Strawberry Lemonade Cupcakes

Taking a break from the heavy, chocolate filled treats that we normally make...

comes strawberry lemonade cupcakes! I've been keeping this on my list of things to make and one day I decided to finally take a crack at it. I wanted them to be very light because I already knew what frosting I wanted to use with it, so I needed to find the perfect lemon cake. I found one that was supposed to create a sponge cake texture and after I made those I began to make my favorite frosting!

It's a straight whipped cream with completely fresh strawberry puree mixed right in. My roommates and I saved all of the extra and ate it straight... no regrets.


It matches perfectly with the light cake. Refreshing!

Strawberry Whipped Cream Frosting:

1 cup of heavy whipped cream
1/3 cup of sugar
Strawberries!

1. Whip cream with beaters/ stand mixer until thick
2. Mix in sugar
3. Fold in pureed strawberries. I used an entire package of strawberries but it really is up to you and how much taste you want!

Make sure you have good tasters :] I don't think you will have any problems getting people to taste test.


cake: todaysnest

Sooo... I'm back? With Snickerdoodle Cookie Cupcakes

Hey again! After months of computer memory problems and limitless procrastination.. the blog is back in action!

I'll be randomly updating for all of the things that we have made during the past couple of months as well as trying to blog the real time current endeavors!

So back in December, I made these delicious snickerdoodle cupcakes! They had a crunchy cookie in the bottom which made them that much better (and made them take double the time to make).

One of the worst parts about making cupcakes is the waiting time between baking them and being able to frost them...
and because I took so much time on the cookie dough and cupcake dough... I didn't want to wait.

so I popped some in the fridge!


They turned out pretty delicious if I say so myself :]

recipe: howsweeteats

Rolo Stuffed Pretzel Blondie Bites

I have been on a huge chocolate and pretzel fix lately, so this recipe obviously had to be made! 

These bite size muffins? cupcakes? blondies? (not sure what to call them) were very easy and fun to make! I had a baker's assistant for this one, as Kelly came over and hung out with me while I made them!


The trick to these little bites was that first, you stuck a rolo into the batter (which was really hard not to just eat by itself...)

 

but then, right when they came out of the oven you put a pretzel waffle in the warm dough so that it stuck! Some of them were hard to take out of the mini muffin pan...

and they got stuck but the diva was nice enough to model it for me...

But, other than that they turned out really good! the little bit of caramel in the middle was amazing!

yummmm


recipe: cookiesandcups

Randoms!

So a couple weeks ago, Coco and our friend Kelly came over and we had a bit of a baking extravaganza. Kelly was making cupcakes to ask a friend to a prom party while Coco and I were both making our friend Laura some 21st birthday treats as well as other activities!

As you can see it was all really organized and neat..



Kelly made mini funfetti cupcakes and we iced them and decorated them with sprinkles!

 

I decided to make Laura a mini yellow cake using this recipe I had found that used ramekins instead of cake pans!

So you can guage how small this cake turned out...

it was small and Laura sized :] Happy birthday Laura!!


and she was nice enough to send me a picture of how it looked when she cut into it...

so cute!




While everything was baking, I decided to make these Reese's stuffed oreo bites that Coco and I had seen online! All you had to do was break open an Oreo and put a Reese's in the middle.. and then cover it in more chocolate so they stuck together. Can't be bad right?

They turned out super good and they were very easy to make, no baking required!

And, as usual, we decorated them with sprinkles :)




Yellow cake: paninihappy
Oreo bites: cookiesandcups

Peanut Butter Cupcakes with White Chocolate Frosting

So this baking venture started as many of them do..

Coco and I were bored.
After browsing one of my new favorite blogs for a while, Coco finally made the decision to make these peanut butter cookie cupcakes with a white chocolate buttercream frosting.


For some reason we failed a little bit at the cupcake portion...

They sunk a little in the middle, but it kind of just made a cup that could fit more frosting?
And that's not a bad thing...

So we did just that and created an entire cave of frosting in the middle of these cupcakes!

And see the bottom? Yea, that's a Reese's peanut putter cup.



Boredom can be so productive!


recipe: cookiesandcups

HALLOWEENNNN

Halloween spirit is officially here! With my house all decorated..

 it was of course time to bake some Halloween treats to give away to friends!

click to read more!

Cinnamon Roll Cupcakes

Whenever we're bored.. the first question is always "What should we make?" Then, we decide who has the ingredients needed and we get to work! So, clearly, the other day we were quite bored and decided to make these cinnamon roll cupcakes. They were really fun to make and had a glaze and a frosting! We made the batter and then you alternate putting a dollop of batter and covering it with the cinnamon/ butter/ sugar mixture and swirling together!

you can see the whole process in this picture...

then we baked them.. and they came out all crackly and delicious with baked sugar (which is always great). It was hard not to eat them while they cooled..

and when they were finally cool enough we put a coffee glaze on top..

and finally finished them off with a cream cheese frosting!

It really did taste like a cinnamon roll, they were so good! We topped half with the coffee/ sugar/ chocolate grinder (which I really feel like would go with about anything), and half with cinnamon. Yum! (obviously, these were gone by the morning)


(obligatory balcony picture)




recipe: bakingdom

Caramel Mocha Cupcakes

So the weather in Santa Barbara this week...  kind of sucked.

There really is nothing better than a cup of hot cocoa or coffee on a cold, windy day but since I like to bake... instead of making a warm drink.. we decided to make cupcakes! (obviously) I had seen this mocha cupcake recipe a while ago and we decided to try it out!

It called for fresh brewed coffee which I was hoping would make the cupcakes extra mocha-ey, but they didn't turn out with too strong of a coffee flavor, which I think most people ended up liking. The batter was actually super runny and basically a liquid

which was a bit weird but it ended up making such rich cupcakes! Once again, it gave me wayy more batter than the recipe said it would, so I made some mini cupcakes too! In order to make these true caramel mocha cupcakes, we cored all of the big cupcakes and put fresh homemade caramel into them!

then we put the tops back on...

The caramel ended up being sooo good that we think we might have to try to incorporate it into another recipe sometime soon! We topped them with some whipped cream frosting and added bits of coffee bean, sugar, and chocolate to the top!

I found this grinder at Trader Joe's and have been waiting to use it on something and this was finally the chance! It was a great addition to make them a bit more mocha flavored.

We wanted to give these away because they ended up so yummy, so I put out my premade sign that signifies that they are not free to be eaten quite yet!

After we gave some away and everyone had tried them, one of my roommates Erin said that it was her favorite item that I had baked so far! Success!

 

recipe: ericasweettooth

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes

Since life has gotten crazy and overwhelming lately, I haven't had a lot of time to bake! But, today I decided I was going to set time aside and actually make this recipe I had been wanting to use for a while.

 

 

chocolate chip cookie dough cupcakes! They start with a chocolate chip cake, and ends up getting a cookie dough filling and a cookie dough frosting. Spoiler alert: it is
EXTREMELY sweet. I fortunately had some company in the kitchen! Chelsea and Coco came over for the baking party and it was so fun!

Once we (im)patiently waited for the cupcakes to cool, we kind of shoved cookie dough into the middle..

and then frosted them! We each ate one and felt a bit sugar overloaded (even with the salt mishap..). So beware to anyone that eats one!

But they did turn out pretty!

recipe: bakeat350

Brownie Cupcakes (mini mini)

As I mentioned before, my mom and brother came to visit me. I asked my mom to bring me the mini muffin pans from home (I am slowly stealing the entire kitchen) so that I could make something mini! I decided to make a simple chocolate cake with my favorite vanilla frosting. I ended up stumbling upon this chocolate brownie cupcake and decided to give it a try. The mini muffin pans ended up being even too mini for the mini muffin liners that I bought (How many times can I say mini?). So the first batch I tried to make with just cooking spray, and it was kind of a struggle to get them out in just one piece. For the second batch, I used the liners I bought, so the cupcakes were a bit bigger.

Just for comparisons, here is a regular liner, the mini liner, and the brownie from the mini pan.

It is definitely a brownie cupcake and not a regular cupcake. The frosting is the same frosting I used when I made the cookie-bottomed cakes! I added a big dollop onto each one! yumyum

recipe: howsweeteats