Cupcakeathon

For a bridal showering coming up I signed up to make the cake...That seemed like a rather large task, since cake is not one of my favorite desserts and if I am making a cake for many to see and enjoy I would want it to look good, say a three tiered decorated cake.  Since, there was no way I was going to manage that task right now, I figured the next best thing would be to make cupcakes.  So, I thought I needed to practice my cupcakery skills to make sure I am not bringing crappy cupcakes.  I gathered a few recipes and started baking.  All together I made 72 cupcakes, crazy I am aware.  All were recipes I found off of Pinterest, but I tweaked them all to accommodate to my laziness.  Since I love Coconut Cream pies I decided I had to try Coconut Cream Cupcakes.  I was not in the mood to make the cupcakes from scratch so I used a white cake mix instead and to make them better I used coconut milk in place of the water.  They were delicious, however next time I make these I think I will add more of the coconut cream filling to the cakes.  And, because I made a chocolate cake mix for another cupcake I used some of the coconut filling to fill those as well.  Both were great, however the coconut cupcake ones were better than the chocolate filled with coconut filling.
Next up were Chocolate Peanut butter Cup Cupcakes.  These I knew Bryan would like since he is a chocoholic.  To make these extra chocolaty I used a chocolate cake mix instead of a white and to enhance the chocolate flavor I substituted coffee for the water and only used peanut butter frosting instead of the combo because I was not in the mood to figure out how to do the swirl with two frostings.  These were also good, except for some reason the peanut butter cups sunk to the bottom of the cupcakes instead of being in the center.  And, because I am lazy I only put peanut butter cups in half of the cupcakes and the rest stayed plain chocolate cupcakes and the other half were filled with the coconut filling and topped with whipped cream.
And, for the best cupcakes, in my opinion were Vanilla Cupcakes with Lemon Filling.  These were by far my favorite cupcakes.  As with the others, I made them the lazy way and used vanilla cake mix, substituted milk for the water, and zested some lemon into the mix.  The filling took longer than expected, but was well worth it.  And, I did not make the meringue because I do not have a hand mixer so they were topped with homemade whipped cream and lemon zest.  I think next time I make these I will try some lemon juice in the batter to make it more lemony or maybe use pineapple juice instead of the milk to make it more tropical...
All in all this was a successful baking experience, especially since all tasted very good.

Ashley says I am nesting, maybe I am, but I thought after the baby is born I will probably not want to do something like this for awhile.  And, this is good practice for all the little ones birthdays that we will be celebrating in the next year!