Suzi and I had so much fun making these, and just in time for Valentine’s Day, too! ♥ It’s a pretty simple vanilla cake with buttercream frosting, with a few unique twists. We had a few topping ideas — candy hearts, handmade flags (we used washi tape and heart confetti), pink cotton candy (we couldn’t find any!!) … but our absolute favorite is the candy apple “sculptures” Suzi made.
These are of course inspired by my Pink Sugar Cupcake Soap — get it for 25% off until the end of February!*
Despite my and Suzi’s good intentions, we discovered that not everything makes a delicious cupcake. This month’s cupcake recipe was supposed to be inspired by my Aloe, Juniper! Cupcake Soap, and we definitely made cupcakes. But they were awful.
Turns out juniper berries taste a lot like eating a Christmas tree (I imagine). In searching for inspiration, Suzi and I grew skeptical when we saw that juniper is used mainly to add flavor to meats, but we were slightly encouraged by this recipe for Chocolate Juniper Cake from bon appétit. We opted for a juniper-infused buttercream frosting instead of the milk jam crème fraîche, which was the only thing that was remotely edible. We really wanted to eat them — they were chocolate! — but we just couldn’t. We gave as many as we could to Jon’s bandmates, but even they weren’t in the mood for evergreen cakes. (Sounds like something Hagrid would bake.)
Well, I suppose we’re bound to make terrible cupcakes sometimes. Take it from us: don’t bake with juniper berries!
Happy Winter officially! Suzi and I made these snowball-looking coconut cupcakes for our uncle’s Christmas party this weekend, inspired by my Cuckoo for Coconut cupcake soaps (below), and a recipe from Georgetown Cupcake (though we made a few edits). They’re perfect for holiday or New Year’s Eve parties!
My Cuckoo for Coconut cupcake soap! (You can purchase one here.)
Just in time for Thanksgiving! Suzi devised this delicious recipe for Pumpkin Pie cupcakes, inspired by my Pumpkin Pie cupcake soaps (and pumpkin pie itself, of course). I’m not usually a pumpkin pie fan, but these are so, so good. They’re a little bit dense and much more moist than your average cupcake. The frosting is simply homemade whipped cream with a little bit of cinnamon sugar on top. Yum!
My Pumpkin Pie cupcake soap!
Pumpkin Pie Cupcakes with Whipped Cream Frosting — makes about 14 cupcakes.
Cupcake Ingredients:
We also highly suggest using silicone cupcake liners for these cupcakes. Because they are very moist, they will stick to paper or tin liners.
Frosting Ingredients:
Cupcake Directions:
Frosting Directions:
We quickly ate these at my friend Dave’s on Sunday, and I will be making them again for Thursday. I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving!
I can’t believe we’re already on month 3 for my cupcake recipes inspired by cupcake soaps project! In case you missed them, August was Bahama Mama and September was Citrus & Basil. This Black Cherry cupcake was a really fun experiment. It’s an interesting mix of cherry meets red velvet cupcake meets Mexican hot chocolate. It is based, of course, on my Black Cherry cupcake soap. (Don’t forget to enter to win one ~ details at the end of the post!)
I took inspiration from the cupcake soap’s scent description: “cherry’s badass sister, Black Cherry is sweet like a cherry, with a little spice to it. A robust blend of cherry, almond, orange, and a hint of cinnamon.” For the actual cupcake recipe, I combined cherry, cocoa, almond, cinnamon, and a special spice! I also experimented with a few different ways to make the frosting.
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