Lessons in Baking: Vanilla Cupcakes

I decided to bake the cupcakes for Sophie's birthday (and also decided cupcakes would be more manageable for all involved rather than a full cake) and I kinda remembered last minute and was trying so hard to find one of those super low-sugar and low calorie recipes that uses like applesauce instead of flour and sugar or something but I wasn't sure how to search for those and nothing was coming up, so in the end, even though the recipe I found was called "Healthy Cupcakes for Toddlers" and as I was making it I was thinking huh? What a misnomer - didn't notice anything different, still normal amounts of butter, sugar and flour. Oh well.

I did homemake half the frosting again (using the Top Shelf Rolls recipe) which turned out great. I will say that the order of events for the cupcakes and instructions did make them turn out lighter and fluffier, so that was nice!

Sophie's special cupcake to blow out!

Lessons in Baking: Top Shelf Rolls Orange Cupcakes with Chocolate Fudge Frosting

Making our way through Top Shelf Roll recipes, I actually baked the orange cupcakes with chocolate fudge frosting last week in advance of the Flying Flags weekend to take up with us.

This one was rough because yet again I was battling dealing with Sophie while trying to bake and barely remembered to take any pictures as it was, let alone trying to get everything accomplished, but it worked out in the end.

Ingredients prepped separately

Altogether now

Totally forgot a before shot of them
going into the oven (but I don't think we're
missing much of anything from that)

Here's what really takes these over the edge:
spreading the warmed orange marmalade
over the top of the warmed cupcakes
before frosting them!

Homemade frosting coming up!

Whip it. Whip it good.

Frost it. Frost it good.

Et voilà!

They turned out good, although a little dry on my end, but I blame myself because of how distracted I had to be while I was working on it all. Better luck next time (but still amazing and worth trying yourself!)