Peet's Coffee Inspired Cupcakes

For a while, Peet's Coffee (and they might still have it) had a Mayan Mocha Hot Chocolate - a hot chocolate with some cinnamon and some spice. And I thought that would be best turned into a cupcakes.

Enter the Chocolate Cayenne cupcakes with Cinnamon Chocolate buttercream frosting. They were sweet and they were spicy. And the texture of the frosting was to die for (not to mention my piping job came out awesome). They were gone pretty quickly when I brought them into work. (I was hoping that they would elicit a thank you note the way the last spicy cupcakes that I brought in did, but alas no love).

I would totally make (and eat) them again. I love this frosting, it's probably one of the best buttercreams I've ever made!

Time for Salted Caramel

I decided that it finally was time to step on the salted caramel bandwagon. It seems like everywhere you look people are making salted caramel everything - so I thought it was my turn, with a salted caramel frosting on a mocha brownie. For those that like Starbucks drinks - it's a dream come true.

I used a chocolate cupcake recipe and replaced some of the cocoa powder with a Starbucks Via Instant Iced Mocha Coffee packet. The cupcakes tasted like mocha, but there was no overwhelming coffee flavor for those of us who aren't fans (myself included).

The caramel frosting was really fun to make - I made a caramel sauce first and then beat powdered sugar into that. I ground some Pink Himalayan Sea Salt on top once everything was frosted. It dried hard (harder than a normal American buttercream) on the cupcakes though, so it's not necessarily something that I would want to frost an entire cake with (although maybe I would).

These were absolutely delicious and I would definitely make them again, especially the frosting. I actually still have some caramel sauce in my fridge (I had to make 2 batches of frosting and didn't need all of the second batch) - I should eat that soon.

I finally got the proper tip for piping!

Tray 1 of salty caramel-y goodness

Just look how gorgeous they are

So gorgeous :)

Spicy St. Patrick's Day

With family visiting in early March I had a chance to get to my favorite spice and tea shop in the city. When I was there I picked up some habanero sugar - because I can't resist something new that I've never tried before. Seriously - we have more spices than we know what to do with. I could use a whole cabinet for all our spices (and sugars...and teas).

For St. Patrick's Day, work got a treat with a kick. I made chocolate cupcakes and replaced 2 Tbsp of plain sugar with 2 Tbsp of habanero sugar. They were great. There was the chocolate flavor and then a little kick at the end. I paired them with a Swiss Meringue Buttercream. Personally, I hated the frosting - way too much butter and not enough sugar, but everyone else seemed to like it. I'll take my American buttercream any day.

(I was also super proud about how good looking the frosting came out on these)

Close up - look at that beautiful frosting detail!

My mouth is watering looking at the picture

Chocolate and Strawberries, Oh My!

Yes I know it's months later now, but I really started this whole endeavor of bring cupcakes to work on Valentine's Day.

Valentine's Day cupcakes were Chocolate Strawberry cupcakes with Strawberry Buttercream frosting. When my boyfriend (aka The Boy) tried them, he told me that they tasted professional, and that the strawberry frosting was really good and really unexpected. From then on I started dreaming of different combinations of cakes and frosting and my journey began.

Note: The way I judge if cupcakes/baked goods are good is how quickly they disappear from the common area at work. So far my fastest time has been 24 cupcakes in 1.5 hours.

Chocolate Strawberry Cupcakes with Strawberry Buttercream
Homemade bacon chocolates in the background
Personalized cupcakes in background