Happy New Years Eve! And a New Frosting Recipe
In case you haven’t noticed, I haven’t made many cupcakes recently. I don’t know if I just got burnt out or what, but I’ve been making more bars and cookies recently. Bars are especially low maintenance which makes them so much easier to make than cupcakes. But cupcakes will always hold a special place in my heart. And I’ll continue to make them.
I actually made these cupcakes earlier in the year for a weekend getaway to a friend’s family lake house. I thought these photos with the sprinkles were perfectly festive for New Years Eve! Hubby and I are off ringing in the new year in Las Vegas with a big group of friends!
Since it’s our first trip to Vegas, I’m sure we’ll have a bunch of fun and plenty of stories to share when we get home. But for now, lets talk more about cupcakes. For these cupcakes, I used a classic chocolate cupcake recipe but I decided to try a new frosting recipe.
I used the new neon colored cupcake liners that have been in the grocery store this year. I love them because in general, the Wilton cupcake liners that come in a bag at stores like Michaels are cute, but they always seem to be a bit off in size. The cupcake liners that I order online are great – vibrant colors and the perfect size – but they’re a bit pricey. By default, I mostly use the classic pastel colored liners that come in the round plastic container, but recently, they’ve had these neon colored ones that are great. I can’t get enough of them!
This frosting has a great bakery-frosting flavor. It’s very sweet and everyone really enjoyed it. It had a decent amount of stiffness that was perfect for piping onto cupcakes as well. I will definitely be making this frosting again.
Dawn's Buttercream
Ingredients:
1 cup Crisco
1 pound powdered sugar
1 teaspoon almond extract
2 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons meringue powder
Directions:
Cream shortening, water and flavoring.
Add powdered sugar and meringue powder. Mix until blended.
Add additional water until you reach the desired consistency. If you want really white icing be sure to use a clear extract. Vanilla extract will make the icing off white.
Recipe from Cooking with Carrie










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. 






These look amazing! I love that you added even more peanut butter flavor too!
Mmmmmm! These look incredible!! AH! My weakness!!!!
Oh wow!! This looks soo good. I would make the cupcakes with the Hershey’s Perfectly Chocolate cake recipe and then use the other recipes you provided. Thanks!!!!
You could definitely use any chocolate cupcake recipe that you want!
These look awesome! I bet they’re really rich!
Holy. Cow.
These look sooo darn good!
I saw your picture on Tastespotting and had to see more! Your cupcakes look delicious!
Wow, these look beyond incredible! I’m completely impressed 🙂
peanut butter cups…one of my favorites!! What an awesome cupcake!!!
Oh. My. God. I think my DH is packing his bags to leave me as we speak!
These look soooo good. I bet it’s all you can do to eat one they are so rich!
These look delicious! Chocolate and peanut butter is the most fabulous combination!
Alright, so you’ve gotta make some cupcakes when we are in Pennsylvania. These would work. Yummy!!!
haha no prob Scott. Just let me know what you’re in the mood for. These were delicious…
The only time I like chocolate or PB is when they’re together so these are looking pretty good to me!
~ingrid
Btw, your salmon and the “sauce” looked really good too!
~ingrid
Thanks so much for the link back, your cuppies look amazing.
I just discovered these and can’t wait to make them. Love chocolate and peanut butter.
I just made your vegan chocolate cupcakes over the weekend for some vegan friends and they were a huge hit. I had bookmarked this cupcake recipe for mother’s day because I LOVE peanut butter cups.
Anyway I wanted to let you know the woman from Confetti Cakes was on Rachel Ray and they posted the official recipe on the Rachel Ray website. Not sure if you want to link it?
http://www.rachaelrayshow.com/food/recipes/chocolate-cake/
THank you for this post! I tried the cupcakes out here: http://www.themediamaid.com/2012/cupcake-celebrations/
and loved it!