Cupcake Queen

Just call me the Cupcake Queen. Or Martha. I'll answer to both.

Thanks to a tutorial I found on Pinterest, I now know how to bake those beautiful cupcakes you see all over the internet and in baking books/magazines - the ones that raise up out of the liners with their pretty little dome shape and look amazing when you ice them. You know what I'm talking about? This might not be newsworthy for some of you baking pros out there, but this "pin" rocked. my. world.

I was skeptical at first. But then I tried it and was literally squealing with excitement in the kitchen when I pulled my cupcakes from the oven! Poor husb ran in like something was wrong (or on fire... wouldn't be the first time) only to find me looking like a mad woman in my mismatched oven mitts screeching "OMG I'm going to be the BEST room mom! I'm going to bake cupcakes for ALL of our kids parties!" Psycho. I know. Seriously though, how pretty are these cuppycakes I made?!

Pretty!!! I was so proud of myself. I was baking these for a friend's birthday dinner that same evening, and even though I used a boxed mix for the chocolate cupcakes I wanted to fancy up the icing and decorations bit. After some extensive Googing, I decided on a caramel buttercream frosting with crushed up Heath bar on top! Chocolate Caramel Cupcakes... yum!

For the icing, I loosely followed a normal butter cream recipe and added about 1/2 a bottle of Smucker's Caramel Sunday Syrup. Since the caramel syrup thinned it out, I had to add a little extra powdered sugar and even a little flour to that the icing didn't run off of the cupcakes. I piped the icing on with my Martha Stewart reusable pastry bag and sprinkled crushed up Heath on top before the icing set.

They were delish. In hindsight, I would probably melt caramels for the icing myself rather than using they syrup next time, just to get a thicker, firmer texture for the icing so that it could stand up more rather than lay flat. These cupcakes tasted homemade and fancy even though they were not 100% homemade and so easy to throw together last minute. Thankfully, the birthday boy got to enjoy one before the hot Georgia sun melted them to goop in the back seat of our car while we were in a movie after dinner... *tear* let's not talk about it!

Everyone was impressed with my baking skills. And the cherry on top? I didn't even know until we showed up to dinner, but apparently Heath bars are the bday boys favorite candy. What are the odds??

Try these out the next time you are pressed for time and looking to add a gourmet, personal touch to even the simplest dessert! And don't forget the little trick to get them to bake perfectly, you won't regret it! ;)

P.S. Need/want a Pinterest invitation? Let me know, I'll send ya one!