Strawberry Orange Cupcakes and Triple Chocolate with Caramel Frosting Cupcakes

First, I need to be less "off the cuff" when I cupcake.  More on this later.

This Saturday I made Strawberry orange cupcakes and Triple Chocolate Cupcakes with Caramel frosting.

First the chocolate.

I started with Duncan Hines Decadent Triple Chocolate Cake mix.  This is a two part mix with a chocolate cake, and a fudge mixture with chocolate chips to drop in.  I used the standard box mix substitutions.  Use always milk instead of water.  Always add an egg.  Always use butter instead of oil.  And, Paula Dean taught me to add 4 tablespoons butter.  (This turns a box from two rounds into three rounds, fyi)

This resulted in, what my sister termed "The best chocolate cake batter I've ever licked off a beater."

I always make mini cupcakes.  Minis make more to share around.  They also make it easier for people to accept.  It's hardly a huge piece of cake, so people will eat a mini cupcake with a smile.  In order to fill the cupcake liners without having to tediously spoon into them, I fill a pastry bag with the batter and squirt it into the liners.  So much easier than spooning.  Especially since this recipe required spooning the fudge mix into the batter.  The box yielded 48 mini cupcakes

Once I had the cupcakes cooked off, I busted out the frosting.  I didn't want to choco-coma anyone, so I chose caramel frosting.  I had Duncan Hines Creamy home style caramel frosting.  It was truly creamy and not very pipeable.  So I attempted basket weaves anyway, just to practice the basket wave.  I did that for 12 cupcakes.  Then smoothed on the rest.

Then I headed out to the family for feedback.  Mom enjoyed it.  Grandfather loved it.  But he's a chocoholic.  Sister loved the cake but said the frosting was gross.  I tried the frosting. It's less of a caramel.  It tastes more butterscotch than caramel. It wasn't the perfect match.  I boxed up a dozen and a half to take up to church, boxed a few to take to the brothers at their man-cave and started in on the Strawberry cupcakes.

I had a box of Pillsbury Strawberry moist supreme cake mix.  I decided I wanted to make it a little more flavorful.  I squeezed two oranges so I had orange juice.  The mix calls for 1 1/3 cups water.  So I put 2/3 cups orange juice and 2/3 cup milk.  Then I did the 4 egg butter for oil plus butter substitutions and loaded my pastry bag.  I filled 7 dozen mini cupcake liners.  and I began to bake them.

This is where I realized I should plan ahead.  I didn't have any powdered sugar to make butter cream.  I did have Pillsbury strawberry frosting.  This frosting is pretty tasty and suprisingly pipeable.  But i'd had visions of little pink and orange flowers on the cupcake tops.  I also had no gel coloring.  So I had to improvise.

I'd intended to go see X-Men last weekend, but it was preempted.  I bought a box of chewy Lemonheads and Friends to sneak into the theatre (I know.  I'm an awful person).

So, when the cupcakes were cool, I piped little petals and stuck a chewy fruit sour in the center.

The strawberry cupcakes were popular because they were so "cute".  Also, since they weren't coated in frosting they weren't as sweet.  Everyone loved them, though notably, Grandfather preferred chocolate.  See note: Chocoholic.

I don't think they were super successful.  There wasn't as orange a flavor as I would have hoped.  They were super buttery, though

What I learned for next time:

-Plan Ahead, have supplies on hand.
-Never try to pipe "creamy" Duncan Hines frosting
-Don't give sister caramel frosting
-use less butter when adding orange juice, because the butter over powers the orange juice - maybe not use the butter in fruity cakes.


Next Cupcake Saturday I'm going to try a recipe I got in a book called "Mojito Cupcakes."  These are a lime/mint scratch cupcake recipe with a rum butter cream frosting.  I have a bridal shower on Saturday to attend, so it's likely my cupcaking will be delayed till after father's day, though I am making deviled eggs for the shower, and I might pipe the filling and post pictures.

Pictures from this weekend: