2 Year Old Birthday Cupcakes!

Decorating cupcakes is NOT my forte! My sister is much better at that stuff! My cute 2 year old loves babies, so I tried to make these baby cupcakes look like they were under a blanket. I don't mind sharing my funky failures! This was my first attempt with fondant and I cut it out with a flower cookie cutter to look like a blanket.

I can bake a mean cupcake and my frosting turned out perfectly this time! Hooray!! The cake was a bit more dense than I like, but not bad. Next time, I'll have to look for a fluffier recipe. My husband loves dense though so he was pretty happy with it! I got the cupcake recipe here. The frosting was super yummy and creamy and chocolatey!! I found the recipe here.

Vanilla Cupcakes

Makes 36 or so

3-1/2 cups AP flour
2-1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1-1/2 cups (3 sticks) butter, unsalted
2 cups sugar
4 tsp vanilla extract
6 eggs
3 tbsp canola oil
2/3 cup buttermilk

INSTRUCTIONS

Preheat oven to 350F. Prepare cupcake pan with liners.

In a large bowl, sift to combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

In a stand mixer, fitted with a flat beater, cream the butter and sugar for about 5 minutes until light. Add vanilla. Then eggs, one at a time. (Don’t worry if the batter looks curdled.) Add oil and buttermilk. Slowly add flour mixture in 3 additions and mix until just combined. Try not to overmix!

Fill cupcake liners about 1/2-2/3 full. Bake about 17-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let cool completely before frosting.

Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

• 8 ozs cream cheese, room temperature
• 1/4 C unsalted butter, room temperature
• 4 C sifted powdered sugar (You can decrease this amount if you don't care about it being as stiff for piping)
• 1/2 C cocoa powder

1. Mix cream cheese and butter until smooth and creamy.
2. Mix in powdered sugar, one cup at a time.
3. Mix in cocoa powder