilla or 2tbsp kirsch, rum, orange, or coffee.  or 2 oz semi-sweet chocolate, melted
3. 6 oz softened, unsalted butter

1. Rinse the bowl in hot water, dry it, and place in it all the ingredients listed. Beat at a moderated speed for about 5 minutes to obtain a smooth cream
2. Chill until the cream is cold but still malleable, then fill and ice your cake.