cookies and cream has long been my favorite ice cream. usually anything to do with cookies and cream is right up my alley! soooo, in honor of my favorite flavor, i decided to make cookies and cream cupcakes! talk about yummy! i used a new icing recipe this time, a basic confectioner's sugar icing. it was heavier than my normal buttercreams, and i would like to toy with it a bit in the future, but it was still pretty damn tasty!!
i thought these were hysterical!!! they are shown on cupcakes take the cake blog, but i wanted to share them with everyone... they're cars!! how cool is that?!
2008 was the first year i have ever enjoyed eating something with pumpkin in it! i absolutely fell in love with a pumpkin bread i made at work... i made it all fall for myself and others!! when my roommate from sweet briar came in town this fall, we decided to see how the bread recipe would fend as cupcakes... they were a bit heavy, but had great flavor paired with a cinnamon marscapone buttercream we made!! in staying with the pumpkin theme, i topped them with pumpkin seeds to give them another texture dimension. in the end i will definitely try to recreate the cinnamon marscapone buttercream (which people were licking off the top of the cupcakes), but will probably have to play around with the cake to make it lighter.
i made these for miss emily for her 26th birthday this year. they are the same chocolate cake recipe i used for my christmas cupcakes, but had a caramel icing instead of the buttercream. i haven't really been a big chocolate cake eater for a long time, but these cupcakes have turned me onto the dark side! i topped them with brown sugar, which is in the icing, as a garnish and they looked great! chad ate one in maybe two bites, if even... we also gave an extra one to our waitress at wild ginger, and she came running back to the table saying it was one of the best cupcakes she had ever had! 
i made these for christmas this year... they were originally supposed to be meant for miss ashley celia, who's demands included, but were not limited to the following: chocolate, chocolate, and more chocolate. sooo, i decided to make the chocolate cake recipe i adopted from my boss' collection, which has a secret ingredient that helps make it so insanely moist... mayonnaise! i then made a chocolate buttercream, which i put just a drop of peppermint extract into, to give them more of a holiday twist... they were incredible!! i honestly could have eaten the entire batch in one sitting!
sugarsugar