Baking Monday – Birthday Cupcakes

Cupcakes this week for a friend's birthday! Sadly, she was under the weather and couldn't enjoy one until a couple of days later. These cupcakes were inspired by this chocolate layer cake ... that chocolate cake plus pink icing just looked like the perfect birthday combo.

I do have a go-to chocolate cake recipe, but am always happy to try something new, and this one was great! I wanted to do a gooey, soft icing but didn't have the ingredients for the cream cheese icing in the original post. After flipping through The Complete Book of Baking, I decided on Seven-Minute icing. It seemed so quaintly old-fashioned, like the kind of icing my grandma would have made. 

This icing is more time-consuming than buttercream, but SO satisfying! (BTW, I should clean the hand mixer, maybe?) It's smooth and glossy, and just when it seems like I've been mixing waaaaay too long ...

BAM! Peaks! We've got icing! This icing does look pretty and is very sweet, though not as flavorful as buttercream, and has an interesting bubbly texture. Even though it wasn't exactly the icing I was hoping for, I did enjoy trying something new. (And one recipe made more than enough for 26 cupcakes, so I may have to make another batch this week to use it all up.)

Here's the big question ... sprinkles or not? I preferred the look and taste of plain, but the kids voted for sprinkles. We ended up with some of each for everyone.