I really enjoyed the year of the cupcake, even if the fam has stopped eating them.  I got to share a lot of cupcakes, try a bunch of flavors, and learn lots of new techniques.  Cupcakes are easy to share on a plate, tote or bubble, and don’t need to be refrigerated so that made it easy to spread the love.  I also sold a bunch to support a knitting club.

This past year I learned how to make a moist, domed cupcake, that does’t stick to the wrapper, Swiss Meringue buttercream frosting and orange curd.

My favorite flavors have been:

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough

Salted Caramel

Triple Chocolate

Cherry Almond

Toffee Crunch

Chocolate Orange

Chocolate Truffle

Chocolate Raspberry

Total number of cupcakes: 1026

Unique Flavors: 37

This is the last month for the year of the cupcake.  I would say I am sad, but the whole family has stopped eating cupcakes.  I have an Egg Roll interlude planned before the Year of the Cheese Cake starts in Aug.

To go out with a bang I planned what I thought would be two favorites: Death by chocolate and Chocolate Raspberry.

Death by Chocolate has chocolate cake, chocolate chips in the cake, chocolate cream cheese frosting, topped with chocolate chips and chocolate gauche.

The chocolate raspberry is very good with chocolate cake, raspberry jam filling and raspberry cream cheese frosting.  So yummy!  But raspberries and chocolate are two of my favorite things.

For June I made Strawberries and Cream cupcakes with a white cake mix and Strawberry Fanta soda, stuffed with strawberry Jam and cream cheese frosting.

The second flavor was Chocolate Truffle with chocolate cake, a chocolate truffle center and chocolate Swiss meringue buttercream frosting.  Both flavors were awesome!

For May I made Cherry Dr. Pepper cupcakes (spoiler alert: you can’t taste the cherry or the Dr. P, just the chocolate) and Peanut Butter Swirl cupcakes.

In April I made a chocolate flour less chocolate cake with a caramel Swiss meringue buttercream frosting and a Lemon Blue berry with a lemon cake, blueberry jam filling and lemon blueberry frosting.

Total cupcakes made: 892

Unique Flavors: 31

Both of these were a winner!

March has been a busy month, but unfortunately only a couple of resounding successes.

Cherry Cheesecake Cupcake.  This had a bottom of a vanilla wafer, which was OK, but honestly I found it weird to have a cookie in the bottom.   But the powdered sugar is sure pretty!

This was the unqualified winner of the bunch.  Toffee crunch cupcake.  It had a chocolate cake base, with toffee pieces mixed in.  Then a topping of chocolate gauche that I rolled in more toffee pieces and finally topped it off with caramel Swiss meringue buttercream frosting.   Yummy!

Always on the look out for gluten free alternatives this Chocolate Orange Garbanzo bean cake was OK.  The chocolate gauche topping really improved it.  So I would say it is good for gluten free, but peeling each chickpea might not have been worth it.

The last flavor of the month was Dark Chocolate Brownie with caramel frosting.  I found the caramel frosting waxy, I could even mold it with my fingers, so I greatly prefer the caramel Swiss meringue buttercream frosting from above.  Also, either I over baked the brownies so they were cakey instead of fudgey or that is the way they are supposed to be.  I followed the directions.  I have decided that if you are going to eat brownies, then eat a brownie.

The Stats:

Unique flavors so far: 28

Total number of cupcakes: 785

ONLY FOUR MONTHS LEFT OF THE YEAR OF THE CUPCAKE.

Chocolate Orange

This month I challenged myself with making orange curd.  The chocolate orange recipe is one of my own devising, using a box cake add zest of two oranges, and substitute water for orange juice.  Then make a homemade orange curd and fill the cupcakes (cutting out the middles).  Finally, make a chocolate orange cream cheese frosting by using zest of two more oranges.  I loved it, and work was complementary, but my husband really, really didn’t like it.

Carrot Cake with White Chocolate Frosting

These were good, and I put in raisins and crushed pineapple, so it is practically a salad!

  Rum Vanilla

This has rum in the cake and in the cream cheese frosting.  While it wasn’t enough to become boozy, it was enough to really make the vanilla pop, and if I am FORCED into a plan vanilla cupcake, it will probably be this.

Total unique flavors so far: 24

Total cupcakes made: 659

In case you haven’t added this up, but there are 21 unique flavors, and 566 total cupcakes made so far.  That is in 6 months, so an average of 3.5 new flavors a month.  It is a good time to be my friend!

Black Bottom

Chocolate cake with a cheese cake center.  I had never heard of this, but with tons of recipes online, it must be a cultural touch stone for some.  To me is it like a cross between a cupcake and a cheese cake.

Butterfinger

My husband loves butterfingers, so when I found this recipe, I had to make it!  It is one of my favorites.  It is a peanut butter cake, with butterfinger crumbs in the batter, a chocolate gauche top layer, and a peanut butter butterfinger frosting.

Pumpkin Pie

This was nothing compared to the pumpkin ginger, so I won’t be making again.  Plus, I didn’t use foil wrappers and I really, really should have.  It did have a nice cinnamon clove cream cheese frosting.

Marshmallow Fluff Filled

This cupcake was also a let down.  For the first day it was great, but then the marshmallow fluff dissolved away and left an empty cavern in the middle of the cupcake.  However, I did make my first chocolate Swiss Meringue buttercream frosting.

Almond Cupcakes with Salted Caramel Buttercream Frosting

The cupcake was good, but not overly memorable.

Molten Flour-less

This is intentionally gluten free, which means you don’t have substitutions that make it taste funny.  This had a piece of chocolate shoved in the middle, and then served warm.  It was very tasty.

Xocolati

This is a spicy chili chocolate cupcake with a spicy chili cream cheese frosting.  The cream cheese cancelled out the chili, so I would recommend sticking with a traditional buttercream frosting.  Also, what does that look like?

Apple Pie

It is an apple cake with a cream cheese frosting made into a little nest to hold the apple pie topping- which is delicious.

Cherry Almond

A cherry almond cake with maraschino cherries in the batter, and a cherry almond Swiss Meringue buttercream frosting.  This also, is one that gets talked about.

Chocolate Hazelnut

Chocolate cake with a Nutella filling and chocolate hazelnut cream cheese frosting.  Yummy!

Marshmallow Stuffed

This was not a really successful cupcake.  The marshmallow dissolves away when it cools after baking and when I switched to marshmallow fluff, that worked for the first day and resembled a ding dong, but it too quickly dissolved away, leaving an empty cavity in the middle of the cupcake.