Cupcake Camper
Hubby and I took a four day weekend to go visit my family in Illinois. It was a rainy chilly weekend in the Midwest so our original plan of going apple picking got foiled. Instead, we decided to head to the Shoppes at Grand Prairie to do a bit of shopping. It was a very successful shopping trip, especially since we saw this when we walked out of our last store.
That’s right! A cupcake camper. I know some of you have seen the cupcake trucks that go around NYC selling cupcakes, but this camper was at an outdoor mall in Peoria, Illinois.
We decided to wait outside in the misting rain to grab two cupcakes to split between the four of us. First the girl wasn’t there, so we waited a few minutes and she returned. During that time we decided on our flavors to try. We wanted to try a chocolate cupcake with pink frosting and a spice cupcake with orange frosting.
All of the cupcakes were in the camper in plastic boxes behind the counter. It appears that the cupcakes are baked somewhere else and then sold from the camper. When the girl came back, she gave us our two cupcakes. I asked the girl who baked the cupcakes (hoping that she would give me the name of a bakery or something), she said “I dunno, bakers?”.
When I looked down at the two cupcakes, I asked if the one with orange was in fact a spice cupcake, and she reassured me that it was a spice cupcake. I didn’t believe it at first since the spice cupcakes I’ve made are always a dark brown color and this one was clearly white. But since she had confirmed the order twice before going to get the cupcakes, AND verified again after she gave us the cupcakes, I dropped the line of questioning.
We paid and took our cupcakes home to enjoy. They were definitely big enough for us to cut them into four so everyone could have some of each. The chocolate cupcake was a bit dry. The cupcake to frosting ratio was about spot on. We all agreed that the frosting was ok. Nothing great, but also not overly sweet or bland.
On to the vanilla cupcake. Again, we had ordered a spice cupcake and were given a vanilla cupcake. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise because this was a great vanilla cupcake. Maybe one of the best ones I’ve ever had.
Overall, the Cupcake Camper experience was ok. The employee working the day we went had no clue about what was going on. As a cupcake enthusiast, this was somewhat frustrating. My dad also commented that he was surprised they had so few flavors to choose from.
Cupcake Camper does have a website that is currently under construction, and a Facebook page that you can check out. I still have no idea where the cupcakes come from, so if anyone knows, I’d love to hear about it.
Don’t forget about my Power of Pink Challenge going on all month.
I am Jen the Beantown Baker. Engineer by day and baking maven by night. Hubby serves as my #1 fan and official taste tester. We got hitched back in 2006. Barefoot. In the sand. With the waves crashing behind us. It was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. 
loving the baileys idea! mmmmm
I use the same recipe (I think, I’ve had it for years; a standby. I think it was called “Chocolate Fudge Frosting”)
Best thing EVER to do? add a bit of mint extract – it’s very easily my most popular cake filling.. and my favourite icing to eat by the spoonful lol.
I haven’t found the perfect chocolate frosting yet, so I’ll definitely have to try this one!
i definitely, definitely have to try this soon. i can’t get enough of chocolate!
It’s funny about the no milk thing…I was making a new martini recipe that was super strong, so I thought cream would help it become drinkable – but I had no cream, but I did have Vanilla Caramel Coffeemate…it was great!
Ironically, I almost never have milk and always have Bailey’s. Go figure.
Sometimes you really do need a seriously dark chocolatey frosting. This looks absolutely ideal.
you really got into the food styling there — cute pic with the cupcake in the sprinkles.
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This sounds nice – I’ll have to try it one day! Jen, have you tried King Arthur Flour’s Supersimple Chocolate Frosting recipe? It is my favourite recipe (so far) for chocolate frosting – I’d definitely recommend it!
(Sheesh! deleted to fix a typo! Wish there was an edit function :))
Pegster – I have not tried the KA recipe. It looks similar to this chocolate frosting recipe which is delicious!
The think I love about this frosting is the stiffness and the fudgeness.
I like this frosting for when I want something quick. Otherwise, I like to use frosting that involves melted, good chocolate for those special occasions. YUM! I would gobble up your cupcakes in a second.
Great call on the Bailey’s – my mom would love that icing. I am going to try this next time I make cupcakes.
I would never think to sub bailey’s for milk. Brilliant. I love my chocolate desserts to be super chocolaty – this looks great!
LOVE the super pink sprinkles too. So pretty 😀
Oh, I forgot to mention that I’m hosting a giveaway. I wonder if it would come handy in this baking project…
These look great!! I love your photos!! I’ve been searching for a good chocolate-y frosting and I think I might try this!!
Would you mind checking out my blog? 😀 http://ajscookingsecrets.blogspot.com/
I could have definitely used this recipe for my sourdough chocolate cake this week
http://gamereviewwiki.com/bikinibirthday/2010/06/21/day-158-binge-weekend/
i just made this frosting today to go inside some cupcakes using your cone method. and i topped with vanilla buttercream, at my hubby’s request.
let me just say this was so delicious i had to take my whitening strips out early so i could lick my fingers, and then the bowl. then my 15 month old attacked me to lick the spatula. we were all sugar high and happy before dinner.
my hubby said “every day i am happier i married you because of things like this”
Thanks for sharing this recipe!!!
Kris – I love hearing comments like that! Thanks for trusting my recipes enough to try on your hubby!
Mmm this looks fantastic, though the ingredients look similar to another delicious recipe I’ve used before that is pretty soft. I’m guessing it’s the butter temperature. Should it be room temperature here? Thanks!
You definitely want your butter at room temperature so it creams nicely.
I have the Bailey’s..lol but I’m out of cocoa powder. Have you ever tried subbing it with melted chocolate? And if so how much do you use?
Best frosting ever. Perfect taste, texture and color. It was divine. I will never use another chocolate frosting recipe ever again. Thank you very, very much! It is truly a gift. 🙂
Jen,
I am a person who has been cooking from the age of 5 ….lol now i have certin likes loves and disliks lol however i found a revepie i wanted to make and it called for a fudge type frosting…. knowing i didnt have one i liked for this so i started looking friday night and didnt come across your recepie until saturday morning so i got out my ingreadience.. but i didnt have Balies or white milk i had some Cream de Mint and Choc. Milk so i straied a tad from ur recepie …. i used 1/2 stick of butter, and to get 1/3 cup of liquid i used aprox 1/4 cup of Cream de Mint and the rest Choc. Milk. Plus the res of ur ingreadience …..omg this is the best dark choc fudge frosting ive ever had!!!! And i used the best dk. Cocoa i know of !!!!!! Thankyou thankyou THANKYOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’m a baker and for the life of me I can’t find a thick chocolate fudge frosting. Is this frosting thick? I don’t want anything too creamy, like ganache when you let it sit. Help please!
beantownbaker — February 4th, 2013 @ 9:45 pm
This frosting is definitely thick. You can see in the pictures that it held up nicely to piping. It’s not as creamy as a ganache.
Thank you for responding! 🙂 I see that some people use melted chocolate instead of cocoa powder. Doesn’t it really matter?
beantownbaker — February 5th, 2013 @ 10:13 am
For this recipe, I always use cocoa powder.
If I make these the day before do I have to refrigerate them(since the recipe calls for milk)or can I leave them on the counter covered?
beantownbaker — October 30th, 2013 @ 8:21 pm
You can leave them on the counter. The milk in the frosting stabilizes so it won’t go bad. I’d put them in a covered container though.
Hi. Is the butter you use salted or unsalted?
beantownbaker — December 26th, 2013 @ 11:01 am
I always use unsalted butter unless specified as salted butter.
This is absolutely THE BEST chocolate frosting recipe I have EVER tried. I used it to frost some homemade vanilla mint cupcakes and topped them with an Andes mint for my daughters sweet 16 party. I had complete strangers tell me I need to open up a bakery and sell nothing but those cupcakes! Thank you so much for posting this. It is truly amazing.
beantownbaker — January 2nd, 2014 @ 1:32 pm
SO glad you enjoy this recipe! Nothing beats a great chocolate frosting.
I can’t wait to try this! I LOVE the flavor of the hersey’s dark choc frosting recipe but its so thin that i can’t use it for cupcakes, only for a cake. I even tried refrigeration overnight to see if that would thicken it up and it didn’t. so i can not wait try to this one for my cupcakes!
beantownbaker — April 27th, 2014 @ 2:53 pm
I agree. The Hershey’s one is just too thin for cupcakes.
I made a variation on this recipe for my daughter’s birthday cake yesterday and it was fabulous!
I’m still trying to figure out how 6T butter is enough though–I ended up putting in two whole sticks of butter and adding in the milk after the first addition (I added it slowly) of powdered sugar/cocoa combo–it was so thick and dry that my mixer was making new, horrible noises and I was sure it was going to die! LOL