The Bake Sale: Cupcakes

And so begins the final chapter of the bake sale saga. We've already covered the loaves and cookies. Now on to the star of the show - the cupcakes!

The original plan was to make chocolate/chocolate, vanilla/vanilla, and coconut lime. All three are tried and true recipes for me so I figured the whole thing would be a breeze. Then I started thinking. This is a problem I have. I think, and I think, and I think some more. Before you know it, I'm totally off my original course. A co-worker, and fellow cupcake connoisseur, (hi Caitlyn!) suggested that I switch up the frostings I was already making in order to create some more variety. The result of this genius idea (that never even crossed my mind) was the addition of chocolate/vanilla and vanilla/chocolate to the mix. At this point I had five distinct cupcake/frosting combinations and thought that was plenty. 

The chocolate and vanilla cupcakes were my go-to recipes. Martha's chocolate buttermilk and Paula Deen's 1-2-3-4 cake. The frostings were the decadent chocolate concoction from the Cupcake Camp award winners and a vanilla bean icing sugar and butter frosting from Martha's cupcake book. Mmm...

Chocolate/chocolate

Chocolate/vanilla

Vanilla/vanilla (you can see the vanilla seeds!)

Vanilla/chocolate

The coconut lime cupcakes have been described here before. They are the same ones I used for the fun Peeps cupcakes I made at Easter using the great recipe from the Coconut & Lime blog. I also discovered they were a judges favorite at Cupcake Camp Ottawa when I read judge Lynne Frappier's post on the event. Totally off topic but, if you enjoy this blog at all, you should also check out hers!

Coconut, lime, and buttermilk

Now, at this point, you'd think I would have left well enough alone. I'd been baking for over five hours. I had about 100 good looking cupcakes ready to go. I was ready to crawl into my bed. But no. I had a brainstorm. "There's leftover rhubarb in the fridge. I have a block of cream cheese. Why not make those delicious rhubarb cupcakes again and top them with cream cheese icing?" So I did. And they were amazing. By far my favorite cupcake of the day. Martha's rhubarb recipe topped with some random standard cream cheese icing recipe I pulled up on the internet. 

And this brings us to the end of my tale of the front stoop bake sale. It was a lot of work for decent reward. I had fun, which is probably the most important thing. I had lots of friend stop by and keep me company through the day. Would I do it again? That I'm not so sure about but never say never!


Now that I've finished baking because I have to what would you like to see me feature on the blog?