Carrot Cake Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

After another spell of cloudy, snowy weather, I decided it was time to start baking again. I was craving cream cheese frosting, and what suits that better than carrot cake? I wanted to make a moist, flavor-packed cupcake and this recipe sounded like the perfect fit. This batter is not only delicious when licked off a spatula, it makes one of the best carrot cakes I've had.

Unfortunately, I didn't have the ingredients available for Smitten Kitchen's frosting, so I made a basic cream cheese frosting which was delicious and so easy to make. I usually don't have much success with your usual buttercream frostings as I find them too sweet, but I've never made a cream cheese frosting that didn't turn out great.

If you need to make these ahead of time, keep the cupcakes stored in an airtight container up to 2 days and frost them just before you need them. I had 1 leftover cupcake (which I had in the fridge so nobody else coud find it) and it was still great the next day. I also made slightly fewer cupcakes than the recipe suggested since I filled my cupcake forms higher than 3/4 full. Either way you go about making these, they will be a definite hit with any carrot cake fan.

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Lemon Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

 
I decided to bake some sweets for my sister and brother-in-law's anniversary last week. This is partly because I had no idea what to get them, partly because I love baking, and partly because my sister loves cupcakes. To spare my brother-in-law from his least favorite dessert flavor, anything lemony, I made him a chocolate cake, but the lemon cupcakes turned out better. Actually, they turned out much, much better. The cake was a crumbly disaster, with the only redeeming factor being the frosting, so I was relieved I made cupcakes as well.

These cupcakes are great and adorable. They're moist, and light, and the cream cheese frosting is a perfect way to top them off. I wasn't sure what to expect when I first made these as I'd never tried the recipe before, but I was more than pleasantly surprised. I love lemon desserts to begin with, so finding another good lemon recipe is always a plus. These cupcakes will remain moist for a few days if you want to prepare them ahead of time, just make sure to keep them covered.

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Mocha Cupcakes

When I first decided to begin blogging, I asked around to see what people wanted me to cook or bake. One of my friends suggested a cappuccino cupcake, which I have now turned into a mocha cupcake. Similar concept, just more of a chocolate flavor. To begin this experiment, I used a recipe recommended to me by my sister's friend a couple months ago. The original recipe is Martha Stewart's One-Bowl Chocolate Cupcake (note: this is not the same recipe she has on her website). I added some instant coffee to the recipe and made up a mocha buttercream frosting to go on top. Had I not been warned, I would have been convinced I was missing an ingredient. The batter is extremely runny, making it a pain in the butt to pour into the cupcake liners. Do not overfill them or they will expand too much and have those kinda ugly, huge, and blob-like cupcake tops. But have faith, within 10 minutes of baking, these cupcakes puff up and look delicious.

This cupcake is light, airy, and moist. I have always avoided any baking recipe that requires cocoa powder, but this one was amazing. And don't tell Martha, but my cocoa powder was most definitely not dutch-process. There's only one kind of cocoa powder in my local grocery store: Nestle baking cocoa powder. It still turned out prefect. Give these cupcakes a try, and if you want them to be plain chocolate cupcakes, just omit the instant coffee. Everything else is the same, even the warm water. I'm not sure why they get inverted and re-inverted in the cooling directions (possibly the get them out? no clue, but tell me the reasoning if you know it). Other than that, this recipe is easy, straightforward and at this point I think it's foolproof. I forgot to add sugar to the recipe until I tasted the batter and realized it still had that bitter cocoa powder flavor. I threw it in at the end and these still worked out great. And I don't have a mixer either, just used a whisk and bowl. Oh and if you've ever eaten the Belwood Bakery (in Los Angeles) cappuccino muffins, the batter tastes just like them.


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