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 are so adorable! A friend once made me margarita cupcakes for a birthday, but I love the sound of all the coconut.
I love this cupcakes week!!!!! And even Pina-colada cupcakes…..ciao, Flavia
these look incredible! I am LOVING cupcake week!
These make me crave a warm summer day.
This sounds like a fun, summery cupcake recipe! Love it!
Mmm these look awesome! But where’s the rum?
Tell me about it! I’m not excited about the rain/snow we’re supposed to get tonight and tomorrow.
Good point! They have the flavors of a pina colada without the alcohol. If you wanted to add some rum, I’d throw it into the filling.
I’d like one of these cupcakes along with a pina colada on the beach!
I’ve really been into “booze” cupcake lately and yours looks fantastic! Perfect for a luau or a summer pool party!
Those are truly beautiful cupcakes! I love Pina Coladas and I love cupcakes so…
These are so beautiful! Eating one of these would bring me back to Hawaii 🙂
Ooohhh Hawaii sounds awesome right about now. I’ve never been.
oh my gosh, those look adorable, and i love the flavor combo, too!!
Very nice! May I ask how you set the background for your cupcake pics? The solid colors really bring attention to the cupcakes themselves.
For the majority of my cupcakes, I use a piece 12×12 scrap-booking paper for my backgrounds. I have a big stack of a variety of colors and patterns.
Thank you 🙂 .
I love the garnishes on the top, they looke exactly like little poolside drinks. I have been wanting to try a cocktail-like cake since I went to “cupcake happy hour” at Kickass Cupcakes in Davis Square. Have you ever been there? Because if you haven’t you must go and try their mojito!
I have been to Kickass before during the Cupcake Crawl I hosted a couple years ago. In fact, we even tasted the mojito cupcake while we were there.
Such creative finishing touches to a perfectly delightful cupcake.