Cupcakes Galore

My cupcake addiction set in right before the cupcake craze fully swept across America. At first I always asked my mom to make cupcakes or to send some my way when I went off to college. I was still a little shaky in the kitchen and didn’t want to mess my favorite treat up. Everything changed two Christmas’s ago, when my parents bought me the Martha Stewart Cupcake cookbook. This continues to be one of the presents I use the most. To say I love this cookbook is an understatement. Not only does Martha (yes, we are on a first named basis) provide at least a hundred cupcake ideas, the book also contains decorating tips and presentations. For me the best part of the cookbook is the basic cupcake recipes. From these recipes, I have been able to mix in my own creativity for truly unique cupcakes. My first original creation was lavender-lime cupcakes. Starting with Martha’s Lemon Meringue cupcake, I substituted lime for lemon and added chopped dried lavender. I didn’t read the recipe completely until I was already mixing up my dry ingredients- rookie mistake. The second instruction called for the use of an electric mixer to cream butter and sugar together. Not wanting to give up before I had even started, I figured I could do this step by hand. After more than 20 minutes of whisking and two sore arms, I finally achieve the light, fluffy consistency described. The next day I invested in a hand mixer to save my arms from any future mixing.

I baked my next cupcake batch for my friend’s birthday. Since she had semi-recently studied abroad in Ireland, I settled on a Guinness cupcake with a brown sugar cream cheese frosting. The chocolate cupcake had the perfect hint of the dark stout to complement rather than overpower the chocolate.

As the weather cooled this fall I was craving my mom’s gingerbread. For a twist on the classic, I baked up gingerbread cupcakes topped with a lemon whipped cream cheese frosting. The fluffy, tart frosting paired perfectly with the spice of the cupcake. 

As I flipped through my cookbook for the millionth time, I started thinking up ideas for a new cupcake. I debated between making a healthy carrot cupcake and a coconut cupcake. I eventually settled on the coconut, but I didn’t feel the cupcake by itself was special enough. After reading through a couple more recipes, I remembered one that contained flambéed pineapples on top. I started with Martha’s coconut cupcake. 

While it baked, I whipped up a tangy, cream cheese frosting. Now for the flambéing… After more than a couple incidents where I have burned myself cooking, my roommate was a littler nervous for me to set the fruit on fire. Flambéing is when you simmer fruit in alcohol and then set it on fire in order to burn off the effects of alcohol so only the taste remains. I used a little white rum to give my pineapple a tropical flare. Thankfully the flambéing went off without a hook, but I will say the flame was intense. 

After the cupcakes cooled, I cut a small hole in the middle a spooned in the pineapple sauce. I topped the cupcake with the frosting and sprinkled on shredded coconut. The end result- a piña colada cupcake! Biting into this cupcake, you taste the sweetness of the shredded coconut on top then the tang of the frosting. Next comes the moist cupcake with a nice hint of coconut, finished with an orange scented bite of pineapple. I’m immediately transported back to my senior spring break, where piña coladas were considered a breakfast drink on the beach.