Our friend Eric over at Geekadephia interviewed Billy Boyd last week and happened to ask about his favorite cupcakes! Billy mentioned he'd love some Beecake cupcakes to match his band. Of course we obliged.

We made some banana large cupcakes with honey frosting and some walnuts on top. We grabbed the banana cake recipe from Lynn's Kitchen Adventures and the honey frosting from Bake Space. The honey frosting we added an extra 3/4 cup of confectioners sugar and a little vanilla extract.

We had a great time baking, and watching Beecake play! You can see the entire Flickr set here.

Posted by Dana

One way is by showing your love for berries and cupcakes with some awesome swag from the folks over at Zazzle

They have several adorable cupcake items, such as tees, tote bags, shoes and even stamps!

Posted by Jessica

As Dana mentioned in Monday?s post, July is National Berry Month. Like most of America, we had a picnic on the Fourth of July. I made some mini funfetti cupcakes with lemon cream cheese frosting adorned with berries and fashioned into the American Flag to celebrate!

Ingredients:

Cake:

3 cups flour sifted

2 ½ teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2/3 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 ¾ cups granulated sugar

2 eggs

1 ½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1 ¼ cups milk

Red and Blue sprinkles

Frosting:

One stick of unsalted butter, softened

One 8 oz package of cream cheese, softened

One box (approximately 4 to 5 cups) of confectioner?s sugar

One tablespoon vanilla extract

One tablespoon lemon zest

2 tablespoons lemon juice

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350, and line your mini cupcake tin with cupcake papers.

Sift dry ingredients (just flour, baking powder, salt- sugar is used in the next step) in a bowl and set aside. In a large bowl, cream together sugar and butter with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Add your flour mixture SLOWLY, alternating with milk (half a cup of flour, quarter cup of milk, etc), beating well after each addition, until all is mixed smoothly. Fold in sprinkles using a spoon.

Fill mini cupcake liners almost to the top. (This will make puffy topped minis, great for decorating!)

Bake for about 11-12 minutes, and using a toothpick, check to see their consistency. If they are no longer runny inside, and just starting to turn a smidge golden, they?re done!

Let cupcakes cool completely before icing them.

For your frosting, beat together butter and cream cheese with an electric mixer. Add vanilla, lemon zest, and lemon juice. Mix. Beat in confectioner?s sugar one cup at a time until you reach the consistency you prefer.

Using a pastry bag and a fun frosting tip*, frost each mini cupcake with icing, and put some blueberries or strawberries on top. Enjoy berry month with this fruity fun dessert!

*If you don?t have any baker?s frosting tips, you can use a zippered sandwich bag. Fill it with your frosting, zip it shut, and cut a small piece of the bottom corner to create your own pastry bag!

Posted by Katie

July is National Berry Month! Berries are a great addition to summer cupcakes. Using fresh fruit as a garnish is great, or filling the center of your cupcakes with jam or preserves, makes for delightful surprise. Here are your summer berry tips:

What Kind of Cake Should I Use?

The cake depends a little on the berry.

-White cake is simple and works the best when making berry jam filled cupcakes.You can use any type of jam or preserves. Strawberry, blueberry, raspberry and blackberry are generally easy to find in your local grocery store.

-Chocolate is a great pair when using a berry compote in the frosting. Raspberries and blueberries have a stronger flavor that carries well with the heavy chocolate cake.

-Sponge cake is good for strawberries. Especially if you stick half a strawberry in the center or on top before baking.

How Do I Get the Jam in the Middle?

There are a couple different ways to fill your cupcakes with jam/preserves.

My favorite way that never fails is to put the jam in before baking.

To do this, prepare your cake batter normally. When you go to fill up the cupcake cups, fill it only half way, then dollop half a teaspoon to a teaspoon of jam in the middle. Cover the jam with batter until the cup is 2/3 full.

You can also put the jam in after the cupcakes are baked.

Wait until the cupcakes have cooled. Cut a hole in the top of each cupcake and remove the piece. Put a teaspoon of jam in the hole, and cover it back up with the cake you removed.

What Kind of Frosting Goes Best with Berries?

The best frosting to pair with berries are ones that aren't too sweet. The berries are sweet enough! A basic whipped cream or cream cheese frosting is usually the best.

Hope these tips help in kicking off your summer with some berrylicious cupcakin' fun.

Posted by Dana

We all are well aware that cupcakes are delicious, but we thought it would be interesting to delve into the history of cupcakes and see where exactly these delicious treats came from!

Cupcakes have long been popular due to their bite sized nature and ease of transportation. FoodTimeLine tells us that there are two popular theories on where the actual name 'cupcake' originated: The name comes from the amount of ingredients used to make the cake (a cupful of flour, a cupful of butter, cupful of sugar etc.) or, these cakes were originally baked in earthenware teacups or other small clay baking pans.

Additionally the tradition of naming cakes for their measurements dates to the 18th century. In the days when many people couldn't read, this simple convention made it easy to remember recipes. Modern day cupcakes are most likely to have evolved from "1,2,3,4 cakes" which had the ingredients of: 1 cup butter, 2 cups sugar, 3 cups flour, and 4 eggs.

It took a significant amount of time for cupcakes to become what we know them as today. Suite101 explains that, one of the earliest records comes from the Fanny Merritt Farmer?s Boston Cooking-School Cook Book. In this book the cook is instructed to bake individual cakes in tin cups. Paper liners were not used until just after World War I when the James River Corporation manufactured cupcake liners on machines that a few years before were making artillery shells. Commercial cupcakes reached the market some time before World War II.

Today cupcakes are happily enjoy by people all over the globe with each culture adding its own unique nuance and culinary twist to the popular dessert.

Posted by Jessica

The absolutely perfect summer treat! And the best part, it?s a cheat recipe! Using a boxed cake as your base makes this one super easy. Pair them up with some real daiquiris and some good friends, and you?ve got yourself a party.

My cupcakes were ?virgin? cupcakes, but you can certainly add a little rum to the batter/icing to spice it up a bit.

Ingredients:

One box of white cake mix

¾ can of Bacardi Strawberry Margarita/Daiquiri frozen mix

vegetable oil and egg whites, as they call for on the box

1 (8oz) container frozen whipped topping, such as Cool Whip

Strawberries for garnish

Strawberry syrup/liqueur

Coarse sugar crystals (white or pink)

Umbrellas/Straws

Line your cupcake tin with papers and preheat your oven to 350°F.

In a large bowl, add cake mix, the strawberry daiquiri mix, oil & eggs.

Beat together for a few minutes, and pour into your cupcake wrappers.

Bake approximately 15-17 minutes. Cupcakes will be extremely moist and sticky because of the daiquiri mix. This is normal- don?t mistake it for undercooked and over bake them!

While cupcakes cool, using a low setting on your mixer, beat together the Cool Whip and a shot of strawberry syrup/liqueur. (Tip- I was out of Strawberry syrup when I was making these, so I subbed in Raspberry. It tasted great and no one knew the difference.)

Frost cupcakes generously, making sure to cover entire cupcake.

Roll cupcake?s rim in sugar to mimic the sugar on a cocktail glass. Cut a straw in half or use an umbrella to make cupcake more cocktail-like. Slice a strawberry for garnish.

Keep refrigerated, loosely covered until ready to eat. If they are in the humidity or covered too tightly in the fridge, the cake will pull away from the paper because of the moisture.

Grab a cocktail and a cupcake, and enjoy your summer day!

Posted by Katie

Just what is buttermilk anyway?

Buttermilk is milk, with a higher concentration of lactic acid. This is why buttermilk has a tart flavor. Not always fun to drink, but makes for great cupcakes. Contrary to its name, buttermilk does not contain butter, or has any higher fat content than your regular milk. There are two kinds of buttermilk, cultured and uncultured. Typically for baking the uncultured stuff is just fine. To find out more about active cultured buttermilk, you can click here.

How do I make buttermilk in a pinch?

There are a few ways of doing this. My personal favorite that works really well, I learned from Smitten Kitchen's Raspberry Buttermilk Cake.

Combine 1 cup of whole milk with 1 tablespoon of vinegar (white vinegar or apple cider vinegar works best). Let the mixture set for about 10 -15 minutes and stir well. Voila! Instant buttermilk.

Mister Breakfast adds that you can add lemon juice or cream or tartar to milk to get the same buttermilk effect.

Self Rising Flour

On to self rising flour. The difference between self rising flour and all purpose flour is the addition of salt and baking soda. Recipes that call for self rising flour usually don't call for any additional leavening agents. The leavening is evenly distributed throughout the flour for a nice even rise during baking.

How do I make self rising flour in a pinch?

The correct ratio is as follows:

1 cup of all purpose flour

1 1/4 teaspoon of baking powder

1/8 teaspoon of salt

Make sure you sift these ingredients together VERY evenly!

So there you have it! Never again will you have to let your extra buttermilk go to waste, or hunt down self rising flour.

Posted by Dana

The most adorable monster making Etsy shop, Cutesy But Not Cutesy, has made a monster cupcake! Her name is Sherry, and she comes with Sprinkles. The owner of the shop, Diane Koss is from Philadelphia, PA. Check out her shop and the cute monsters who need a home :)

Posted by Dana

Spring is here! Well, almost.

Friday March 20th marks the first day of Spring 2009. To celebrate, our friend Alexis Siemons over at Teaspoons & Petals has teamed up with Vintage Connection to throw a Spring Tea Party!

Drop by between 5:00 and 8:00PM and join us in enjoying some delicious loose teas, cupcakes by yours truly! (there will even be ones shaped like flowers in honor of the season!), and check out Alexis' adorable Haiku teacups! Really, they're fabulous. I already own two. :)

If you still aren't convinced, Vintage Connection will be giving a generous 20%-off-vintage-goodies discount to all guests attending! How can you go wrong?

See you there!

Vintage Connection

701 S. 9th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19147

(267) 528-1625

Posted by Katie

The Smithsonian is finding new ways to reach the public. Using Ustream TV, they have been streaming live events. Today, a team is assembling a large portrait of Barack Obama and Abe Lincoln out of cupcakes! This is taking place in the American Art Museum in Washington DC. Until 6:30 you can check in on their progress here

Check out www.gosmithsonian.com for more information :)

Posted by Dana

Today we are guest blogging for Cupcakes Take the Cake! Check out their site for our post of the cutest cupcake t-shirts on the 'net.

Posted by Dana

This past Friday, the girls of Open Source Cupcakes feverishly baked cupcakes for the awesome event Shop, Rock ?n Roll! It took place Saturday afternoon, December 13th at the Old Pine Community Center.

The event was to benefit the talented ladies who partake each summer in Girls Rock Philly, an amazing organization which provides rock & roll camps to girls in Philadelphia.

We were very excited to be a part of this, and stayed up all night (and part of the morning) preparing. We teamed up with Alexis Siemons to head a table, selling our cupcakes while she sold her adorable crafty haiku teacups (still available for sale before Christmas!).

Our menu included:

? strawberry jam filled cupcakes with vanilla buttercream frosting decorated ever so adorably as Christmas ornaments

? lemon-almond cupcakes with vanilla buttercream frosting doused in toasted coconut (a new recipe- very delicious!)

? chocolate chip candy cane cupcakes! A spin on the ones we had at cupcake camp, perfected by our one and only Dana.

? mini Irish car bomb cupcakes (best seller, for obvious reasons)

? mini eggnog cupcakes with Captain Morgan?s in the frosting!

(All recipes will be listed soon, don?t worry!)

Our friends filtered in to support us and Girls Rock Philly throughout the event and took pictures of our cupcakes, which we in turn stole and posted on our Flickr! (Originals by the lovely Alexis Lerro!)

The center was packed of crafter's selling all sorts of fantastical handmade items, and he girls who sang were absolutely adorable, rocking out way harder than we imagined! Great job girls!

Good times, good cause, and of course, good cupcakes. ?

Posted by Katie

If you?ve ever been around me and small, adorable, fuzzy animals, you may or may not have heard me remark about shoving said cute thing in my mouth. No judgments.

The super fun website Threadless Tees, is selling an adorable cupcake themed shirt, wherein an angry face cupcake is threatening with the words, ?Ah Manna Eat Choo!" This amuses me greatly, as I say it aloud with an accent.

I just ordered one for myself, and one for my little cousin as a Christmas gift. There?s still time for you to order too! And only $5! How can you go wrong?

Posted by Katie

Posted by Dana

Also! Geeks Who Give announced our donation for their event on their blog today. On December 9th at National Mechanics, people from our community will be donating non perishable food items to help out the less fortunate for this holiday season. We will be donating some cupcakes for the raffle. If you're in the Philadelphia area, this will be a great event to attend. Good people and good causes. Hope to see you there!

Posted by Dana

Posted by Dana

So, we had a great launch a week and a half ago, but due to technical difficulties we had to shut things down and move to a new server.

It was a fun day, with links coming from Gwen Bell, Kirtsy, Cupcakes Take the Cake, uwishunu, geekadelphia, twitter, and facebook. Hopefully all the bugs are worked out.

Posted by Haveboard

On Sunday we had the great pleasure of hosting Cupcake Camp East. It was a huge success! We had about 70 people come out to Indy Hall bringing cupcakes! We had over 25 different kinds of cupcakes. Nichelle, from Cupcakes Take the Cake, stopped by. We were delighted that she came down to partake in the cupcake madness and that we were able to meet her. Amanda, the founder of Wish-Cake, came bringing lots of delicious cupcakes! Especially her chocolate chip cookie dough cupcakes. The most unusual cupcakes were brought by Lexie, she made Macaroni and Cheese Cornbread cupcakes! Carrie and Chris brought "cup-pies" instead of cupcakes.

To compliment the assortment of treats, Alex Siemons of My Teacups, brewed three different teas, and brought her tea haiku tea cups. She picked the perfect black and green teas to go with the sweetness of the desserts.

We also set up a table with yellow and chocolate cupcakes, key lime cream cheese frosting, raspberry cream cheese frosting, vanilla bean butter cream, chocolate buttercream and assortment of toppings for people to decorate their own cupcakes.

You can check out Eric's flickr pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/geekadelphia/sets/72157609260217162/

and Nichelle's here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nichellenewsletter/sets/72157609196412056/

We would like to thank everyone who came out and made our first Cupcake Camp such a hit! Also thank you Ariel Waldman for being so supportive and helping us get started! Cupcake Camp 2, held in San Fransisco, is just around the corner! Check out cupcakecamp.org for more info.

I'll leave you with a few videos from our wonderful event :)

Cupcake Camp East Intro from Open Source Cupcakes on Vimeo.

Cupcake Camp East Create Your Own Cupcakes from Open Source Cupcakes on Vimeo.

Additional Cupcake Came East Footage from Open Source Cupcakes on Vimeo.

Posted by Dana

There is still quite a bit more that we have planned for the site, but this is phase 1. I'm still working out some bugs, but in the meantime, enjoy the recipes that our lovely ladies have shared with everyone. They're delicious!

The site is built with a custom CMS built using PHP. We are using Discus for the comments, Magpie Javascript from a Wordpress plugin to pull in the twitter feed, and PHPFlickr to pull in the Flickr Photos. Bare with us during the first few days of our initial launch to work out any of the glitches.

PS: Phase 2 will have a full feature recipe system with search and all that good stuff, but for now, the recipes will be in the posts.

Posted by Haveboard

My favorite cupcakes so far! Orange and chocolate were meant to be together. Perfect marriage.

Yields 2 dozen cupcakes.

Cake:

1 package chocolate cake mix

1 cup mini chocolate chips

3 eggs

1 cup orange juice

1/2 cup sour cream

2 tsp orange zest

Preheat oven to 350°.

In small bowl, toss chocolate chips with 1 Tablespoon dry cake mix. Set aside.

In larger bowl, beat remaining cake mix with eggs, juice, sour cream, and orange zest until well blended.

Fold in reserved chocolate chip mixture.

Bake 15-18 minutes, or until inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Icing:

1/4 c vegetable shortening

1/2 c butter

1/2 an orange

zest of a whole orange

1 1/2tablespoons of vanilla

about 4 cups of confectioners sugar

Lindt Intense Orange Dark Chocolate, shaved for decoration (optional)

Squeeze the juice from half the orange into a bowl and set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, cream together butter and shortening until smooth.

Add zest and vanilla.

Beat in the sugar one cup at a time

About half way through, add the orange juice

Continue beating in the sugar until you have the consistency you wish for decorating

Frost cupcakes and decorate with chocolate shavings!

Posted by Dana

Chocolate + Candy Canes = Love

Perfect for the holidays! Think, hot chocolate and peppermint in a cupcake!

Yields 1 dozen cupcakes

2 1/2 squares of Baker's Unsweetened Chocolate

1/2 package chocolate cake mix

1/2package instant chocolate pudding mix

2 eggs

1/2cup sour cream

1/4 cup oil

1/4 cup water

3 tablespoons finely crushed candy canes for batter, extra for decoration (optional)

Preheat oven to 350F.

Chop 2 1/2 chocolate squares and set aside. Beat cake mix, pudding mix, eggs, sour cream, oil and water with mixer on low speed until well blended. Stir in chopped chocolate and 3 Tbsp. candy canes.

Bake 18 min. or until toothpick inserted in centers comes out clean. Cool completely.

Posted by Dana

To begin:

Preheat the oven to 350° and line your muffin tins with cupcake liners.

(I started using unbleached baking cups, they help the cake not stick to the liner!)

Ingredients:

Crust:

½ c graham cracker crumbs

1 tablespoon white sugar

1 tablespoon of margarine (melted)

Filling:

1 package (8 oz) of cream cheese softened

¼ c white sugar

1 ½ teaspoon lemon juice

½ teaspoon of vanilla extract

1 egg

Optional Raspberry Topping:

1 pint of raspberries (red or black, your choice)

1 cup of sugar

Baking:

? Mix together the crust ingredients with a fork until just combined. Press a heaping teaspoon firmly into the bottom of each muffin cup. Bake for 5 minutes, and then let cool completely.

? In a large mixing bowl, beat together cream cheese, sugar, lemon juice and

vanilla until fluffy. Then mix in the egg.

? Pour the cream cheese batter into the muffin cups until ¾ full. Bake 25 minutes.

Cool completely in the pan before removing. Refrigerate at least one hour before serving.

Topping:

Save a few of the berries to garnish the tops of the cheesecakes. Take the rest of the pint and a cup of sugar and bring to a boil in a medium saucepan. Stir to keep from burning and help breakdown the fruit. You can leave it at a boil for a couple minutes before removing from the heat. If you want a smooth glaze, strain the seeds. I prefer to keep them. Let this cool to at least room temperature.

Spoon a teaspoonful on top of each cheesecake. You can also melt and drizzle a dark chocolate over the cakes before garnishing with the fresh fruit.

Now they are ready to serve.

Posted by Dana

I have never made Chocolate Ganache before, and decided to try it out. I was playing around with ideas and thought I would try a Boston Cream center. The result was quite tasty!

For the cake, I used the regular white cake recipe from www.wilton.com that I always use. The custard filling was found on www.cooks.com, and as for the ganache. . . I improved that :)

As always, preheat your oven to 350°F and line your cupcake tin with papers.

Ingredients:

Cake:

3 cups flour sifted

2 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

2/3 cup butter or margarine softened

1 3/4 cups sugar

2 eggs

1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1 1/4 cups milk

Boston Cream Filling:

3 egg yolks

2 Tablespoons flour

½ cup confectioner's sugar

2 cups milk

2 Tablespoons butter

Ganache:

8 oz. semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate (I used dark as it is my favorite)

¾ cup heavy cream

2 Tablespoons unsalted butter

2 Tablespoons Hershey's Syrup, refrigerated

Directions:

Cake:

? Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt in medium bowl, and set aside.

? In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar with an electric mixer until fluffy.

? Add eggs and vanilla, and continue to mix.

? Slowly add flour mixture and milk alternately, beating well in between each addition.

? Once batter is smooth, fill cupcake liners approximately 2/3.

? Bake 18-20 minutes, or until clean toothpick inserted into cake comes out clean.

? Cool COMPLETELY. Must be totally cool before filling.

? Once completely cooled, use melon baller or corer to remove middle of each cupcake, approximately ¾ of the way down. Make sure not to go too far into cupcake or you may rip the bottom of the paper liner. Keep tops of cakes as you will use them to cover up later.

Filling:

? On top of a double broiler, mix together all ingredients.

? Place over boiling water, stirring constantly, until mixture is very thick and smooth. Let cool completely.

Ganache:

? Chop up chocolate completely and place in large bowl. Set aside.

? Heat cream and butter in saucepan. Stir until just boiling.

? Remove from heat and immediately pour over chopped chocolate.

? Mix with whisk vigorously.

? Add chilled chocolate syrup to mixture. Beat well until smooth thick consistency is achieved.

? Let cool to room temperature until thick enough to spread.

Once you have "cored" your cupcakes, you may fill with cooled Boston Cream mixture. Cover hole with the top of the cake you took from each cupcake to make it easier to frost. Top off with generous amount of ganache. Delicious!

Posted by Dana

Ingredients:

¼ c vegetable shortening

½ c butter

½ an orange (I used a Peruvian orange since they are a bit juicier)

zest of a whole orange

1 ½ tablespoons of vanilla

about 4 cups of confectioners sugar

Directions:

Squeeze the juice from half the orange into a bowl and set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, cream together butter and shortening until smooth.

Add zest and vanilla.

Beat in the sugar one cup at a time

About half way through, add the orange juice

Continue beating in the sugar until you have the consistency you wish for decorating

Posted by Dana

Ingredients:

1 box of yellow cake mix

1 cup of canned pumpkin (or canned pumpkin pie mix)

½ cup of water

1/3 cup of applesauce

3 eggs

1 tsp of nutmeg

½ tsp of cinnamon

makes about 24 regular sized cupcakes

-Preheat the oven to 350

-Line muffin tins with paper liners

-Combine all ingredients in a large mixing bowl

-Use an electric mixer and beat on high for three minutes

-Fill the muffin cups about ¾ the way and bake for 15-17 minutes.

Be sure to let cool completely before frosting!!

Posted by Dana

I tried these cupcakes and they came out absolutely delicious. I'll rewrite the recipe here for you. When I tried these I left out the Jameson and figured out how much Bailey's to use. I also used a little less sugar in the frosting.

Preheat the oven to 350 and line muffin tin

Ingredients:

Cake:

1 cup Guinness

1 stick, plus 1 tbs unsalted butter

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa

2 cups dark brown sugar

3/4 cup sour cream

2 eggs

1 tbs vanilla extract

2 cups flour

2 1/2 tsp baking soda

Frosting:

1 stick of unsalted butter, room temperature

2 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar

2 shots of Bailey's Irish Cream (I actually just used 2 of those mini bottles)

Directions:

To make the cake part:

? Break the butter up into small chunks. Combine with the Guinness in a large saucepan. Once the butter is melted, remove from heat.

? Whisk in cocoa and sugar. .

? In a separate bowl, whisk together eggs, sour cream and vanilla. Add this to the beer mixture.

? Sift together the flour and baking soda. Fold into the liquid batter.

? Pour into the muffin cups about ¾ the way full. Bake about 25 minutes or until a

fork or toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Let cool completely before frosting.

To make the frosting:

? Place the stick of butter in a large mixing bowl and beat at a medium speed for about 3 minutes.

? Add the Bailey?s and keep mixing.

? Gradually (about ½ a cup at a time) beat in the sugar. Put the beater on a slower speed so you don?t spray sugar everywhere :)

You should have a nice thick fluffy frosting when you're done.

Frost the cupcakes and you're ready to serve!

Posted by Dana

Here is her post http://howtoeatacupcake.net/2008/08/banoffee-cupcakes.html

I varied the recipe just a little, so I'll give the run down of what I tried.

Oven at 350F

Makes about 24 cupcakes

Ingredients for the cake part:

8 tablespoons (one stick) of unsalted butter at room temp.

2/3 c packed brown sugar

2 eggs (beaten)

2 bananas (mashed)

2 c of self rising flour *note see post about self rising flour, if you don't have any and need to make your own

about 8 chewy caramels (I used the chewy Werther's Original ones)

Ingredients for decorating:

1 banana

¼ c of graham cracker crumbs

1 ¼ c heavy whipping cream

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 tablespoons of ?white? granulated sugar (I like to use organic sugars, just don?t use raw sugar for this)

1 full size Heath bar or Skor bar (English toffee) broken into bits

Instructions:

-Preheat the oven and line your muffin tins

-Beat together the butter and sugar until creamy.

-Add the eggs a little at a time

-Fold in the mashed banana

-Chop up the caramels and toss them in the flour

-Add the flour/caramels to the wet mixture

-Stir well and spoon into the baking cups filling about 2/3 of the way

-Bake about 15 minutes (until a toothpick inserted comes out clean) Let cool completely before frosting.

Making the whipped cream:

-In a large bowl beat together cream, sugar and vanilla until hard peaks form (this does take several minutes, be patient!)

Putting it all together:

Once the whipped cream is made and the cupcakes are cooled, place a couple thin slices of banana on top of each cupcake, followed by sprinkling some graham cracker crumbs, a dollop of whipped cream and sprinkle a few of the toffee bar bits over top. Voila!

Posted by Dana

Such a great treat for Autumn, and absolutely delicious! This frosting comes out very smooth and thin, creating an almost shiny appearance on the top of your favorite flavored cupcake!

This recipe will ice 36 cupcakes easily, with some left over. I stored leftover frosting in container in refrigerator and used it on another batch of cupcakes a few days later. Worked very well!

4 cups apple cider

16 oz cream cheese (2 packages), softened

1 ? 1 ½ cups confectioner's sugar

Pinch salt

Boil down 4 cups of apple cider on medium heat to approximately ¾ to ½ a cup. This took me about 45 minutes. Let cool and thicken.

Using an electric mixer, mix together softened cream cheese and 1 cup confectioner?s sugar in large bowl.

Add cooled thickened apple cider and pinch of salt to bowl. Mix until smooth. If not satisfied with thickness, slowly add more confectioner?s sugar as desired.

Posted by Dana

In my recent addiction to any and all Wilton products, I decided to try out one of their frosting recipes.

I used a plain white cake for this recipe, though butter or vanilla would be delicious too. Or even lemon cake, for an extra citrusy flavor!

I am all for cream cheese frosting. It is probably my favorite of all frostings. So a tasty twist on it was something I was curious in playing around with. There are several different variations, but I chose to test out the Key Lime. The result? Pretty amazing.

Preheat your oven to 350 and line your muffin tin.

Ingredients:

White Cake:

3 cups cake flour sifted (Regular all purpose flour worked just fine.)

2 ½ teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2/3 cup butter or margarine, softened* (I used butter.)

1 ¾ cups granulated sugar

2 eggs

1 ½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1 ¼ cups milk

Key Lime Cream Cheese Frosting:

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened*

8 ounces (1 package) cream cheese, softened*

2 tablespoons key lime juice

1 teaspoon key lime zest or lemon zest (I used zest of one whole lime. )**

4 to 5 cups confectioners' sugar

*Tip: While preheating oven, leave butter and cream cheese on stovetop. They will be softened by the time you need them to make the icing. Just keep your eye on them so they don't melt completely, or you'll end up with a mess!

**If you are unfamiliar with how to zest or grate a lime for use in baking, you can find a great explanation at bonappetit.com - How to grate lime!. Thanks, Bon Appétit!

Directions:

To make the cake batter:

? In medium bowl sift all dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, salt. Set aside.

? In large bowl, add butter and sugar. Cream until light and fluffy.

? Add eggs and vanilla. Beat with electric mixer.

? Slowly add your flour mixture, alternately with milk. Beat well after each addition.

? Beat until mixture is smooth.

? Fill cupcake liners about ¾ full.

? Bake for 18-20 minutes, or until toothpick inserted into center of cupcake comes out clean. (I always check at 15 minutes, just in case. Some ovens vary.)

? Let cool completely on rack before icing.

To make the frosting:

? Combine softened cream cheese, softened butter, lime juice, and zest in large bowl.

? Beat with electric mixer until light and fluffy.

? Add sugar, one cup at a time, mixing in between. May use between four to five cups of sugar for this recipe, depending on the consistency you want. If it is too thin, add more sugar slowly to the mixture.

Make sure to wait until cupcakes are completely cooled before icing, to avoid any unwanted melting. I topped mine with green coarse sugar sprinkles, and they were adorable!

Posted by Dana

I wanted to experiment with different flavors, and decided to try Kahlua in a few recipes. This one in particular came out really well. Great marriage of flavors!

I started out with a simple chocolate cake recipe, and went from there. As for the frosting, I took the buttercream frosting recipe from Wilton, and added to it.

Preheat your oven to 350° F and line your cupcake pan with papers.

Ingredients:

Chocolate Cake:

2/3 cup butter

1 2/3 cups sugar

3 eggs

2 cups flour

1 ¼ tsp. baking soda

¼ tsp. baking powder

1 2/3 cups milk

1 shot Kahlua

Frosting:

½ cup solid vegetable shortening*

½ cup butter or margarine, softened

1 tsp. clear vanilla extract

4 cups confectioner?s sugar, sifted

2 Tablespoons milk

1 shot Kahlua

Approx. 3 Tablespoons Raspberry syrup (to taste)

Pink and Purple food dye

2 oz dark chocolate, shaved

*I typically use butter flavored shortening, as it yields the best flavor. However, it is yellow, not white, and if you want to make a purely white buttercream frosting, I recommend using regular vegetable shortening.

Directions:

Cake:

? Cream butter, sugar, eggs and Kahlua together using electric mixer until well blended and fluffy.

? Combine the rest of the dry ingredients (flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, salt) in separate bowl.

? Alternating, add dry mixture and milk to creamed butter mixture.

? Pour batter into each cupcake paper, approximately 2/3 way full.

? Pop in pre-heated oven for 15-17 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in center of cupcake comes out clean.

? Let cool in pan for ten minutes before transferring to wire rack to cool completely.

Frosting:

? In large bowl, cream together shortening and butter with an electric mixer.

? Add vanilla and Kahlua and beat together, scraping down sides of bowl as needed.

? Gradually add one cup of sugar at a time, mixing well after each addition. If after all four cups of sugar has been added and beaten together, you still do not have the consistency you want, add more sugar, slowly, until you achieve it.

? Add milk and beat at medium speed until light and fluffy.

? Slowly add raspberry syrup one tablespoon at a time and beat together. It is very sweet so it is important to add only a little at a time so that you may taste it to see if it is to your liking. I used three tablespoons before it was the flavor I wanted.

? I also wanted the frosting to be a raspberry color, so I used two drops of pink and three drops of purple food coloring.

? Ice your cupcakes only when completely cooled.

? Shave chocolate on top of each cupcake to give a little something extra. If you have raspberries on hand, put one or two on top. Be creative!

Posted by Dana

1 cup heavy cream

1 shot Kahlua

1 tsp cocoa

1 tsp chocolate syrup

Beat heavy cream and Kahlua with electric mixer for approximately five minutes or until thick and creamy. Sprinkle cocoa and chocolate syrup on top. Fold gently into whipped cream to create a swirl effect. Dollop on top of any chocolate or cappuccino flavored cupcake. End with a sprinkle of cocoa on top of each to perfect your cupcake!

Posted by Dana

Ingredients:

1 package (8 oz) of cream cheese softened

4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) of butter softened

1 tablespoon of vanilla (or as much as you'd like!)

2-3 cups of confectioners sugar

-In a large mixing bowl beat together cream cheese and better until well blended and creamy.

-Add vanilla

-Gradually, just about half a cup at a time, beat in the sugar until you get the consistency that you want. The more sugar the stiffer the frosting will be.

Posted by Dana