I know, I know… I said that most of the posts on this blog would be about decorated cookies, and they will be! But I’ve had this recent obsession with cupcakes, and I just had to try a few things.
We live in a pretty small city in southeast Idaho. The trends that hit the big cities tend to hit Idaho Falls about 2 years later. So guess what? The cupcake craze has ARRIVED! Just over the last couple of months we have gone from zero to 3 cupcake shops in our town. THREE. In a town of about 50,000, that’s a lot of cupcake shops. But between the opening of the shops, and seeing super-cute, scrumptious cupcakes on blogs like Glorious Treats, I got a cupcake itch. So I bought a few cupcakes from the locals and tried them out (you know… research! Somebody’s gotta do it.) They were ok, but it made me think that I could come up with something more than ok. So I came home, rolled up my sleeves and got in the kitchen where I belong! I made:
Raspberry Vanilla
Chocolate Mint (my 2nd favorite!)
Pina Colada (my favorite!)
Chocolate Raspberry Cream Cheese
Cherry Almond
Chocolate Chocolate
Lemon Raspberry (wait! Maybe this was my favorite)
Orange Orange
I had way too much fun experimenting with these, and believe it or not, it was one frosting recipe and only 2 kinds of cake. I just spiffed them up with this loveliness:
Because I was in experimental mode, I just divided up the frosting into about 10 small containers and added itty bitty amounts of flavorings to get some fun flavors. I’ll tell you more about that in my next post, where I’ll be posting the recipe and flavoring ideas.
Now a word about cake. For the cake, I used…. um…. Betty Crocker cake mix. Here’s the thing. For 7 years (the height of my cake decorating career), I lived in Oregon, pretty much at sea level. I made excellent scratch cakes, if I do say so myself. Rose Levy Beranbaum’s Cake Bible was my, well, cake bible, and I had excellent results with most of her recipes (have you tried her White Chocolate Whisper cake? Yum!) Then I moved to the mountains (high desert) of Idaho, and I have had NO luck with scratch cakes since I’ve lived here. I’ve been here for almost 6 years, and still no luck. What am I doing wrong, mountain dwellers?? Somebody help me! So anyway, I’ve gone back to box cake mix because it never fails, and then I don’t have to throw away batches of ingredients, which makes me crabby. I do doctor them up a bit. For chocolate, I add a couple extra tablespoons of cocoa powder (Dutch process) to the mix, and use buttermilk instead of water. For white, I use whole eggs (which makes it a tiny bit yellow), also sub buttermilk for the water, and I always add some kind of flavoring, usually vanilla. Personally, I think they’re great cakes. They’re consistently moist and light, and with some added flavoring it tends to hide the fake vanilla flavor that I don’t like in box mixes. For the cakes above, I divided up the batter and added these:
Orange Emulsion, Lemon Emulsion, Pure Vanilla Extract, Almond Emulsion, and Coconut Emulsion
They were all amazingly delicious, and combined with the frosting variations that I’ll show you in my next post, I think I found some definite winning combinations. YUM.
I ate three for breakfast.
Cupcake frosting recipe coming up next!
They all look so pretty and delicious! =)
Thank you Anna!
WOW. These pictures make the cupcakes look scrumptious! Oh, how I wish I could dive into the computer screen and forget my dairy and sugar allergies and live in the magical world I see here!
I wish that part of the the magic was that they had no calories. I spent much time on the treadmill working off my “testers”.
Ha ha! Thanks for the comment, Rachel! You’re my first follower. <3
your cupcakes looks amazing! looking forward to that frosting recipe of yours! happy baking!:)
Thanks, Lea! The frosting recipe is up!
Yay! I have readers! Thanks girls!
Yum is right! Wow…..you do cupcakes too. And I have all these flavorings, so I could do it too???? Actually, my daughter is the cupcake queen. She loves to do cupcakes (because she LOVES cupcakes) so I’ll pass on this info to her.
Your photos are fantastic, by the way. Keep ‘em coming.
Yes, you can do it!! Not that you have time, with all those cookies…. but have your daughter do it, because they’re yummy!
What a fun post! I would love to try these sometime when I am feeling extra ambitious!
One of these days I’ll have to bring you some, Kayla! (or toss them over the fence!)
Yum and yum! I have never had any luck with cakes here, either. Even when I alter it for high altitude. Glad to know a professional has troubles, too. Add it to my list of reasons I want to move!
Hey Jenn, you can’t move! First you ask if anybody knows a good realtor, and then you say you want to move… You’re making me think you don’t like it in cold Idaho!
I’ve had success with Martha Stewart’s Devil’s Food Cake Cupcakes. They are easy to make and are moist and light but not fluffy. They aren’t too dense (like the last time I tried making a cake from scratch not at sea level). I’ve been meaning to try a few of her other recipes but keep craving chocolate.
I’ll have to try that one. Thanks Emily!
These all look and sound delis.
Thanks, Rose. I appreciate all of your comments. I’m learning that I’m not very good at keeping up with responses to comments, but I appreciate every one!
I can’t wait to try your cupcakes and frosting recipes.. YUM! Thank you so much for your website tutorials. I send everyone that asks about my cookies to your site. You explain everything so well. I use your MPB Glaze recipe for all my cookies. I don’t bake cakes very often (cookies are my passion) but when I do, I use a box mix and add 1/4 cup butter, 1/2 cup flour and 1 teaspoon baking powder and mix according to box directions. It add so much to the cake, everyone raves about the taste, so rich, I will add your flavoring ideas to it as well from now on! Thank you for your website, blog, and cookie forum. Its a wealth of information… Kris
Ooh, I’m going to try that next time I make a cake. Thanks for the idea! And thanks for your kind thoughts about my site. I really appreciate it!
These cupcake creations look scrumptious!!! I can’t wait to try them. How much emulsion did you use in the small batches of mix?
For the record, this is my first time visiting your site and it is amazing!!! Thank you for all the information/tutorials and inspiration.
Well, I didn’t really measure, so it makes it hard to say. But I think if I were doing an entire cake mix all one flavor, I would add about 2 tsp. of the emulsion per batch. That’s what I’m going to try the next time I do this, and I’ll see how that goes. Thanks for the great feedback!
Fabulous! I am going to have to them myself. It is so much fun making mini-cupcakes!
Great article! This is the type of info that should be shared around the internet.
Disgrace on the seek engines for not positioning this post higher!
Come on over and seek advice from my web site . Thanks =)