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. 
This is a great post and I love that you and your sister made these together! You know its a favorite when you can make a recipe from memory! Thanks for participating 🙂
Awesome bars! You and your sister sound like me and my sister, so I loved this post extra for that. Great submission, thanks for participating.
Yum, these look SO good! And fairly easy – I will be making them soon!
Love the story that goes with these 🙂 family recipes are the best!
OH YUM!! Those look so freakign gooooood!!
Those look great!!!!!!!!!! MMmmmmm
I suppose if you were fond of chocolate they would be the best dang thing. I’d like the blonde version of this instead. 🙂
You almost make me wish I had a sister instead of six brothers, almost. 🙂
~ingrid
oh my neighbor makes these and they are SO good! Mmmm I’m wishing I had one right about now, thanks for sharing the recipe!
(also glad you enjoyed the taquitos!)
whoa, a whole pack of caramels? this sounds amazing
Oh.my.gosh! I bet these really are the best dang thing ever! I can’t wait to make these to bring to work!
I wonder if these can be made with a plain chocolate cake mix since I don’t have a german chocolate one on hand.
I would think any chocolate cake mix would work
These are close to the Pioneer Woman’s Knock You Naked Brownies except for the frosting. Thank goodness chocolate and caramel are legal!