Airmail Cosmopolitan Cupcakes

Last weekend, I baked some cosmopolitan cupcakes in jars to mail out to my aunt's coworker. During her training process, this woman had been particularly helpful and my aunt wanted to send her something to thank her.

Dozen cupcakes boxed up and ready to ship

After discussing a few flavor options, we settled on my cosmopolitan cupcakes, the very first cupcake I ever posted on this blog. They are raspberry cake with lime frosting and hot pink sanding sugar sprinkled on top.

Before the lid went on

It's been really hard to find time/energy to bake anything outside of class, so I was happy for this opportunity. These went out on Monday and were received in Pennsylvania on Tuesday. Hopefully they were enjoyed!

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

I'm starting to sense a theme here this week with my cupcakes...alcohol. Hmm... Tomorrow's Cinco de Mayo and I have an order this weekend that includes 3 dozen margarita cupcakes. Being as I've never tested my margarita recipe before, I felt this was the perfect opportunity. Now I'm going to push these off on my coworkers tomorrow.


After getting out of work late, I ran around Hoboken picking things up for these cupcakes - limes and tequila. I found the tiniest, cutest bottle of Patron and had to have it even though it was twice the cost of Jose Cuervo (but still only $5). Usually I hate tequila (it is my absolute least favorite shot at a bar), but I love the idea of these cupcakes.

Sugars & salt before I mixed them

The cupcake is a lime cake, covered with the tequila lime frosting and rimmed with combination sparkling sugars and course salt. After downing a whole box of Kraft mac & cheese when I got home, I'm not hungry enough to want to eat cupcakes now, so I'll have to wait until tomorrow for an official cupcake review.

Cupcake + Booze = True Cinco de Mayo Love

I'm Officially Anti-Zest

It's been on the fence for a while now, but after the lime frosting I made Sunday, I'm officially declaring myself anti-zest. This probably should come as no surprise to me or those who know me very, very well being as I loathe tiny things with weird texture (don't even try to put parsley on my food or I will pick it off one tiny leaf fragment at a time), but the discovery seemed somewhat novel to me. As I had thrown about half a tablespoon of lime zest into the frosting, I started to question what purpose it served. Isn't the rind garbage? Why am I suddenly incorporating it into perfectly good icing? Or any food for that matter.

Mainly though, as with a lot of foods for me, it ultimately came down to the texture. As I sampled a spoonful of the delicious, sherbet-like frosting, I kept getting tiny pieces of zest that ruined the entirety for me. So as sad as I am to do this, I will likely be retiring my $15 microplane zester I recently bought. While it is fantastic, and I do love kitchen gadgets, for the time being, I have determined zest is just not for me.

On the texture front, I recently thought to make blood orange poppy seed cupcakes, but was unsure how the poppy seeds would fit in with my texture dilemma. I really hate to make cupcakes I won't eat (thus my lack of enthusiasm for anything with nuts, coconut or banana), and I shy away from most seeds. Look for my attempt at blood orange (no poppy for now) with vanilla bean frosting cupcakes tomorrow!

Cosmo Cupcakes - Take 1

For my first baking post, I decided to recreate the Crumbs cupcakes I was sad to miss when Sex and the City premiered. As anyone who has seen SATC can attest, the most prominent drink in the show is the Cosmopolitan, and the bakery made a non-alcoholic cupcake rendition. Their creation was a hot pink raspberry cake with pale lime frosting and a rim of pink sugar. Unable to find a raspberry cake recipe I trusted, I adapted the Sprinkles' strawberry cupcake recipe from Martha Stewart Living. By accident, I used double the raspberry puree than the recipe called for, but it turned out better than when I made the strawberry ones for my birthday this year.

Straining the puree into the milk

Cupcake Ingredients:
2/3 cup raspberry puree (either fresh or frozen-thawed- works)
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup whole milk, room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, room temperature

Cupcake Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Line a 12-cup cupcake tin with paper liners
3. Puree raspberries in blender or food processor
4. Strain puree to remove seeds and combine with milk and vanilla
5. Cream butter on medium-high speed in mixer until pale and creamy. Add sugar and beat on high until well-combined and fluffy (about 5-7 minutes). Add eggs one at a time and beat well
6. Whisk dry ingredients together to combine
7. Slowly add dry ingredients to mixer on low. Alternate with with puree/milk mixture. Do not overmix!!
8. Divide batter evenly among cups. Bake until cupcake tops spring back when touched- Approximately 20-24 minutes. Let cupcakes cool completely before icing

Frosting Ingredients
1 stick butter
3 oz. cream cheese
1/2 pound sifted confectioner's sugar (1/2 a standard bag)
3 Tbsp fresh lime juice
2 drops green food coloring

Frosting Directions
1. Cream together butter and cream
2. Slowly add sugar, mixing well
3. Add lime juice and food coloring

My friend Lauren was entirely skeptical when I called her this morning to let her know what kind of cupcakes she could expect to find when she came over tonight for the Oscars. She wanted more vanilla (which is my favorite, but I just made them last week), and claimed that because she doesn't like red velvet (for the record, my red velvet are the best), she wasn't going to like these. The only similarity between the two is the color family, and the batter even turned out to be more purple than pink.

My purple raspberry cake batter

Next time I make this cake, I would like for it to be more bright pink and less purple. The only way I could think to achieve this would be substitute the raspberry puree with raspberry extract and a lot of pink dye. Even if I keep the raspberry puree next time, I think I'm going to add at least 1 tsp raspberry extract for a more pronounced raspberry flavor.

Slightly blurry, but fully cooked

The frosting was perfect. What made a big difference, I believe, was that I sifted the powdered sugar before adding it to the butter/cream cheese. It had a less granulated feel than a lot of frostings usually have. Lauren and I both agreed it tasted like lime sherbet. After frosting the cupcakes, I rolled the edges in pink sugar to replicate the sugar that rims a martini glass.

This was actually one of the easiest baking experiences I've had in a while, probably because I wasn't attempting to make 120 mini cupcakes in a 4 hour period before 20 guests arrive like I usually am. Additionally, I was very conscious of keeping my kitchen clean during the baking process so everyone didn't have to know what state of disaster my kitchen is usually in during my baking experiences. I'm trying not to embarass my mom here and lead her friends to believe she taught me poor housecleaning skills.

The finished product

I even won Lauren over with the cupcakes; she took three home with her. She probably would have still preferred vanilla, but these were pretty good considering it was my first attempt at this recipe and flavor combination.