S'mores Cupcakes

Well, helloooooooo summer love.

To me, summer means a few things.  I am unfortunately not a kid anymore so summers off is not one of them.  But summer does mean the days are longer, the colors seem brighter, and I seem to be able to eat my body weight in fresh watermelon and cantaloupe.  Summer also screams for the classic combination of chocolate, graham cracker and marshmallow.  I've been looking for the perfect s'mores cupcake recipe for awhile now, but I couldn't find anything that fit my vision.  Most of the recipes I found had a chocolate cake base with a marshmallow frosting, and the graham sort of took a backseat with either a little square on top or some crumbs as the base.  Finally, I decided to take bits and pieces of other recipes to create my perfect Frankenstein s'mores cupcake.  These babies have a dense graham cracker cake, a milk chocolate filling, and a rich and fluffy marshmallow buttercream.  I rolled the outside in extra graham cracker crumbs and garnished with some chocolate pieces, mini marshmallows, a chocolate covered-graham cracker and a drizzle of ganache.  Ohmygoodness.  It's pretty safe to say these didn't make it two full days in our house.  They did, however, make it into my top 3 cupcake recipes of all time.  Allow me to introduce you to your new summer love (a la Justin Timberlake circa 2006).

S'mores Cupcakes:
Makes 12 cupcakes

Graham Cracker Cupcake (source: Vanilla Garlic)
1 stick butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
3 eggs, room temperature

Lemon Cupcakes with Lemon Buttercream

Happy Friday! I, for one, am super excited for this day.  We leave for the beach and I am wayyy overdue for some sand & sun.  This is richly evidenced by my dramatic "oh, woe is me... I'm so overworked" attitude lately and my Casper-the-Ghost-like appearance.  But that all changes today!

Hubs and I on Sunset Beach in Cape May (Tina Markoe Photography)

We go to Cape May every year and let me tell you it is one of the best food towns around.  They have everything from casual sit-down restaurants to white tablecloth fine dining.  It also happens to be the tail end of restaurant week, with some fixed price menus that let me taste a few courses more than I normally might. Yum!  What more could a girl want?  I will have to update you guys on some of my fabulous meals when I get home.

Before I go, I wanted to share this amazing recipe with you from Shugary Sweets.  Lemon is a flavor I just don't get tired of.  My husband will eat chocolate til he's sick, and I sort of feel that way about lemons.  While normal, well-adjusted people order lemon slices for their water at a restaurant, I usually grab them and just suck on them while I wait for my food.  Normally, I'll top my lemon cupcakes with a lemon cream cheese frosting, but Aimee adds this amaaaahzing lemon buttercream to her cakes that is so good it should pretty much be illegal.  You can find her original recipe here.  Make these ASAP for the favorite lemon-lover in your life!

Lemon Cupcakes with Lemon Buttercream:
Recipe by Shugary Sweets
Makes 24 cupcakes

5 egg whites, room temperature
3/4 cup buttermilk
2 lemons, zested
3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 3/4 cups sugar
2 1/2 cups cake flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

1 cup unsalted butter, softened
4 cups powdered sugar
1 lemon, zested and juiced
2 T heavy cream

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and prepare two muffin tins with paper cupcake liners.  Mix together the egg whites, 1/4 cup of the buttermilk and the lemon zest in a small bowl or liquid measuring cup.  Set aside.  In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes.  Slowly mix in dry ingredients until well combined.  Slowly add in egg white mixture and mix again.  Add remaining buttermilk and combine one final time.  Fill cupcake liners half full and bake for 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow the cupcakes to cool in the pans for 5 minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.

For the frosting, beat butter for 2-3 minutes until light and fluffy.  Add lemon juice and zest, heavy cream, and powdered sugar (slowly, so the sugar doesn't fly everywhere!) until fully combined.  Beat on high for 3-5 minutes until fluffy.  Pipe frosting onto cupcakes when they are completely cooled.

American Buttercream Frosting (...and a Wedding!)

Happy Memorial Day, everyone!  I'm currently writing this preemptively dreading returning to work tomorrow.  The days after long weekends are just.the.worst.  At the same time, I am super content and reflective about how great a weekend it was... not to mention the freedoms we have and who made it all possible.  Thank you vets - past, present and future!

It was a very exciting weekend for me, for sure... I had my first wedding order.  A friend (hiiii, Amy) asked me a while ago if I would consider making cupcakes and a small cake for her friends wedding.  After a small panic attack from the pressure of baking for such an important occasion, I happily accepted and began the planning process.  The wedding was this Sunday and after three and a half heart attacks while transporting them to the location (I was 100% sure someone was going to rear-end me on the way there and ruin everything) I am super happy with the way everything turned out.  Big shout out to my mom and amazing husband for their support and encouragement and to Amy and Sara for giving me a shot!  You guys are pretty awesome.

I figured this would be a wonderful opportunity to share with you one of my favorite American buttercream recipes.  Considering the name of this blog, it's only fitting.  And probably should have been my first recipe?  Hmm.  Anyway, it's important to note that I use different recipes depending on the intent - whipped frostings, Italian buttercreams, Swiss Meringue Buttercreams, and French buttercreams certainly have their places and I even prefer them at times.  I could write an entire post on the different uses, benefits and flavors of each type, but I will save that for another day. 

This recipe is a great all-purpose, medium consistency, crusting buttercream that holds it's shape to pipe on cupcakes, cookies and cakes. It's the recipe my mom always used on cakes growing up and each time I make it I'm transported my six year-old self in her kitchen licking the beater.  I don't love using shortening, but I use a small amount and it does help the frosting hold it's shape a bit better than all-butter recipes.  This usually makes just enough to frost 24 cupcakes or an 8-inch layer cake, but I love frosting and having extra to add decorations and details so I generally double the recipe and freeze whatever's leftover (if anything).  Have I mentioned I like frosting?

American Buttercream Frosting:
1 stick butter, softened to room temperature (soft, but not melted)
1/4 cup vegetable shortening
1 pound bag of powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3-4 tablespoons milk or heavy cream
dash of salt

Blend the butter and shortening together in the bowl of your mixer until light and fluffy (about 3 minutes).  Scrape the sides of the bowl to make sure everything is blended.  Add the vanilla, milk, salt, and about half of the powdered sugar.  Mix on low speed until blended.  Add the remaining powdered sugar and beat on medium high speed until fluffy.  If your frosting is too runny, add some more powdered sugar.  If it's too stiff, add a touch more milk or cream.

A few tips: 

• Room temperature butter is super important.  Do not try to mix cold butter! If you are in a pinch, slice your butter into small pieces (about tablespoon size) and leave on the counter.  This increases the surface area and the butter comes to room temperature much faster.
• Use a clear vanilla extract and a bit more shortening to butter ratio if you want a brighter, more pure white.  The butter does make it slightly off-white.  This recipe also is very easy to color with a bit of gel food coloring.
• This frosting is super forgiving! Add more liquid if too stiff or more sugar if too runny.  It's foolproof.
• Experiment with flavors.  This is a great base recipe and super versatile.  Add some lemon, orange or coconut extract for different flavor combinations.  Add some cocoa and make a chocolate buttercream.  Be creative!

Triple Chocolate Cupcakes (with Nutella) for 2!

I made 72 cupcakes last weekend. Yikes.

They were obviously not all for me.  Even I have limits!  But after delivering half to a coworker for his holiday gathering and taking the rest to our Easter dinner, I still had about a dozen left over.  When there are only two people in your house, that's just bad news.  I am only human, after all... and who would go for the oatmeal in the morning when those bad boys are staring at you from the cake stand?  No one.

That's why Christina over at Dessert for Two is such a godsend.  She makes delicious dessert recipes scaled down for a household of two!  On normal, non-holiday occasions when I want just a small taste of dessert for my husband and me, she has all kinds of recipes that fit the bill.  No more having to give the rest away at work or to family just to save me from myself and a late night cookie/cupcake/insert-other-dessert-here binge.  Make sure you head over to her site to

Double Mint Dark Chocolate Cupcakes (St. Patty's Day Special!)

Contrary to what it may seem like, I do not eat cupcakes every day.

My husband had a special request for something in the chocolate mint category, and I figured St. Patrick's Day was a perfect occasion to try out this flavor combo for him.  When brainstorming, I knew I wanted a dark chocolate cake with a some sort of creamy mint filling, and a refreshing (and festive!) green mint buttercream on top.  I am not even 1% Irish, but who doesn't love a good holiday? Besides. . .  I like to think I look good in green, and these cupcakes do, too.

I adapted the dark chocolate cake and mint filling recipe from Dinners, Dishes & Desserts, and topped it with my favorite buttercream recipe spiked with a bit of peppermint extract.  And what cupcake

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes

Try to be unhappy when you're eating a cupcake.  Just. . . try.  It's pretty much impossible.  Just looking at this picture makes me giddy.

So last weekend, I finally decided to tackle these Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes.  They have been on my list for awhile, but I needed to scour the Internet to find the perfect recipe that had the right balance of chocolate chip flavor in the cake, an eggless cookie dough filling and a fluffy brown sugar buttercream.  And spell check really needs to stop telling me "buttercream" isn't a word because it's going to be a reoccurring theme on this blog.  Obviously.

I hit the jackpot with this recipe from Amanda at Fake Ginger.  It has a dense, chocolate chip flecked cake with a filling that tastes exactly like the cookie dough you sneak while baking that you know you

Fluffernutter Cupcakes

These cupcakes. I live and die by these cupcakes.



I know you're thinking "not such a wonderful picture you have there" but the truth is these really didn't hang around long enough to be photographed in any sort of presentable manner.

Okay, that's a bit dramatic.  But these really are the most amazing cupcakes on the planet.  Sorry, I can't stop.

My husband's dessert philosophy baffles me.  Chocolate and peanut butter all the way, all the time.  Don't get me wrong, it's an amazing combination, and one that I enjoy myself quite often.  But I'm different in the way that I order desserts depending on what mood I'm in at that very second.  Lemon & white chocolate one day could be followed by some sort of chocolate indulgence overload the next, and then next time I'll want something with salted caramel oozing out of it.  This is why it takes me 10 minutes at our favorite ice cream shop at the beach to order - I have to figure out what I'm in the mood for while he looks at the menu, spots "chocolate & peanut bu...." and closes it back up.  There are so many crazy delicious combinations in the world that I can't imagine just limiting myself to one. 
I digress.

These cupcakes were originally found on my favorite food blog of all time, How Sweet It Is.  Jessica is my