Normal Activities: kevin's bd party: cupcakes!!!

For Kevin's birthday cake I wanted to make several different kinds of cupcakes so everyone could have their cake of choice! The only problem is I don't really ever make cake from scratch (I just use a box like most Americans!). But this time I wanted to do it right and so I pulled out my go-to cookbook, the Better Homes & Gardens checkered one, and got to it.

I was so excited that I even got up around 6am on Friday to get started!

I made batch #1 - a basic chocolate. They looked a little like mushrooms, but not too bad and they tasted pretty good so I moved on to batch #2 - red velvet (Kevin's fav) and achieved the same results as batch #1.

Batch #3 - carrot... looked perfect.

Now I suspected that batches #1 and #2 maybe weren't good enough after all.

Batch #4 - a basic white and batch #5 - a basic white with a chocolate chip cookie in the center also turned out perfect and so i knew I had to redo batches #1 and #2 as batches #6 & #7.

That's right I made 7 batches of cupcakes and got done around 1pm - just in time to meet some friends for a lunch break.

Why did the first 2 batches not turn out so pretty? I filled the muffin cups too full. Unlike a box mix, these homemade cupcakes weren't rising all pretty and high, but rather spilling over the edges like a mushroom. Turns out that's pretty common so I wasn't doing anything wrong, other than overfilling.

The icing went really well until my last batch, which was the red velvet. After a little trial and error I ended up refrigerating that icing overnight and then whipping it in the morning. It ended up just a little runny, but not too bad (I'll be sure to post tips when I post that recipe). I got all cleaned up around 10pm. So that was about 12 hours of making and icing cupcakes off and all on day.

But they turned out pretty and tasty and I didn't mind the effort at all, especially since it was for Kevin's big party! If you just make one kind at a time then it's really not all that much work, especially now that learned so many things that I can pass on!

Don't they look great?!