Cupcake Upgrade
Plain vanilla cupcakes are delicious, but a bit boring. What if I told you there was a way to take one batter, and customize it to your liking?! Of course, with baking, altering ingredients can seriously mess up your recipe. But by keeping the same recipe with some small additions, you can completely transform your cupcake into something unique successfully! You would never know that they came from a simple batter.
You can use any vanilla cupcake batter- even a cake mix! (gasp),
OR
With the help of my trusty taste testers, I came up with some favorite flavor combos:
Cookies and Cream
Funfetti/Birthday Cake
Pb Banana (creds to my fav cousin for that one)
Chocolate
To customize each, I added different yummy goodnesses to the batter and made a different frosting:
Cookies and Cream
First, crush up some Oreo cookies and mixed them into the vanilla batter (I recommend 18 for a 24 cupcake recipe). Using a different flavor Oreo is also fun, just made sure it is not double stuffed.
Next open some (non-crushed) Oreo cookies making sure that there is frosting on both halves and place them frosting side up on the bottom of the cupcake liners before filling them with the batter.
For the frosting, vanilla buttercream- click here for my buttercream recipe– and added a half of an Oreo to the top for decoration (who doesn’t love extra Oreos?).
Funfetti/Birthday Cake-
This one is pretty plain tasting (not that that is bad) but also plain fun. Just add you favorite colored sprinkles (😍) to the batter before baking! I love this one because the sprinkles brighten up the whole cupcake- it is a confetti cannon in your mouth 🎉.
I Frosted these with vanilla buttercream- click here for my buttercream recipe– and colored the frosting pink with 1-2 drops of red food coloring (because everything tastes better when pink).
Peanut Butter & Banana
To make this flavor combo, mash up 2-3 bananas and add them to the batter. Top it off with peanut butter marshmallow frosting (yes that is as heavenly as it sounds). The bananas changed the consistency of my batter so I added 3 tablespoons of flour to the batter.
PB Marshmallow Frosting -You must make this right now. Like stop reading this and go make it.
2 sticks unsalted butter, Softened at room temperature
3 1/2 sifted icing sugar
2 cups of marshmallow fluff
1 tbs vanilla extract
1/2 cup peanut butter
1.Place butter and peanut butter in a stand mixer and mix on high speed using a paddle attachment.
2. Slowly add Icing sugar with the mixer on low until it is well incorporated.
3. Add marshmallow fluff and mix on high for about 2 min or until light and fluffy.
Chocolate
For these, I left the batter the same but I piped chocolate cream cheese frosting on top. You might feel a little uncertain with the combination of cream cheese and chocolate but trust me, it tastes like chocolate mousse clouds.
Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
4 tablespoons milk
4 cups confectioners’ sugar
1/4 cup butter, softened
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
In a bowl, beat together the cream cheese, 3 tablespoons milk, confectioner’s sugar, butter, vanilla, cocoa, and cinnamon. Beat in additional milk if its too thick.
So, there you have it!
Now you know how easy it is to show yourself through a simple dessert. It is so easy to customize desserts to your or your friends’ liking. You can use different extracts, food colorings, fruits, or decorations to make them your own! Go hang out with your oven, you wont regret it.
Keep to muffin around the kitchen 😉.