For the Love of Cupcakes!

Ever since I saw these Ultimate Chocolate Cupcakes on Pink Parsley last month, they have been on my mind almost nonstop. I intended to make them soon after I saw the post, but being so busy lately, time got away from me and I have still yet to make them. The recipe comes from Cook's Illustrated, so you know it has to be amazing. An intensely chocolaty cake is baked with a dollop of ganache filling. The cupcakes are then topped with creamy chocolate frosting. I am determined to make these soon!

There always seem to be a million cupcakes and other recipes on my list of things to try but I never seem to find the time or purpose to bake as much as my heart desires. Now that my hubby is starting a new job in a few weeks, I'm already dreaming up all the things I can bake for his future coworkers. (As silly as it is, one of my first questions for my hubby about his new job was whether or not I could bake cupcakes for his coworkers.) So, with more baking in my future, I thought I'd share a few of the cupcakes I've seen around the interwebs lately that have caught my eye and been added to my long list of recipes to try.

These Oreo Cupcakes from My Baking Addiction are made from a "doctored cake mix" and are topped with a buttercream frosting filled with crushed Oreos. Now, I usually shy away from using cake mixes, but since these Snickerdoodle Cupcakes were so fabulous, I figure I'll give these Too Much Chocolate Cake cupcakes a try. And from the chocolate pudding mix, sour cream and chocolate chips in the batter, I have a feeling they'll be intensely chocolaty and very moist! Plus I'm very curious to try the buttercream recipe which My Baking Addiction says is her favorite. While I have always gone with all butter in my frostings previously, lately I've really been wanting to experiment with using a bit of shortening to create frostings that are more stable at room temperature. I'd top these Oreo Cupcakes with Mini Oreos. I'm definitely curious to try these out as soon as possible.

These Lemon Cupcakes (also from My Baking Addiction), while so simple in their decoration, are some of the cutest cupcakes I've seen around lately! Something about the sunny yellow baking cups and the single yellow sprinkle atop a creamy swirl of frosting is perfection. I'm going to have to get my hands on some lemon extract to try these, though I might make a few adjustments and create an orange version first, since I have plenty of orange extract in my pantry. After the Lemon Mascarpone Macarons I made recently, I'm dreaming of all the different lemon/mascarpone and lemon/cream cheese combinations I can think of. I love tart desserts!

I saw these Crème Brulee Cupcakes at Bakers Royale yesterday and immediately thought they were genius! I think these would be a great finale for a summer dinner party--classic but playful. I imagine the crème brulee centers of the cupcakes would a perfect creamy contrast to the crumb of the cake. Bakers Royale used Magnolia Bakery's Chocolate Cupcake recipe as the base of these cupcakes, which reminded me that I have been meaning to give their recipe a try.

These last cupcakes aren't technically cupcakes, but they sure are cute! Miniature Reese's Cups have been frosted and decorated and pass as some seriously adorable little cupcakes. Confessions of a Cookbook Queen uses them as cupcake toppers and they sure are whimsical and cute!

Lemon Mascarpone Macarons

This past week I finally found time to bake some more French macarons. I couldn't believe I hadn't made these since last year. Last time I used David Lebovitz's recipe for Chocolate French Macarons with a few modifications. This time I went with Not So Humble Pie's recipe from her fabulous Macaron 101: French Meringue tutorial. I followed her recipe and directions for macarons, save I decided to grind my own almonds after getting crackled tops on some chocolate macarons that I made with Good Foods almond flour (I couldn't find Bob's Red Mill almond flour that she suggested using).

I left my macaron shells plain and colored them with a bit of yellow gel dye. For the filling, I used Not So Humble Pie's recipe for Mascarpone Lemon Filling. I used store bought lemon curd in my filling to save time. Strangely I had difficulties with the texture of the filling. After thoroughly mixing the mascarpone cheese and lemon curd together, I couldn't get the mixture to firm back up, despite an entire night in the fridge. After a few hours in the freezer, the mixture was firm enough to pipe, but would warm back up to a oozing mess. I basically had to pipe a thin layer of the filling on a macaron shell and then let the filling set up in the fridge before I could sandwich with another macaron shell (otherwise the filling would just ooze right out). I'm not sure what caused this problem as the mascarpone cheese and lemon curd separately were both firm while cold before mixing, and Not So Humble Pie's macarons appeared to have a firm and stable filling.

The filling was absolutely divine despite the issues it gave me. I thought the tartness of the filling was an absolute perfect pairing with the sweet macaron shells. Unfortunately I couldn't fill the macarons with as much of the filling as I would have liked, since it would just ooze out. These little macarons were absolutely heavenly nonetheless. I'm dreaming of all the different fruit curds I could pair with mascarpone cheese to fill future macarons. I think a macaron with homemade strawberry curd would be splendid!

Most of my macarons baked up with slightly lopsided feet. I guess it's time that I invest in some new baking sheets and precut parchment sheets.

Lemon Mascarpone Macarons
Ms. Humble's Scatter Plot Macarons + Not So Humble Mascarpone Lemon Filling

* The vintage floral napkin in the background of these photos was from de Epoca, a darling vintage shop on Etsy. I won a gift card from de Epoca back in February and I picked out two sets of lovely vintage floral napkins! I'm sure they'll be turning up in many of my photos.

From Frumpy to Fabulous!

I am crazy about this Before & After over at Design*Sponge today. The makeover was submitted by Joëlle from Umbu Lumière and I think it's fabulous! Something about the finished chair screams preppy to me, which isn't my usual style, but I am absolutely drawn to it. I really love how Joëlle left the two middle pieces on the back of the chair unpainted, while giving the rest a crisp, clean coat of white paint. And that plaid fabric on the seat? Repurposed from an old shirt. How fantastic is that?! This amazing before & after is going to be stuck in my head for quite some time.