Cupcakes, Cupcakes, Cupcakes!

I think we should rename cupcakes.  They should really be called cutecakes.  I went a little cupcake crazy these past two days.  Baking the real deal and jazzing up some plain ol' greeting cards.  

Let's start with the cards.

 The cupcake cutout stamp is by Martha Stewart (I hate to love her...) and I got it at Michael's along with the stamp.  The ink pad and photo mounting squares I already had thanks to previous (s)crapbooking endeavors.  I had pain white cards with a colored border and plain solid red cards.  With some bright colored/patterned paper I already had and a little bit of time, presto - cutecakes on cute cards!

 I just had a birthday so I need to write some thank you notes.

 

I might like gingham...a lot.

 With the all the red and yellow going on I feel like I should write to Ronald McDonald.

 What's better than one cupcake?  Three.  Duh.

 What's better than one cupcake?  Two gingham cupcakes!

...

What's better than cupcake cards?  Real cupcakes.  Duh.

I have learned this lesson the hard way: make sure you have all the ingredients before you start to measure or mix anything!

 Don't forget the cupcake underwears!

 This recipe called for melted, but slightly cooled, butter.  Which is great because I hate having to wait for butter to sit out and soften.  Yeah yeah, just soften it in the microwave, but I feel like that's cheating.

 The recipe for these pumpkin bad boys said the batter would be thick but that was an understatement...

  Nom nom nom.  Oh wait, we need frosting.

 Those look better!  A little cream cheese frosting never hurt anything.  And by a little, I really mean a rather generous amount.

 

 You could eat your cupcake like this...

 ...or you could make it a cupcake sandwich - easy to eat and frosting in every bite!

So there you go, something actually made by maura!  I'm still looking for that bakery job somewhere though...

I didn't feel like posting the recipe I used since this post is already pretty lengthy.  It is the "Spiderweb Pumpkin Ginger Cupcake" recipe from the collection of recipes in The Cupcake Deck by Elinor Klivans.  My cupcakes did not have any crystallized ginger in them like the recipe originally includes and I also did not do the spiderweb design on the frosting.  It's weird enough I made pumpkin cupcakes in May, I'm not going to go decorate them for Halloween on top of that!