The word alone tickles my imagination. In my mind I see gorgeous little cakes in the most decadent of flavours, topped off with a creamy frosting that melts in your mouth when you take a bite.
Basically, I love cupcakes. I love baking them, I love eating so much of the batter that I start to feel slightly ill and I love watching people take their first bite and see their face change as they experience the wonderful taste that floods their mouth.
But enough poetry, lets get down to business. I am currently planning on starting my own little cupcake/sandwich shop café. Of course, its still in planning and I am not sure if it will ever be anything else seeing as I plan on going to college next year etc etc... BUT: I do have the time to start something like this right now. So at the minute I spend as much time as I can in the kitchen, baking, experimenting and tasting. My poor family and neighbors have probably been on a constant sugar high for the past two weeks, but hey - someone's gotta taste the cupcakes and if I were to eat all of them, I might as well apply for "The biggest loser".
I started this "bake-a-thon" with my mothers favorite: Carrot cake cupcakes with a cream cheese frosting.
Looking at existing recipes I noticed that most of them were just plain carrot, but - taking the Starbucks carrot cake by example- I decided that some walnuts would definitely improve a carrot cake cupcake. The rest was easy, I just took my "basic vanilla cupcake" recipe and reworked it so that I could incorporate the carrots and walnuts, leaving out the vanilla and adding some more vegetable oil. The only negative thing I have to say is that these cupcakes stuck to the paper tins like cement. I figure it's because I should've added even more vegetable oil, the batter wasn't thin enough, so that is something I must improve.
The frosting turned out delicious! A little tip for anyone who plans on doing a cream cheese frosting: The trick is using full-fat Philadelphia! The stuff is perfect for this frosting, it will taste amazing and it's so easy.
The carrot decoration on top is just dyed marzipan. I must admit, I had more fun shaping these mini carrots than I should have. There is just something so satisfying about creating food and it turns out looking pretty cool.
Stay tuned for more cupcake-heavy blogposts to follow soon!
what's your favorite cupcake?
xoxo
Laura
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