The Future is Bright

So it has definitely been a little while since I posted. Yes, I'm busy blah blah blah, but if you're still reading this you deserve a little honesty. I got to the point that I was baking with the sole purpose of making a post. I HAD to bake cupcakes. I NEEDED to get the pictures right. It was ESSENTIAL to write down my measurements. I was seriously treating this like a job I no longer enjoyed. And let's be clear, I don't make any money from this. I don't have sponsors or paid posts. This isn't my first, second, or really even third job! Not only was it no longer fun, but  I also noticed my cupcakes often just didn't turn out right. There is definitely something to be said for not measuring!

Although these measuring cups do
make measuring a little more fun!

So with that said, I decided to take the blog in a slightly different direction. I'll focus more on the pictures and descriptions of the cupcakes, along with a little background rather than the recipe. Honestly I use box mixes anyways so there isn't that much to tell you. Just remember I always use milk! And I'll be sure to tell you what I add to the box.

Now for this to work I need a little help from you guys! Share my posts, comment on them, make recommendations, give me flavor challenges. I want to make this a conversation between me & the readers. It will make it a lot more fun for both of us! And to sweeten the deal if you make a recommendation that I end up using, I'll do my best to make sure you get a cupcake, assuming of course that you live reasonably close (sorry long distance friends!)

For this post I'll go ahead and just include a couple of my recent cupcakes. Not much to them really but I feel like I have to share some kind of cupcake with you.

First up, mini rum cakes. Butter yellow cake mix, chopped nuts, and plenty of rum. My rum cake is always a pretty big hit so I decided to go for the cupcake version using a mini bundt pan. Wilton Cake Release was a must for these. It made clean-up so much easier.

Not the best picture but it is the only one I managed to take. Here we have a red velvet cake with white chocolate filling and cream cheese buttercream. The white chocolate filling is actually just Hershey Hugs stuck into the warm cupcake. This cream cheese frosting was amazing. I used 2 packages of cream cheese to one stick of butter. It held up very well for piping and it tasted great. Everybody at work wanted the recipe.

Last up we have a lemon poppy seed cupcake. I added fresh lemon juice to a yellow cake mix for this one. I used my small cupcake corer to make the hole for the filling. I added powdered sugar to the poppy seed filling to sweeten and thicken it a bit before filling the cupcakes. The frosting is a lemon buttercream topped with poppy seeds.

That's it for this time. I can't wait to hear what you guys have to say about my new focus! As always,

-Happy baking!