Strawberry Cheesecake Cupcakes

I'd promised some friends strawberry cupcakes a looong time ago. Just plain strawberry cupcakes sounded a bit boring for my taste though so I decided to turn this into a cheesecake deal. Not in that it is actually cheesecake, but the frosting is cheescake-y.

I love, love, love these frozen strawberries in syrup. I use them all the time- waffles, cupcakes, toast, even frosting. I got them at Kroger, but I'm pretty sure you can find them in any grocery store.

So here's the deal. Boxed cake. Strawberries. Done.
Cake:
1 box golden vanilla cake mix
1/2 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs
*1 cup strawberry milk
frozen strawberries- let them thaw. Your life will be much easier. I did not.

*For the strawberry milk- I poured up about 1/8 cup of the syrup from the frozen strawberries and added milk to get 1 cup.

I mixed the cake with the liquids. I mixed by hand because I the cake turns out much better because I'm too lazy to clean the beaters twice. Then I stirred in a few spoonfuls of strawberries. I'd tell you how much but mine were still pretty frozen so I just stirred a little in. Feel free to add a lot for more strawberryness.
Threw them in the oven at 350 for... about that long (sorry, somebody buy me a kitchen timer).

Frosting:
1 tub of Strawberry cream cheese
1 stick butter
3 tbsp syrup from the frozen strawberries
Powdered sugar to reach desired consistency
Add strawberry pieces to taste

I did a really thin frosting and spooned it on, but go ahead and add more powdered sugar if you want to pipe on some pretty frosting.

Use a cupcake corer (or a knife) to core the cupcakes. Fill the resulting hole with strawberries, then cover with frosting. Top with a sliced strawberry.

-Happy Baking!

Biscoff Cupcakes

Have you tried this Biscoff spread I've been seeing everywhere? I've seen a lot of recipes on pinterest that call for it so I decided to get some. It's pretty tasty. I also got some of the Biscoff cookies, and they remind me of something but I can't figure out what...

So Biscoff cupcakes. You're probably going to want to buy two jars because you'll use pretty much all of one for these cupcakes and the frosting.

For the cupcakes:
1 box butter yellow cake mix
6 tbsp butter
2 eggs
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup milk
1/2 cup Biscoff spread

Heat the butter and water in a microwave safe bowl until it bubbles. Stir in the Biscoff. Mix until smooth, heat for about 30 more seconds if needed. Now mix in the rest of the cake ingredients. Fill cupcake liners (no more than half full) and bake at 350 until golden brown. This batter was really thick so I got my liners a bit too full. Luckily the cupcakes fell in the center when I pulled them out of the oven, making the perfect cavity for the topping.

For the topping:
1/2 stick butter
2 tbsp milk
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup Biscoff spread
powdered sugar

Melt the butter, milk, and brown sugar and stir well. Mix in the Biscoff then add powdered sugar until you reach a thick, but pourable consistency. Go slowly, it doesn't take much.

-Happy Baking!

Mashup of Past Projects

So, it's finals time. And it's not exactly my idea of fun. I've decided to just save a little time and put together a post with some of the cupcakes I've made in the past.  I won't go into details about many of them but if you see something you're interested in, let me know and I'll try to work it into a real post.

First up, these mermaid cupcakes that a made for a sweet little girl's birthday. All the decorations are handmade from fondant, and the frosting is blue buttercream. I don't remember if it was bubblegum or cotton candy flavored.

Also these were pretty popular. So much so that I actually made them twice in a few weeks. It's a chocolate chip cookie with a peanut butter cup on top, all covered by a brownie.

This was one of my first cupcake baking experiences. It did not go real well, but they were edible and looked nice enough. I wasn't real big on the flavor. They are decorated with conversation hearts and have a heart baked into them.

Lastly in this mashup is one of my favorite spur of the moment creations. When making the second batch of cookie-peanut-butter-cup-brownies above, I had some of the brownie batter left over. So I made some brownie bottom white almond cupcakes. They were delicious! And I don't even remember what kind of frosting I made for these. Nutella maybe...

As always, let me know if you have anything you'd like to see me bake. 

Happy Baking!