Cupcake Week! day 6: King Cake

In honor of Mardi Gras, I decided to make a King's Cake cupcake. Forgive me, I can't find the link to the recipe now. It's a spice cake with buttercream frosting. I was going to make the glaze but then you could see the hole in the top for the baby.

I dipped them in sugar to decorate them in traditional King's Cake colors of green, purple and gold. Purple represents justice, gold represents power and green represents faith.

I got the cute mardi gras masks from Mary Carter Paints. LOVE this store! Everything baking related.

My mom got into town Saturday, so she got to be the taste audience. I also saved her one from everyday to taste.

Yup! There's a baby in it! The baby (or other trinkets) mean if you find one in your piece of King Cake (or in this case, cupcake) means you have to provide the King Cake next year, or host the mardi gras party.

Happy Mardi Gras!

Cupcake Week! day 5: elvis

I'm just a hunka, hunka burnin' cupcake! After the succes with the peanut butter icing for the pb & j I knew the Elvis would be equally as good. For those of you who don't know, Elvis loved peanut butter and banana sandwiches. So I decided a banana cupcake with peanut butter icing would be a great way to honor the King. We take him pretty seriously here in Memphis. I got my recipe from "Hello, Cupcake!" (again).

Mashing the bananas (potato masher worked then the recommended spoon)

Voila!!!

I ended up making these a lot later in the day than the past 4 (late being 9:30pm) so Christopher got to be the official taste audience of the day. He's tasted them all, but not officially.

They were a hit!

I told him I needed a picture with him like I have with all the other taste audiences. He thought smashing it in my face would be funny.

Stay tuned for a Mardi Gras themed day 6!

Cupcake Week! day 4: carrot cake!!!

I have been really good about not eating more than 1 of the cupcakes that I make. Of course I taste the batter and icing numerous times, but that's for research purposes of course. I have to make it taste just right. But then came, day 4: carrot. cake. This is my weakness. This is my favorite flavor of all time. I usually request carrot cake for my birthday cake, even though it's in December and not in season. Anyway, let's just say I ate A LOT more than 1 cupcake. I'll have to pay for this at the gym.

The recipe I used is my mom's/Mawgie's recipe. No problems with this one!

Using my Tupperware to get the carrot chopped up finely.

Victornox vegetable peeler I bought in Switzerland. A staple tool in my kitchen.

TA DA! I had a lot of extra batter so I made mini cupcakes, too. Aren't they cute?

I took the cupcakes over to my friend Jessica's house for "Margarita Thursday." They were welcomed warmly.

Pop quiz: I use a secret ingredient to inhance the cinnamon flavor. Any guesses as to what it is???