The Great Cupcake Escapade

Oh, how I have loved cupcakes for so long, but really who doesn't? Recently, I have had the opportunity to actually experiment more in my favorite department~. However, this has been counteracted by the fact that now living at 7,000 ft. seems to make every cake/cupcake/etc. become a lopsided, flat nightmare. Some cupcakes have come out looking more like collapsed doughnuts than anything I would want to put frosting on and devour!

As part of my new found adventurousness I agreed to make cupcakes for a friend participating in The Great American Bake Sale. What better motive than a children's charity to get me in the baking spirit again. 

So the day of the bake sale, I decide to wake up at 5:30am, cross my fingers and pray that the recipe I found would be the one I had been searching for. Not the smartest idea, but I am admittedly a procrastinator, and readily justify it by claiming how well I work under pressure. 

After scouring blog after blog (I wanted something with a really homemade feel, not just another foodnetwork-esq recipe) I found a promising Lavendar Cupcake recipe on HowtoEatACupcake. After consultation with my official taster, my husband Jason of course, I decide to turn them into cherry

cupcakes, yumm!

I made several adjustments to the recipe and they actually came out quite well! I simply left out the lavender, added chopped maraschino cherries, and a little extra cherry juice. They were the tiniest bit dry, but had beautiful domed tops and fluffy texture. I think I will experiment with this recipe again, but all in all an excellent recipe. 

I whipped up a simple vanilla buttercream frosting and piped it on top by cutting the tip off of a plastic baggie, shaved a little bittersweet chocolate on top and voila!, a beautiful, taste-e cupcake. A lot of work, but completely worth the effort. 

Some folks must have liked them, because I did get recruited to bake cupcakes for a friends baby shower. I'll post pics of my experiments with that later. For now, my cupcake obsession continues, guinea pigs welcome for tastings.