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. 
I too didn’t have a pan big enough for a water bath. I just cooked it for 1 hour and 30 minutes and then let it cool on a wire rack for 30 minutes. I didn’t even cool it in the oven. I haven’t tasted it yet, so I don’t know if it turned out ok…but it looks just like my other that I made.
Hey if it tastes good who cares what it looks like?!
Regardless of how it looks, it’s the taste that matters! My cheesecakes look similar when I don’t do a water bath. Another idea with cheesecake is to make cheesecake truffles with leftovers (that is, if you even have any!) 🙂
If you get an answer to your cake running over problem would you mind sharing it? I had the same problem, despite the fact my pan met Dorie’s requirements. I’m also curious where I went wrong.
I’ve had similar problems, especially with the cracking, which I believe is from cooking too long. Once I started taking cheese cakes out based on time and not appearance the problem went away. I think a lot of cooking still takes place from the internal heat…just a theory…BTW, great marble effect on your cake!
Aawwww poor little cheesecake. To be honest I am not sure why your cheesecake fell but I know when I make cheesecake mine always bakes more evenly when I use a water bath also if the internal temperature reaches 160F (don’t quote me) it starts to make the cheesecake crack. Maybe next time don’t bake it as long? Either way taste is the most important IMO. 🙂
Clara @ iheartfood4thought