Week 27: Vanilla Almond Cupcakes with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting

Good day cupcake friends! We have reached the end of my personal cupcake journey. For my final cupcake, I made Vanilla Almond Cupcakes with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting. And you totes heard me right, NO FILING! Woop Woop! In general, these cupcakes were Simple Simon compared to my first two endeavors. The only thing I had to worry about was obtaining Almond Meal, aka Almond Flour, aka expensive ground up nuts. Luckily, Hy-Vee's fancy-pants Health Market section had just what I was looking for!

Precious Baby Cupcake

These little precious babies were, by far, the simplest cupcakes I had made! Thanks for finally providing me with complete baking instructions Ming! The cupcakes were super straight forward, which makes this post a little boring…

V. Legal Cupcakes

The most exciting part of my Vanilla Almond Cupcakes was their random shapes and sizes! They were like magic bean cupcakes, each with an individual personality, just like the members of Cupcake Club! I have had an awesome time creating cupcakes! I hope you have had just as sweet of a time reading about my cupcake adventures! Thanks so much for reading! <3 Sarah

Week 25: Graham Cupcakes with Key Lime Cream Cheese Frosting

Key Lime cupcakes

Hello blog readers!  After a long hiatus, during which I got to sample soooooo many delicious cupcakes, it was finally my turn again!  And after a request from our cupcake president (?) I switched up my lineup and made the graham cracker cupcakes with key lime frosting this week.  And good thing, because it was 4th of July weekend.  And what's more American than key limes?  I mean, they're from Florida, right?  And last time I checked, Florida was in America.  Works for me. 

These cupcakes were really easy to make.  My 4 yr old had fun crushing graham crackers with me.  I just put them in a baggie and hacked away.  The rest of the ingredients were things that are normally in my kitchen, so nothing too exotic. The batter was delicious!  Once they were baked, there wasn't a strong graham flavor, but it was a perfect vehicle for the frosting. 

Oh, the frosting......it's awesome.  I actually made these cupcakes 3 times this weekend, so I made a double batch of frosting and probably used more powdered sugar than the recipe called for so it would be stiff enought to stay piped on.  I used bottled key lime juice and added some lime zest, too.  Yum.   



S'mores cupcake



The recipe made about exactly 12 cupcakes, and on 12 of them, I decided to mix it up a bit.  I made them into s'mores cupcakes.  I dipped the top of them in chocolate ganache and made a frosting out of butter, powdered sugar, and marshmallow fluff.  I served them to my family on the 4th so you'll just have to take my word for it that they were popular enough to not have any left to share w/ the cupcake club, so they must have been good this way, too! 

Week 24: Parsnip Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

Parsnips are one of my favorite tubers.  Yes, a person can have a favorite tuber.  They are wonderful roasted with carrots, drizzled with a little olive oil, salt, and pepper.  Even better, they make a great puree as an alternative to mashed potatoes.  And, as I’m happy to discover, they also work in this delicious cupcake! 

Basically, this is a carrot cake cupcake where you switch the parsnip for the carrot.  I found the recipe pretty simple.  I varied a little from Ming’s instructions for mixing the ingredients.  I mix the wet ingredients separately from the dry, and I sift the flour, baking soda, and spices together.  I added the pineapple and parsnips to the batter last.  For people with the correct attachment for their food processor, grating the parsnips should be no trouble.  I cannot find my attachment, so I grated a LOT of parsnips by hand.  But the result was worth it.  These cupcakes stay very moist, thanks to the canola oil, parsnips, and pineapple in the batter.  And any cupcake is vastly improved with a dollop of cream cheese frosting. 

I hope other people will try out this recipe.  It’s a great conversation cupcake with a yummy taste to boot.  I’m keeping it in my repertoire.

Week 16: Guinness Chocolate Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting



Peeps eye Carrie B.'s tasty Guinness chocolate cupcakes.

Hi all!  Its Carrie again, and this week’s cupcake challenge was the Guinness chocolate cupcake with cream cheese frosting.  I was really excited to try baking with Guinness.  I’ve used Guinness before for savory stews and soups, but never for sweets.  Luckily, my husband is a huge fan of Guinness so he helped put away the Guinness I didn’t need for the recipe.  (Thanks, Travis!)

I thought this recipe was pretty easy, particularly in comparison to the filled cupcakes.  I used room temperature butter, cream cheese, and eggs rather than cold.  I read in my Bon Appetit magazine this weekend that room temperature makes all the difference.  I also sifted the dry ingredients together to avoid clumps before mixing with the wet ingredients.  Overall, the batter was thinner than the last cupcakes I made, and, therefore, a lot easier to pour into the cupcake pan.  Oddly, there was a difference in the cook time between the foil cupcake wrappers and the papers ones.  (The paper took longer.)  I have no idea why.

This Peep may have had one Guinness
(cupcake) too many.

Overall, I would definitely make these again.  The cake is not too sweet—almost like a dark chocolate—and you can’t really taste the Guinness.  And, once again, I’ll eat anything with cream cheese frosting on it, so load it up.  I played with the idea of adding a few big chocolate chips to the top of each cupcake as a garnish, but decided against it.  I thought I would stay pure to the recipe before adding my own things to it.  In the future, though, I might be throwing on some chips, or perhaps a raspberry to cut the sweetness of the frosting.  I don’t know, I’m just brainstorming.

I give these a big thumbs up. 

Week 15: Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

Week 14: Carrot Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

For my second cupcake attempt, I switched from fruit (lemon) to vegetables (carrot). And the time of year—Easter and spring—couldn’t have been more appropriate for cupcakes that contained bunnies’ favorite snack.

Bunnies love carrots; cupcake clubbers love Casey's carrot cupcakes.

All in all, things went really well. Although the recipe tells you to just mix all the ingredients together, I did mix the dry and moist ingredients separately, as I’ve seen other recipes call for. I was surprised at the addition of crushed pineapple, but since I’ve never made anything carrot-related before, I dumped it in.

I was also immensely grateful (no pun intended) that my sister gave me her nice oxo grater so that I could grate the carrots. Which, by the way, makes a huge mess.

After mixing everything together, I was concerned that the batter was too runny and would overflow, but the cupcakes proved me wrong and thankfully didn’t end up all over the bottom of my oven. I kept them in the oven about 10 minutes longer because they just didn’t seem done after 35 minutes. After I allowed the ingredients to come to room temperature, the cream cheese frosting was a breeze.



Grated carrots in the batter.



Pineapple, an unexpected ingredient.



Stay tuned for when I switch back to fruit and attempt the Coconut Sponge Cupcakes with Chocolate Espresso Buttercream Frosting—those sound pretty complicated!

Week 13: Sour Cream Fig Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

Carrie B.'s cupcakes were so sweet, even the cupcake was smiling!

I was so curious to see how the sour cream and fig cupcakes would turn out.  


Result?  Delicious.  Process?  Tricky.  


The batter is extremely thick, probably due to the sour cream.  Ming suggests filling the cupcake pan 1/3 full, then putting a spoonful of fig preserves in, and then covering with more cupcake batter.  


The problem with this method is that the preserves sinks to the bottom of the cupcake rather than staying pretty in the center like her picture.  

Fig cupcake

But certainly doesn’t detract from the flavor, so I recommend the cupcake.  I doubled the recipe and got 22 cupcakes (I might have overfilled the cupcake pan on the first batch).  And, of course, cream cheese frosting is my favorite.  


If I made these again, rather than trying to have a fig center, I might just put some of the fig preserves in both the batter and the frosting.  I didn’t have any figs or candied ginger for garnish, so I garnished with the fig preserves.  It was such a pretty color—I think it worked. 

Week 1: Espresso Fudge Cupcakes

Abby's cupcakes got the challenge off to a great start!

Hello cupcake blog readers. I'm Abby, and I made the first batch of cupcake for our cupcake challenge at work: Espresso Fudge Cupcakes with Chocolate Cream Cheese icing. I've made loads of cupcakes in my few short years on this world, but only once before had I made the cake from scratch. Mixes are just too delicious. But I was excited to try a recipe from scratch. And I was pleased to find out that these were pretty simple and turned out great! I will definitely be making these again. I'm not sure if I would put the chocolate chips in the batter next time, because they all fell to the bottom and sort of stuck to the liners. Speaking of the batter--it was DELICIOUS! It had more of a coffee flavor than the cupcakes ended up having. They didn't have too much of a coffee flavor, so my kids even ate them. 



Inside the espresso fudge cupcake.



The frosting was pretty delicious, too! I usually make cream cheese frosting w/ half butter and half cream cheese, but I also usually pipe it on pretty thick. I like this all cream cheese recipe when doing just a thin layer of frosting. I put the chocolate chips on top, like in the picture on the website, and I thought it made the cupcakes look adorable. However, to me, the chocolate chip flavor overpowered the cupcake, so I ate them off and then ate the cupcake! I also think if I make this again, I will add some espresso powder to 1/2 of the frosting for the coffee lovers, to give it a little more espresso-ness. All in all, a really great cupcake and I can't wait to try my next assignment (after testing everyone else's for a while, of course!)