Cupcake Baking Frenzy

Rewind 24 hours or so to last night's dinner... I ripped up some organic kale, and gave it a little love rub with avocado.  In other words...you massage the avocado into the kale so that the kale softens.  Any kind of oil tenderizes kale and makes it easier to eat and digest.  I sprinkled it with sea salt, let it sit for 10 minutes or so and topped it with leftover quinoa from the night before.

It was absolutely delicious and really satisfying!

All right, let's get back to my day and the highlight, which could be summed up in one word - Cupcakes! And we all know that any day full of cupcakes is a good day!  My dad has his annual karate car wash, garage sale, bake sale and BBQ tomorrow, so I thought it was a great time to whip up some treats for the customers waiting for their cars to be rubbed with dirty, sandy water washed by some kiddo's!

I have been drooling over Courtney's blog and cupcakes for over a year and have never tried them out. Why? I have no idea...so I figured today was a great day to experiment!

I decided on two different kinds.  Her infamous Neapolitan Cupcakes and Orange Cream Soda Pop Cupcakes! For the full recipes, visit her wonderful blog!  I assure you it will be 2 hours  10 minutes well spent!

The Neapolitan Cupcakes were up first.

To make it easier on myself I decided not to make the batter from scratch and use a white cake mix instead.  I followed the instructions on the box, just as Courtney advises, divided them equally into 3 different bowls.  This is the vanilla layer.

Here is the strawberry layer, with strawberry jam!

Chocolate layer with melted semi sweet chocolate chips and cocoa powder.

I put down about 1 heaping tablespoon of the strawberry mixture first...

then came the chocolate...

and then of course the vanilla....

popped in the oven at 350 for 16 minutes and voila!

these babies smelled amazing...just like cupcake/ice cream.

I made a batch of her ice cream icing - yeah, you heard me right - and dyed half light pink and left the other white.  I put half white and pink in the pastry bag and piped it on hoping it would create a swirled effect.  I guess it sort of worked.  

Maybe if I dye the icing a little darker pink next time!

Topped with a fresh raspberry and popped in the fridge ready to go for the morning!

Oh, they are just so pretty!

Next up - Orange Cream Soda Pop Cupcakes!

All of the ingredients put into a bowl and mixed with an electric mixer until well combined!

Put in 24 + muffin tins, baked at 350 for 15 minutes and voila!

Perfect cupcakes!

topped off with the more flavourful, orange icing that you must make asap!  I added about 1 tsp more of grated orange zest to really zest it up!

These really taste like an orange creamsicle!  Seriously so good!

Now go ahead and find any excuse to make either of these.  Your friends/family/colleagues will love ya for it! Promise :)

Goodnight

xo