My Semi-Homemade Cupcakes with Flavor Variations – Recipe at the Bottom

If you didn’t already know this, I love to cook. In fact if someone would clean up after me, I would cook all day.  You see, I hate cleaning almost as much as I love cooking.  I like organizing when I have the time, but I don’t like cleaning.  Wait. How did I get so off topic? Back to the topic . . . I also love baking.  Lately, I have been on the bandwagon of cupcakes.  My sister got some AMAZING cupcakes form Georgetown cupcakes a couple weeks ago and this weekend I tried my hand at creating a few of my own flavors.

I have a wonderful babysitter for Jakey 2 days a week when he is not at school and it was her birthday. Is there any better reason than a great person having a birthday to make cupcakes? I think not. So, on my way I went.

I have a semi-homemade recipe that I love to use for cupcakes.  It starts with a box of cake mix and adds in some rich (and maybe a little fattening) ingredients. I also have a very simple icing recipe with cream cheese, butter and confectionary sugar that stole from Georgetown Cupcakes.  I made a batch of vanilla and batch of chocolate cupcakes. Then a made a batch of cream cheese filing and one and a half batches of icing. With a few add-ins, yummy treats were just a few steps away. 

 

If you want to make your own, here are my basic recipes.
 

Cupcakes

· 1 Box Cake Mix (Your choice)

· 8 oz Sour Cream

· 1 small package Pudding Mix (Your Choice to match cake mix)

· 4 eggs (Yikes!)

· 8 oz milk (Whole is best. What? I never said these were low fat!)

· ½ Cup Vegetable Oil

1. Preheat Oven to 350

2. Mix all ingredients

3. Fill cupcake liners 2/3 full if you are not adding the filling

4. If you are adding filling, fill ½ way then top with a teaspoonful of the below filling followed by a little more cupcake batter. You should end with your liner being about 2/3 full.

5. Bake for 20-23 minutes
6. Allow to cool before frosting
 
 



 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Cream Cheese Filling

· 8 oz Softened Cream Cheese

· ½ Cup White Sugar

· 1 Egg

· 1 Cup of Chocolate Chips or any other add-in (optional)

Mix top three ingredients until creamy

Fold in add-ins (optional)

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Georgetown Cupcake Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting (I got this off the CBS the Talk Website)

· 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
· 4 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted
· 1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
· 6 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
1. Combine cream cheese and butter
2. Slowly add in the sugar until ingredients are well incorporated.
3. Frost on cooled cupcakes. I prefer to use a large tip and decorators bag. If you wante dto use two flavors you could combine into one bag as I did with my Mint Chocolate Cupcakes.

 

Jacob decorated this "pancake" cupcake.

 

According to Becky and my sister’s kids, the winners were the pancake and the PB banana. Although I would adjust the maple frosting on the pancake, it was a little runny.

You can add whatever you want. Just start with a little and taste your batter. You can always add more. These recipes make a good amount of cupcakes, so I split it into thirds and added the mix-ins.

For a full batch of frosting here are some flavor ideas. You will have to adjust if you split the batch like I did.

The Flavor Variations that I made were:

· Peanut Butter Cup (Chocolate cupcake with PB frosting)

· Mocha (Chocolate cupcake with coffee frosting)

· Chocolate/Vanilla (Chocolate cupcake with vanilla cream cheese frosting)

· Vanilla (Vanilla cupcake with vanilla cream cheese frosting)
· Pancake (Cinnamon cupcake with maple syrup frosting)
    For this, I just made a vanilla cupcakes and added cinimon to taste
· Peanut Butter/Banana (Banana Cupcake with PB icing)
    For this cupcake, I made a vanilla cupcake and added 1 ripe banana to a third of the vanilla mix.
     If you make a full batch, I would cut the milk in half as the bana will give moisture.

1. Chocolate Frosting - Add 1/2 cup of melted (and cooled) semi-sweet chocolate chips.
2. Lemon Frosting  - Add the juice and zest of 2 lemons.
3. Lime Frosting - Add the juice and zest of 3 limes.
4. Orange Frosting - Add the juice and zest of 1 orange.
5. Mocha Frosting - Add 1/4 cup of cold coffee.
6. Peanut Butter Frosting - Add 1/4 cup of creamy peanut butter.
7. Maple Frosting - Add 1/4 cup of maple syrup.
8. Cinnamon Frosting - Add 2 tsp of ground cinnamon.
9. Mint Frosting - Add 2 tsp of peppermint extract.
10. Toffee Frosting - Add 1/4 cup of crushed toffee candy bar

Sorry for the lack of pictures, I will take more next time I make them.

Also, does anyone know the difference between frosting and icing? I don't, so I just use both. At least that way I get it right some of the time.