Birthday Cupcakes

I'm baaack to blogging. August and September were brutal work months- literally 10-12 hour days almost everyday for most of August and most of September. And I just didn't have the energy to bake and blog about during that time.  But I think things are back to normal and that means coming home at decent hours and time and energy to bake, cook and blog! Oh yey!


So on to it-- my mom and sister both had birthdays in September, but we didn't get to celebrate until yesterday. And what better way to celebrate with super yummy cupcakes?! Honestly, they were really good and pretty darn easy to make. I used a cupcake recipe from The Pioneer Woman's blog. They were amazing! I didn't like her frosting though, as I had full intentions to make chocolate frosting from scratch that would not be a buttercream, but still be able to pipe up into a pretty mound of frosting. [Side note: I just can't knowingly eat frosting as butter. It just isn't right. And the one time I did try and make a buttercream frosting it tasted like butter. And I don't want to eat butter outright.]
Unfortunately, I forgot about the cocoa powder  to make chocolate frosting, while at my local Target and settled for a frosting mix from Trader Joe's. Sadly I didn't get a pic of their new chocolate frosting mix, but it was good. And though the recipe called for 6 tablespoons of butter, I settled for 1 melted tablespoon and lowfat milk instead. Because of this I ended up with the same shiny chocolate frosting which was awful to pipe since it doesn't hold it's shape, but turned out to be perfect with these yellow cupcakes. So if you're looking for a taste of childhood of yellow cake and chocolate frosting, this recipe and cupcakes are for you!

Cupcake Recipe adapted from The Pioneer Woman: (basically just switched whole milk to 2%)
- 2 cups Cake Flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- pinch of salt
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
- 1 cup sugar
- 3 Eggs at room temp
- 2 tsp vanilla
- 3/4 cup of 2 percent milk

Frosting:
- 1 box of Trader Joe's Chocolate Frosting mix
- 1 tbsp melted butter
- 1/4th cup 2% milk

Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Sift flour, baking powder and salt
3. Using a mixer, cream butter and sugar until fluffy
4. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well
5. Add vanilla & mix
6. Using a spatula, fold in 1/3rd of the flour mixture, followed by 1/3rd of milk
7. Repeat this 2 more times
8. Fill lined muffin tins with 3/4ths full of batter
9. Bake for 20 minutes or until light brown and cooked through
10. Cool thoroughly
11. For frosting, melt butter and add to frosting mixture. Add in half the milk and mix in. Keep adding the remaining milk until you get a consistency you like.
12. Frost your cupcakes and eat them up! Yum!

I really need to get a camera that isn't my iPhone