Cinnamon Bun Cupcakes!

By: Christine

I made these cupcakes for a family cookout and they may have become my new favorite cupcake flavor! Before deciding on cinnamon bun cupcakes, I was going through the list of my favorite cupcake flavors and decided that I wanted to try something that I've never made before. With help from my fiancé, I came up with the idea for these cupcakes, and they were delicious! 

The base for this cupcake is vanilla cake batter. Cinnamon and sugar is then added to the vanilla cake batter

While baking the cupcakes, I made the frosting. I used a vanilla buttercream frosting and added cinnamon and sugar to the frosting, just like I had done for the cupcake batter.

After baking and cooling the cupcakes, it was time to frost them!

You can see the tiny speckles of cinnamon throughout the frosting.

I added a tiny teddy graham cracker to some of the cupcakes and sprinkled on a tiny bit more of the cinnamon and sugar mixture to the other cupcakes.

These cupcakes tasted just like a cinnamon bun. The cake was very moist and the frosting was light and fluffy!
  
These cupcake are now in my top 5 for favorite cupcake flavor!

Strawberry Margarita, Piña Colada, and Key Lime Cupcakes

By: Jill

For the wedding shower of one of my wonderful friends, Katie, I made three different cupcakes that were all "drink/vacation" themed (she's getting married in the Dominican!): Strawberry Margarita, Piña Colada, and Key Lime.

The piña colada cupcake recipe was from one of my favorite bloggers, Beantown Baker. The recipe looked delicious, but I did make a few minor adjustments in the frosting.

For the cupcake itself, the recipes calls for cream of coconut (NOT coconut milk!) and coconut extract.

After the cupcakes were cooked and cooled, I made the frosting. It is a cream cheese/buttercream frosting, but the recipe amount was not enough so I added an extra stick of butter and a bit more powdered sugar and it was perfect!

I took about 2/3 of a cup of the frosting and mixed in some chopped pineapple. I filled the cupcakes with the pineapple mixture and then frosted the cupcakes with the remainder of the frosting.

I sprinkled the cupcakes with some sweetened coconut flakes and topped them with a cherry.

The strawberry margarita cupcake recipe was from another blogger, My Adventures in Food.

It uses fresh strawberries, chopped in the food processor in the cupcake itself. So yummy!

The strawberries are then mixed into the batter with lime zest and a pinch of kosher salt.

The frosting, a Swiss meringue, was something that I had never attempted before. It involves whisking sugar and egg whites over a simmering double boiler until it reaches 160 degrees.

This recipe was also unique because I had never used tequila in a frosting and I was curious as to how it would taste.

This frosting was absolutely amazing! It was light with only a slight hint of tequila.

I used a strawberry to garnish the cupcakes.

The final cupcakes were key lime cupcakes. The recipe I used was from My Madison Bistro.

I also made a few changes to this recipe. I did not use green food coloring and opted to keep the buttermilk color of the cupcakes with the green lime zest in both the cupcakes and frosting. I did not use cream cheese for this frosting recipe and just added an extra stick of butter and some extra powdered sugar.

I liked the look of the green lime zest flecks in the frosting!

These cupcakes were so delicious and unique!