An Excuse for Cupcakes

I’ll use anything as an excuse to cook or bake. Last day of school? YAY! I’ll cook! It’s Thursday at 3 p.m.! HOORAY! Cupcake time! It’s Father’s Day! Time to bake…

I really wish I could figure out a way to ship cupcakes across the country to my dad, but since I can’t, he’ll have to settle for a picture of what he would’ve gotten…sorry Dad!

I saw a picture somewhere during the week that sparked an idea… that’s usually how things work with me! Combine this idea with the fact that I now have 7 colors of gel food coloring, I knew I had to go for it. Go for what? You’ll see…

I started with a basic white cake recipe I found online at Cupcake Ideas Now!, a great website if you haven’t seen it yet:

Basic White Cake

Ingredients

* 1/2 cup butter or shortening at room temperature

* 1 3/4 cups sifted all-purpose flour

* 1 cup sugar

* 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

* 1/2 teaspoon salt

* 1 egg

* 3/4 cup milk

* 1 teaspoon vanilla OR 1/2 teaspoon vanilla and 1/2 teaspoon almond flavoring.

Directions

1. Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Put shortening in a mixing bowl.
3. Sift dry ingredients together in separate bowl.
4. With a mixer, mix the dry ingredients in slowly with the shortening.
5. Add 1/2 cup milk and the egg to the dry ingredients and beat until flour is fully moistened.
6. Add the remaining milk and the vanilla and/or almond flavoring and beat for about another minute.
7. Place paper liners in muffin pan and fill halfway full with the batter.
8. Bake at 375 degrees F for 15 to 18 minutes or until a cake tester or toothpick inserted into the middle of a cupcake comes out clean.

Makes about 18 cupcakes.

What? Plain white cupcakes?? I think not. I divided the batter into two bowls, 1/3 and 2/3. I left the 1/3 alone. The 2/3 bowl got an addition of 1/4 c. mini chocolate chips and hot pink food coloring. Do you know where I’m going with this yet? I layered the batter in the cupcake tins, about 1/2 full with the pink mixture and topped with the white. Then, once baked and cooled, I made a white glaze out of 2/3 c. powdered sugar, 2 Tbsp. water, and 1/2 tsp. vanilla and dipped each cupcake top.

I know, I’ll get to the pictures in a minute, just bear with me.

Then, I made the same icing I made for Skylar’s birthday cupcakes (remember the rainbow ones?) and dyed it a lovely light green. Are you ready for this?

Can you tell what that’s supposed to be?? Maybe this will help:

It’s a watermelon cupcake!! Now, they’re not watermelon flavored, they’re a lovely almond-vanilla flavor. I gave them as a gift to my stepdad and his dad for Father’s Day, and one was sampled at the table after dinner. They were quite a hit! I wish you could see the “seed” speckles more in this picture, but alas, my one sample cupcake didn’t get a good seed batch. I’d recommend this cake recipe with ONE suggestion. DON’T overfill your cupcakes. The recipe said half full. I went more like two-thirds full and they expanded over the top of the tin and were hard to decorate and remove from the pan. Next time, I’ll follow directions.

They’re cute though, right?

I hope you all had a wonderful Father’s Day!

Tagged as: Baking, cupcake, cupcakes, cute, dad, family, fun, holiday