My next cupcake adventure was for a co-worker and current laboratory student. She wanted pineapple and coconut and since I LOVE pineapple and coconut I was more than happy to oblige. The recipe I started with was from The Cake Blog and I knew there was no way I was making pineapple flowers for the top. Her Tropical Cupcakes were a great recipe also and the cake was sooooo moist and delicious. I had toasted coconut at home which I used to top mine and I think they gave it a great crunch and flavor. 5 out of 5 stars.
After perusing the cupcakes at Sweet Pea's Kitchen I decided I wanted to try the Dark Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting. They weren't bad. The cake was a bit on the dry side and I think I'd like to try the Peanut Butter Frosting with the cake from the Samoa cupcakes. Only 3 out of 5 stars, in my opinion.
Sometime in here I also made Chocolate Espresso Cupcakes with Nutella Cream Cheese Swirl Frosting from Feed Your Temptations. Like the dark chocolate ones, the cake was just a bit dry. I think the Samoa chocolate cake was by far the best (and easiest!) chocolate cake I've made from scratch. It might end up my default chocolate cake from now on. The frosting on these was to die for!! Nutella is now my new favorite food. We also had crepes in Cannon Beach that had banana and Nutella in them and they were incredible. We seriously waited in line for 20 minutes on our last day at the beach to get one before we left. Mom's been recreating them at home and I'm not sorry. :) Oh yeah, 5 out of 5 stars for the frosting...3 out of 5 for the cake.
By this time we were into March and I wanted to make something yummy for my own birthday. I also love maraschino cherries and I found some beautiful Almond Maraschino Cherry Cupcakes from Your Cup of Cake. I know that almond extract makes cherries truly taste like a cherry. It's essential in any cherry pie I make. But I was disappointed to see this recipe used a box cake mix! Making a cake from scratch isn't that hard so I found a plain vanilla cupcake recipe to get the ingredient amounts from. Sad thing was that it had way more baking powder in it than any cupcake recipe I had made so far. And the cake ended turning out more like a muffin than cake because of it. :( My first semi-failure. They were pretty for sure, but not the best. I also tried to make cherry frosting, but the juice and the buttercream frosting did not like each other much and the frosting was not smooth and beautiful but kinda mottled. Oh well, they ate fine. 2 out of 5 stars, but only because I didn't truly follow the recipe and got too cowboy with my changes.
I gave cupcakes a rest for a bit at that point. I did have big plans for Easter however. I wanted to make Carrot Cake Cupcakes because, please, anyone who doesn't like carrot cake is crazy. I did lots of research this time and found a moist cake with pineapple and again did my own little adjustments. This recipe came from Just A Taste. I modified the baking time for cupcakes and had to add a bit more flour because the batter just seemed too liquid. They were very yummy and the cream cheese frosting is as close to heaven as it gets.
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