~Bona Vita~

A recent issue of Martha Stewart Living featured an array of cupcakes, each frosted in a beautiful pastel. Inside, recipes for cream-cheese frosting, brown-sugar frosting, and lemon frosting were featured along with seemingly endless recipes for the cupcakes themselves. All were collected into a stunning collage of dramatic photographs. I’ve been hungry ever since.

I love frosting. It’s easy to make. There’s very little measuring involved. (Too thin? Add another cup of powdered sugar. Too thick? Add a drip of milk.) Simple cupcakes can look classy and sophisticated with minimal effort.

Two days ago, Mom whipped up (literally) a frosting to put on some cupcakes of her own. The frosting was creamy. It was thick. The cinnamon and and vanilla and almond all blended together to create a rich, soft flavor. It was scrumptious.Take some time this week to celebrate spring with these lovely cupcakes.

Cupcakes

1 box of carrot-cake mix

1 cup milk

1/2 cup melted butter (1 cube)

4 eggs

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp vanilla

Combine milk, melted butter, and cake mix. Add eggs one a time, beating after each addition. Add cinnamon and vanilla. Beat again. Separate into 18-20 cupcakes, rather than making 24 for large, fluffy cupcakes. Bake at 350° for 16-21 minutes, until toothpick comes out clean. Cool completely before frosting.

Cinnamon Frosting

8 cups powdered sugar

1 cup softened butter (2 cubes)

4-6 tbl milk

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp almond flavoring

1 tsp vanilla flavoring

Whip powdered sugar and butter. Add flavoring. Continue whipping. Add enough mik for frosting to reach spreading or piping consistency. Mom used a stiffer frosting in order to pipe it using a Wilton 1 millimeter star tip (large).  Delicately sprinkle with India Tree sparkling sugar.

Tags: cupcakes

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009 at 8:38 am and is filed under Recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.