Bald Cupcakes

So what do you do with a million cherries when you can't bake a pie?  Seriously.  I bought some fruit from a stand earlier this week, and I ended up with zillions of cherries.  So I Googled recipes with cherries.  Luckily, I came across something I could bake.  Cherry chocolate muffins!  I'm obviously more of a cupcake fan than muffin, but let's be honest, a muffin is basically a bald cupcake.  But the best part is that because they're muffins, we can eat them for breakfast too and not just dessert :)

I told you, LOTS OF CHERRIES!

The little guys just out of the oven

I think they'd be really good with a light icing on top, but butter is good too... since they are muffins :)

Just so you can see how many cherries were left after making these...

Don't they kind of look like this cute cupcake I got for my birthday???  :)

Birthday Sprinkles

Marcus turned 25 and was feeling a bit... old.  He definitely isn't old, but I think it was more of a graduation into the next phase of life realization.  :)  So to help him feel younger, I made some cupcakes for him to share at work.  Super chocolatey with bright colored liners and sprinkles.

They turned out pretty cute, even after the subway ride to his office...  ;)

Learning to Decorate

Earlier this week, I went to an activity where we got to learn some cake decorating techniques and practice with the frosting tips on cupcakes. Here are my attempts with a few of them.

Here's our group's cupcakes, minus the few we'd eaten :)

Faceless

It's been a long time since I've seen a picture like this around here...

And I must say, the frosting is looking a TON better now. I'm finally figuring it out :) Though because I want to practice the cute swirl, I haven't done much fancy decorating on the tops.

So these guys are called faceless cupcakes because we were given the assignment at Church to bring a treat with a face. And after days of thinking about what to do, I came up with nothing. Not one single idea. So they have stripes and spots-- bodies with no faces...

But they are pretty cute, if I do say so myself :)

Black Friday Cupcakes

On Black Friday, basically everyone has to work. It makes sense. And we always have a potluck lunch. The store provides meat and potatoes, and we bring all the sides and desserts. I had no idea what to make. So I went to my default-- cupcakes :) But I didn't want to make a heavy, chocolate, or pumpkin cupcake, since we'd probably have lots of those flavors. Plus, Doug's been bugging me to make him a vanilla cupcake. So I did a white cupcake with a pretty swirl vanilla frosting. I've gotten a little better at frosting them.

Then I decided I wanted to make them look a little fancier.

I thought they turned out really good. And I love the cherry-- it almost makes them look a little more Christmas-y with the gingerbread boy liners. Hopefully they'll taste good too!

Chocolate Oranges

Last weekend, Marcus and I had a chocolate orange. Those are so good! I love Christmas time :) Well, I know it's not really Christmas time yet, but come on, I work retail. Christmas starts in October. Anyway, I was inspired for this month's Third Sunday (on the Second Sunday) dinner's cupcakes. The frosting didn't quite turn out how I planned, so I improvised. And I must say, I think I like this better.

They're orange chocolate cupcakes with orange chocolate frosting, topped with... wait for it... orange zest and chocolate pieces. Go figure ;)

YUM!

Jack-O-Lanterns

Isn't it amazing that it's already the end of October??? Seriously though. Crazy! For Halloween, I decided to make... CUPCAKES :) I never really got into the whole carving pumpkins/costumes and whatnot, but I tried to be a little festive with pumpkin cupcakes. They don't taste like pumpkin because I thought that was more for Thanksgiving, but they almost look like them:

And Marcus obviously had some fun decorating the pumpkins too

We have Jack-o-lantern cupcakes!!! Can you guess which one is my favorite???

Do you spy Jack the Pumpkin King? the pumpkin that's a basketball for Halloween? a pig? Ron Weasley? Ha.

Here's my favorite... Obviously :)

And Marcus' favorite. "He says RAWR!!!"