mimosa cupcakes

i've been wanting to make these mimosa cupcakes for a couple of months now and i finally have a reason to. my good friend sarah is coming to town from LA and i gave her a list of recipes i've been wanting to try and she picked mimosa. i don't blame her. after reading the comments on the recipe, though, i decided that i needed to spruce these up a lot so that i (and everyone else) wouldn't be disappointed. i used blood orange juice instead of regular orange juice and right after taking the cupcakes out of the oven i poked holes in each one and brushed champagne on. the reason for the blood orange juice is that it is a more subtle flavor than regular orange juice. i didn't want these to just taste like orange cupcakes. the brushed champagne was to add another layer of champagne flavor in case what was in the batter baked out. 

i completely scratched the frosting recipe they have and made a raspberry blood orange buttercream. i used the wilton buttercream recipe as a base but added a lot more powdered sugar, omitted the vanilla and milk, and put in blood orange juice and fresh raspberry sauce (purchased at central market because i'm too lazy/busy to make my own) to taste. the extra powdered sugar was to make it taste less buttery and also stiffen it up because i put a lot more liquid in it than was called for. the decision to use raspberry was based on the fact that it's tart and after the complaints about this being too sweet, i wanted something to cut that sweetness. 

anyway, on with the pictures, right?

cheap champagne and not so cheap blood orange juice

did i mention these were minis? they're minis!

the finished product, complete with gold dust on top

i had enough batter left over to make this mini cake, or giant cupcake, for my dad. the decorating is a bit sloppy but luckily papi doesn't care :) 

stored in the fridge, waiting for happy hour tomorrow!

chocolate kahlua cupcakes

my mom recently requested that i make some kahlua cupcakes for her. i googled for a recipe and, what do know, annie's eats had one! she's the genius behind the margarita cupcakes i made a few weeks ago, too. i followed the recipe exactly until the frosting, where i used about 4 teaspoons of coffee extract instead of the kahlua that she called for. i think brushing the cakes with kahlua is enough for me and we just so happen to already have coffee extract. the recipe also calls for instant espresso powder which, according to the comments on that recipe, isn't usually found in a regular grocery store but may be found at some specialty shops. well good news for texas residents, they have it at HEB! it really is the best grocery store in the world. anyway, here are some pictures!

key ingredients, kahlua and instant espresso powder

fresh out of the oven with holes poked and brushed with kahlua

coco is going to help me get rid of the rest of the kahlua

and the final product

i'm not even the biggest fan of coffee but these are unbelievable! and, look, i finally used my fancy camera in the kitchen!

trying not to title this with a jimmy buffett song lyric

well, i made the margarita cupcakes i mentioned in my last post! i ended up just doing a classic buttercream with lime and orange because i'm way too tired to fight with meringue tonight. that shit calls for 8 egg whites! you can find the cupcake recipe here and i used wilton's buttercream icing recipe and added 1 teaspoon of orange juice and probably 5 tablespoons of lime juice instead of the 2 tablespoons of milk the recipe called for. oh and a pinch of salt. my cupcakes don't look anything like that picture with the recipe because a) i used a tiny bit of green food coloring in both my cupcake batter and icing b) i used a different icing technique and c) i topped mine with sugar (some with salt) rather than lime zest because, guess what, people don't actually want to eat lime zest. at least i don't. it's fine baked into something but not as a topping. also, i brushed some of the cupcakes with tequila before icing them.

i should also add that this was enough for more than 24 cupcakes. after i filled both cupcake pans i had enough batter to fill a small bread pan so i baked a little cake as well. and the after i iced the cupcakes there was also enough icing left to ice said little cake.

anyway, here are a bunch of pictures that i took of the whole process.

step one: creaming 2 sticks of butter with 2 cups of sugar

lime zest/juice!

dry ingredients

green and white gingham cupcake liners

adding eggs to the butter and sugar 

green food coloring

i cheated...i bought this just in case my 6 limes weren't juicy enough and, sure enough, they were super dry

batter just before being scooped in to the pans

fresh out of the oven

brushing tequila 

butter, shortening, and vanilla for the icing

finished icing

tada!

the ones that are brushed with tequila are also topped with salt

the rest are topped with green sugar