Ingredients for 12 cupcakes:

• 4 oz. butter, preferably unsalted
• 10 oz. icing sugar

Method:

Take the butter out of the fridge, put it in a bowl and let it melt at room temperature until it becomes soft. Then cream the butter by steering it with a wooden spoon. This should take you about 5 minutes. In a separate bowl, sift the icing sugar, then start adding it to the cream butter, one spoon at a time, mixing continuously. It’s strongly advisable to sift the icing sugar, not necessarily because of the impurities it may contain, but because it usually forms lumps which would be very difficult to get rid of, once you mix the sugar in the butter cream. Sifting will help you obtain a fine buttercream icing for your cupcakes. Another useful tip for the perfect homemade buttercream: don’t mix it too much, especially if you decide to use a kitchen mixer instead of the wooden spoon, because it would lead to air bubbles formation inside the mixture. These bubbles are a real pain and they would spoil the effect of your cupcakes icing.

Optionally, you can add a few drops of food coloring and flavors such as vanilla extract or almond extract. Colored extracts would change the color of the frosting, so you need to buy clear extracts if you want to prevent that. Please be aware that the color of this buttercream icing is not pure white, because the butter itself is not white. If you need a perfectly white frosting, then you should replace the butter with shortening, but that’s already another cupcake icing recipe.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 pound cream cheese
• 1/2 pound whipped cream
• 1/4 pound white chocolate
• Food coloring (optional, if you don’t want the frosting to be white)

These quantities should be enough for at least one dozen cupcakes, but if you spread it thin, it can be enough for two dozens. It usually depends on how thick you like the frosting to be, so what works for me may not be the same for you. Anyway, after you try the homemade frosting once, you’ll know how many cupcakes you can decorate with such and such quantities.

Method:

In a bowl, mix the cream cheese with the whipped cream. Melt the white chocolate (steaming is my favorite method). Add the melted chocolate to the mix, blend everything well and you’re done. The cream cheese frosting goes very well with fresh fruit and gelatin toppings, for creating refreshing and original cupcake recipes.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/glamour_junkie/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Most of the times, cupcake recipes are based on flour and baking powder, plus ingredients that give the color and the flavors. However, there are recipes likes the one described below, which don’t call for baking powder, thus being faster and easier. As cheesecake is an all times favorite of both kids and adults, cheesecake cupcakes would surely make a memorable dessert and an excellent food for parties.

Ingredients for 24 cheesecake cupcakes:

• 3 oz. cream cheese
• 1 cup flour
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons sugar (white or brown, your choice)
• 1/4 lb. butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2-3 oz, pkgs. cream cheese
• 1 teaspoon sour cream

Method:

In a bowl, blend together the 3 oz. cream cheese and the butter until they are mixed well. Add the flour. Blend well until you obtain a homogenous mixture. Divide it into 24 small balls and press them into cupcake tins. It’s easier to make equal balls if you follow this procedure: split the batter in two equal parts, then each part into two equal ones and so on, until you get your 24 cheesecake cupcakes to be. Take care not to fill the cupcake molds completely, because you’re going to add more on top of this batter.

Beat 2-3 oz. pkgs. cream cheese together with the sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla and 1 egg all together in a bowl. Spoon the mixture in the cupcake tins, on top of the batter you’ve already filled in.

Preheat the oven and bake the cupcakes at 350 degrees F for 20 minutes. You can check them after 15 minutes to see how they are doing.

After the cheesecake cupcakes are baked, let them cool, then spread 1 teaspoon sour cream on each and 1 teaspoon jam or jelly for topping. Strawberry jam is just perfect. For festive occasions, you can use themed hard sugar decorations or jelly candies.

Ingredients for one dozen cupcakes:

• 1 1/2 cups cake flour (whole grain flour is also good)
• 1 cup sugar (it can be brown sugar if you’re too health-conscious to eat refined sugar)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon vanilla (liquid)
• 1 teaspoon apple vinegar
• 3 tablespoons cocoa
• 5 tablespoons melted butter
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup water

Method:

Put all solid ingredients in a bowl, make three holes in the mixture and pour in them the vanilla, the vinegar and the melted butter (drop each ingredient into a hole). Add a cup of water on top, then mix everything very well.

Pour the chocolate cake batter into a lined cupcake pan, put it in the pre-heated oven and bake it for 20 minutes at 350 F. You can try the cupcakes with a toothpick after 15 minutes, to see if they are done. Stick one of the cupcakes in the middle. If the toothpick comes out clean, you’re ready. If not, let them bake five minutes more. Take the pan out of the oven and let the cupcakes chill before frosting them.

Depending on the occasion, you can use this chocolate cupcake recipe to bake birthday cupcakes, Easter cupcakes, Thanksgiving or Halloween cupcakes. Just buy the appropriate decorations and let your imagination run.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cakegirl/ / CC BY-ND 2.0

Here’s an idea for decorating baby shower cupcakes, which may not be original but which can’t go wrong. The photo shows cupcakes with fondant icing and small sugar flowers as additional decorations to the baby faces. However, you don’t have to use fondant if you don’t want to. Your homemade cupcake icing can be as good, if not better, because you know exactly what ingredients you’ve been using to make it. As for the letters, you can buy a pack of those candy cake decorations, like the ones we’ve illustrated here below or some Haribo Gummi candy alphabet letters.

Cake Mate Candy Cake Decorations

These letter-shaped candies come in a pack of 12 alphabet sets, four sets for each of the following colors: pink, yellow and blue. That’s good, because if you have a lot of guests, you may need to bake several dozens of cupcakes for your baby shower party, therefore you’ll make use of a lot of letters.

Before decorating the cupcakes with letter toppings, you’d better make a sort of arrangement scheme on paper, in order to be able to count how many instances of each letter you need for creating the words you want. Of course, you’ll want to write “baby” at least once, but you can also write other things such as your favorite baby names, some vows or even short quotes from your favorite poems.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kristinausk/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

Using only letters can quickly become boring, so you may want to alternate “text” cupcakes with “image” ones. You can use hard sugar cupcake decorations to make flowers or some multicolor sprinkles for creating some pieces of mouth watering art. Just look at tis example of cupcakes for a baby girl baby shower party: they surely are cute, especially the ones topped with big pink flowers.

The cupcake frosting for this kind of toppers can be either white, cream or some other pale color. Dark colors may not be such a great idea, so it’s better perhaps to avoid them. There are no special cupcake recipes for baby shower. Any cupcake batter will do, so you can take any recipe you like and instead of its common icing use the themed decorations.

Ladybug Cupcakes Hard Sugar Decorations

Back to our ladybug cupcakes, here’s an example of edible hard sugar decorations available on Amazon for as little as $6.58 for 16 pieces. Made 100% from sugar and food coloring, these decorations are Kosher certified and safe for children’s consumption. Even so, children parties should be closely supervised by adults, because a small child could choke with such decorations if left unattended.
The sugar ladybugs are 1 inch in size, so each cupcake would probably accommodate only one on top of it. Nonetheless, if you decide to use the decorations for a bigger cake, you can arrange the cute little bugs around some hard sugar flowers. The effect on your little party guests is guaranteed.

Crazy Bug Flexible Silicone Pan

This flexible silicone baking pan allows you to bake not only ladybug-shaped cupcakes, but also butterflies, bees and dragonflies. Just prepare your favorite cake butter or muffin mix, pour it into the mold, bake it and add some colorful icing to reproduce the various bugs’ looks. The kids would be sorry to eat their dessert because they will want to keep it. This cupcakes pan measures 10 3/4” x 8 ¼” x 1 1/4″, it is dishwasher safe and can be used in the hot oven up to 450 F. One pan bakes 8 cupcakes, muffins or gelatin figures.

Ladybug Cupcake Boxes

These paper boxes are great for kids parties, if you want to send your guests home with a sweet treat. This way, they will remember the great time they spent at your party. The boxes are made from thick paper and they feature an adjustable insert which allows cupcakes to remain undamaged. The price is $3.99 for a set of four ladybug cupcakes boxes. They are just so sweet!

In this article, I want to show you a few ideas of decorating your cupcakes for Easter. The cupcakes themselves will be baked following your preferred recipes, with chocolate, vanilla, bananas or whatever other flavor you may like.

Assorted Edible Candy Confetti Sprinkles

These candy confetti sprinkles are available on Amazon for the price of $2.69 the 1.5 oz. jar. Being edible, they are perfect for cupcake decorating in case there are children amongst your dinner guests. The jar contains a mix of candies in shapes of little ducks, chickens and bunnies, in various pale colors such as blue, pink, orange, yellow and white. The candies are certified Kosher and they contain the following ingredients: sugar, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil (cottonseed, soybean), dextrin, soy lecithin, corn starch, carnauba wax, confectioners glaze, natural and artificial flavors and artificial coloring.

The Easter Cakes Decoration Sugar Pantry 1 Kit

This decoration kit has really cute items, but some of them could be a bit too big for cupcakes topping. Anyway, this is what you get for your $25.81:

• 3 bunny heads edible hard sugar decorations (2 inches, colors blue, pink and yellow)
• 4 beau bunny heads with bow ties (smaller, perfect for decorating Easter cupcakes)
• 4 chicks sugar shapes (1-1/2 inches, all yellow)
• 6 carrots sugar shapes (2 inches, orange carrots, green leaves)
• 3 large Easter eggs sugar shapes (2-1/2 inches, various decorations)
• 12 smaller speckled Easter eggs
• 15 lily flowers sugar shapes
• 18 Easter mini charms edible hard sugar decorations (great for cupcakes topping)

All sugar shapes in this Easter decoration kit are made 100% from sugar with certified food coloring. Before buying, make sure to read the product label, because they may contain small amounts of other things such as soy protein, egg whites, modified food starch, guar gum, Trietryl Citrate, wheat flour or barley flour. These edible decorations are certified Kosher.

Wilton Floral Collection Flower Making Set

If you want to make your own cupcake toppers, you could use one of these sets which will help you make gum paste flowers that look quite realistic. The set includes 24 plastic cutters, a leaf mold, 2 foam squares for modeling, 3 modeling tools and a book with instructions for use and cake decoration ideas. The set is designed to be used with gum paste, but it works with fondant, too. It’s fairly easy to use, but sophisticated models like roses may require some practice before they come out perfect. Anyway, cutting your own Easter cupcakes decorations is an excellent opportunity to involve the children in the dinner preparations, thus enabling them to develop their craft skills.

Cupcake ingredients:

1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
5 tablespoons melted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vinegar
3 tablespoons cocoa
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup water

Baking the cupcakes:

Mix all dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Make a hole in the mixture and add the wet ingredients: the teaspoon vanilla, the teaspoon vinegar and the melted butter. Now pour in 1 cup water over it all. Mix well.

Spoon the cupcake batter into a lined cupcake tin, making sure to fill the cups only by two thirds.  Bake the cupcakes in the oven at 350 F. They should be done in about 30 minutes, but it would be good if you checked them after 20-25 minutes. Try one with a toothpick – if it comes out clean, then cupcakes are done, you can take them out. There’s no need to buy special Easter liners for these cupcakes, because you’re going to give them the bunny-face frosting, so the cupcake lining won’t be that visible. Just simple, plain liners would be very good.

This bakes 12 cupcakes. The frosting ingredients that follow are also calculated for 12 cupcakes.

Bunny face frosting ingredients:

• White icing
• Shredded coconut
• Pink decorating sugar
• Pink jelly candies
• Blue or green small, round candies
• 24 big marshmallows
• 48 small marshmallows
• One tablet of plain milk chocolate, melted

Method:

Apply the frosting evenly over the cupcake top, then dunk the cupcake into the shredded coconut bowl, for making the fluffy bunny face. For making the bunny ears, use a pair of kitchen scissors to cut the marshmallows, then shape the pieces with your fingers until they get a rabbit ear shape. You’ll see that the surface resulted from the cut is all sticky. Dunk it into the pink decorating sugar: you’ve just made the nice, pink interior of the bunny ears. Apply the ears on the cupcake, as shown in the video below. A pink jelly bean will make the cute bunny nose. Two blue or green dot candies will make the eyes. Two smaller marshmallows will make the bunny cheeks. The lady in the video then uses black decorating gel to make the eye pupils and pink decorating gel for the bunny whiskers. I like doing those with melted chocolate. I just use a cake decorating syringe, fill it with melted chocolate then make the pupils and the rabbit whiskers. Maybe I’m a little bit conservative, but I tend to avoid using food colorants, decorating gels and other such stuff, because I fear they might be harmful.

Here’s the Easter cupcakes video:

What Are Cupcakes and Why Are They Popular?

But what is a cupcake and what makes it so special? If were to look at a classical definition, a cupcake is a small cake baked in a muffin tin or in an individual pottery cup, ramekin or baking cup, yielding one serving, which can be eaten using solely the hands. Most cupcake recipes call for frosting, sprinkles or other decorations, but there are also versions of plain cupcakes. In the UK and Ireland, cupcakes are known as fairy cakes. Cupcakes can be served at tea time, at parties or any time you crave for something sweet.
Like muffins, cupcakes have been around for decades. It’s not clear whether muffins are cupcakes without frosting or cupcakes are sweet muffins with a frosting decoration, but they managed to stay popular because of a few simple facts:

1. Cupcakes are fun: you don’t have to be a child to love those cute little sweets with colorful icing and mouth watering sprinkles on top. If adults like them, it’s easy to imagine that children love them. Ask a child to help you bake some fancy cupcakes and you’ve got her in the kitchen for life.
2. No tools are needed to eat a cupcake. This makes them the ideal dessert for parties, as you eliminate dishwashing or buying disposable plates and spoons which look and feel so cheap. Cupcakes are baked in special paper liners, so your guests won’t even get their hands dirty when enjoying their dessert. Lately, there is a growing trend of serving cupcakes at weddings, instead of a wedding cake. In this case, the cupcakes would be arranged on a stand in order to form a cupcake tower, resembling the traditional wedding cake.
3. Small portions help controlling the intake of calories and of various nutrients, especially if you bake the cupcakes at home, so you can control what ingredients go inside them. You may say there’s no difference between eating ten cupcakes and eating ten pieces cut from a big cake. Indeed, there’s no difference, but psychologically, you’d stop when seeing those cupcake liners piling in front of you. Well, at least some of us would stop.

Got Cupcake Recipes?

Send us your best cupcake recipe with a photo and we are going to publish it in our special Guest Cupcake Bakers section, giving you full credit for it. It’s another chance for you to prove your skills and to meet like-minded, cupcake loving people. All of you are welcome to give your feedback and to rate cupcake recipes submitted by other readers. Based on the number of votes, we are going to award The Best Cupcake Recipe of the Month, which will come with a prize (which for now is a surprise).