Martha Stewart's Pumpkin Cupcakes with Chef Cheryl's own Pumpkin Cream Cheese Frosting

Halloween Screamin' Demons Cupcakes

Martha Stewart's Wicked Witch Cupcakes

Made some more Halloween cupcakes this weekend and decided to experiment a bit. I knew I wanted to make Martha Stewart's Wicked Witch Cupcakes, but instead of using one of her cupcake recipes, I had been wanting to make my Mother-in-law's Golden Glow cake recipe and see if it would produce good cupcakes. I filled the liners a little more than 3/4 full, but unfortunately, instead of the cupcakes baking up with nice puffy tops, they baked flatter, so the tops looked like pancakes. I was disappointed that this happened, so I took a knife and cut off the pancake-looking parts and then whipped up a batch of raspberry hazelnut butter cream frosting to top them off.

Turns out, the cupcakes were DELICIOUS. Didn't look that great, but tasted amazing. Isn't that the way...

So, I will definitely make the golden glow recipe again, but will fill the liners only 1/2 full OR will add a little more baking powder so the tops puff up more. Also, will definitely make this frosting again, but will not color it green next time - that was kinda weird...the color didn't match the flavor. Next time, the frosting will be colored pink or lavendar.

Guess bakers need to continue to experiment and be prepared for an occasional flop. But sometimes, the experiment doesn't flop - it just presents information that you need the next time you make a particular recipe to make it better.

Martha Stewart's Wicked Witch Cupcakes

Martha Stewart's Mint-Filled Brownie Cupcakes

These don't look real fancy, but they were GOOD!!! I whipped up a batch of mint cream cheese frosting for the tops and that seemed to really bring out the peppermint patties baked into the batter. Of course I had to eat one just to see if they were any good and after the first bite, realized I had better package these up and give them away IMMEDIATELY before I ate all of them myself! This recipe only yielded 12 cupcakes - thank goodness!!! Would definitely make them again and am thinking they would be really great right out of the oven with a scoop of mint chocolate chip ice cream on top - yum!

Martha Stewart's Mint-Filled Brownie Cupcakes - jazzed up with Mint Cream Cheese Frosting and Halloween Decos

Still more photos

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Photos from our Cupcake Crawl

1st Annual Cupcake Crawl in NYC

This past Saturday was the first of what will hopefully become an annual tradition: our NYC Cupcake Crawl. The purpose? As if I or anyone really needs a reason to eat cupcakes??? Seriously, though, there were 3 goals: To find the best vanilla cupcake with vanilla frosting, to find the best overall specialty cupcake, and to have a fun day in the big city with our dear friends and fellow cupcake appreciators (yes, that was another of my made up words, but it seemed appropriate).

There were 4 of us in attendance and we visited 9 different cupcake bakeries. While initially, I had planned for us to purchase a total of 2 cupcakes at each place: one had to be vanilla/vanilla and for the other, we would all decide together which of the specialty flavors to choose, we actually wound up getting 4 cupcakes at one of the bakeries, 3 at another, and 2 at the rest. Just couldn’t seem to decide on just one specialty cupcake at Magnolia or Billy’s Bakery.

The plan was that once we had successfully collected all of the cupcakes, we would then go to our new favorite beer bar, The Peculiar Pub, to conduct our taste test. Everyone knows that cupcakes go better with beer (or, in my case, wine, but beer is also fine by me).

So, 4.5 hours later, after walking, and cabbing it through the West Village, Tribeca, Soho and East Village in the sometimes pouring rain, we made our way to PP with our cupcakes and were ready for our tastings and ratings assignment.

Here’s a list of the bakeries visited and cupcakes tasted:

Magnolia Bakery: Vanilla/Vanilla, Chocolate/Chocolate, Hummingbird w/cream cheese icing and S’mores.

Sweet Revenge: Vanilla/Vanilla and “Sweet Revenge” which is a vanilla cupcake with chocolate ganach filling and peanut butter frosting.

Tribeca Treats: Vanilla/Vanilla and Peanut Butter & Jelly which is a peanut butter cupcake with peanut butter frosting and jelly drizzled on top.

Billy’s Bakery: Vanilla/Vanilla (called Yellow Daisy), Pumpkin with cream cheese frosting and Banana with cream cheese frosting.

Babycakes: Vanilla/Vanilla and Carrot.

Sugar Sweet Sunshine: Vanilla/Vanilla and Pistachio with pistachio frosting.

Baked by Melissa: These cupcakes were not regular-sized; instead, they were basically ½ the size of a mini-cupcake and they had the audacity to charge $1/each. Highway robbery!!! Against our better judgment, we stuck to the plan and tried some. They did not have Vanilla/Vanilla, so we tried 3 other flavors: Tie Dye, Mint Chocolate Chip and Cookie Dough.

Cupcake Stop: While this was not included in our original itinerary, while we were in a cab on our way to Baked by Melissa on Broadway in the Village, we spotted the cupcake truck, so we jumped out of the cab to try some (which was a good thing since the cab driver was insane and was ranting and throwing f-bombs about Obama and his radical left wing administration and we just had to get out of that car…). At Cupcake Stop, we picked up an Oreo Crumb cupcake and a Chocolate with vanilla icing (they did not have Vanilla/Vanilla).

We judged each cupcake on 4 categories: Visual Appearance, Taste of the Cake, Taste of the Icing and Overall Rating. Each category was on a scale of 1 – 4 with 1 being outstanding, 2 above average, 3 average and 4 awful.

Now for the results……drumroll please…….

Best Vanilla cupcake with vanilla icing: Tied between Magnolia and Sweet Revenge

Best Specialty Cupcake (any flavor): Sweet Revenge’s “Sweet Revenge” – gotta get a room and be alone with that one – it was absolutely yummy! Also best was Billy’s Bakery’s Banana cupcake with cream cheese frosting.

Honorable Mention: Magnolia’s Chocolate cupcake with Chocolate frosting, Magnolia’s Hummingbird cupcake, Tribeca Treats’ Peanut Butter and Jelly Cupcake, Billy’s Bakery Pumpkin cupcake with cream cheese frosting, Sugar Sweet Sunshine’s Vanilla/Vanilla and also their Pistachio cupcake with pistachio frosting.

Worst Cupcakes Ever: Baked by Melissa – all of the flavors were awful. As my friend, Sue commented, “Melissa, step away from your mixing bowl!” Also awful were Magnolia’s S’mores cupcakes – Magnolia, we’re so disappointed in you – stick to what you do best: Vanilla/Vanilla, Chocolate/Chocolate, Vanilla/Chocolate and Chocolate/Vanilla. We appreciate that you are experimenting with new flavors such as Hummingbird, but seriously, what were you thinking with the S’mores cupcakes? Could you at least have taken the crumbled graham cracker out of the batter and instead, put one on top of the cupcake instead? The cake was really gritty and was just plain yucky! Tribeca Treats’ Vanilla/Vanilla: the cake was really gross and the icing tasted like pure waxy shortening.

Best overall experience: Billy’s Bakery for the bakery’s atmosphere, décor and vibe. It was just so kitchy and vintage with the old-time refrigerator, pastel colors and retro pie tins on the wall. We loved it there! Sweet Revenge was the most unique bakery as the cupcakes all looked amazing and they have a bar there, too! We’re looking forward to going back one day soon and experiencing their wine/beer and cupcake pairings. Definitely my kind of bakery!

Well, folks…there you have it! I have never eaten so many cupcakes in one sitting and am still in a sugar coma 2 days later, but what a fun day and a great experience! I’m officially “off” cupcakes for a little while and feel so guilty about my caloric intake this weekend that it has motivated me to temporarily put down my mixing bowl and start an exercise program. Don’t worry, though….once I can successfully undo the damage, I will be back on cupcakes for certain. Still have at least 160 Martha Stewart cupcake recipes left to bake…so stay tuned…

Cool billboard spotted in Union Square - San Fran

Trip to San Fran and a visit to Kara's Cupcakes

Our recent trip to San Fran would not be complete without a visit to at least one cupcakery. I had seen Kara from Kara's Cupcakes on the Martha Stewart show a while back and so I looked up the location and it turned out to be very convenient - right in Ghiradelli Square at Fisherman's Wharf. We had heard there was a Chocolate Festival in the Square on the weekend we would be in town, so planned our cupcake caper around it. How great to spend the day around two of my favorite foods - chocolate and cupcakes! Now, make it a chocolate cupcake and it's double the fun!

My hubby chose the chocolate cupcake with raspberry buttercream frosting and I selected the fleur de sel, which is a chocolate cupcake with chocolate frosting and salted caramel inside. Both cupcakes were good - I was especially impressed by the frostings because they were not too sweet, but were really creamy. The only thing that was a negative for us was that we felt the cake was too moist and soft and it didn't hold up to the frosting on top. We both had to eat our cupcakes with a fork because they fell apart with the first bite. Some may consider moist cake to be a positive, not a negative, but it wasn't that we would have wanted the cake to be stale, it's just that we enjoy cakes that are a bit firmer.

Of course, this did not prevent us from finishing every last bite of those cupcakes - that would have been foolish to say the least and very wasteful...all-in-all, I would recommend Kara's Cupcakes. That being said, my all-time favorite cupcakes remain Vanilla with Vanilla from Magnolia in the West Village in NYC. Let's see how our first Cupcake Crawl goes on 10/3...we will be visiting 7 cupcake bakeries in NYC to see which has the best Vanilla with Vanilla and also, to see which has the best unique flavor combination. I will report back after this event to let you know where we went and whether or not any other cupcakery will de-throne Magnolia.

Martha Stewart's Meyer Lemon Cupcakes

Martha Stewart's Tres Leches Cupcakes

Martha Stewart's Apricot Glazed Black and White Cheesecakes

Pretty Summer Cupcakes with light purple buttercream and irridescent pastel sprinkles

Martha Stewart's Sharks and Dunes Cupcakes

Chocolate Chip Cupcakes with Mint Buttercream Frosting turned into Martha Stewart's Sharks and Dunes Cupcakes. This counts as 2 recipes as the Chocolate Chip Cupcakes recipe is also from her Cupcakes book. Only 168 more recipes to go...