Cupcakes!

This past Thursday I made cupcakes with my little sister.  It seems I'm on a baking spree, but that's because sadly I don't have as much time to cook full meals.  But that's been remedied this weekend with posts to come. 

I've made several batches of cupcakes (especially last year when I went through a cupcake frenzy), but my favorite remains Abigail Johnson Dodge's Emergency Blender Cupcakes from her cookbook, The Weekend Baker (New York: 2005).  They're quick, easy, and--you guessed it--can be made in the blender. 

The recipe makes about a dozen regular sized cupcakes.  I only made 9, however, because I wanted to experiment with mini cupcakes which I hadn't done yet.  The leftover batter made about 6 of the minis and I found they bake very nicely for 9 minutes at 375 degrees.

I also skipped the chocolate fudgy frosting because my sister insised on traditional "sugary frosting...either pink or blue" and we didn't have any sweetened condensed milk on hand anyway.  So I attempted making butter cream frosting but I apparently looked in all the wrong cookbooks for a basic recipe.  I knew it had butter and confectioner's sugar, and maybe a little milk.  So I went with that and made it up as I went along.  The first problem, though, was I didn't add enough sugar.  Apparently a half stick of butter can hold a LOT of sugar!  Secondly, the frosting was lumpy.  Not cool.  So next time I'll try sifting the sugar.