Cupcake Wars Remix

This past weekend Cynda and I decided we would make delicious cupcakes for an eater treat. We are both fans of the show Cupcake wars and love to bake. So we picked two very different cupcakes to make. The recipes actually come from the Cupcake War website!

Chocolate Strawberry Shortcake

I loved both but this one was my favorite. It was little lighter than the other. It was also 100% vegan (thank you Chloe from C.W.) But you wouldn't have known. The strawberries added to the light feeling of the cupcake as well as added a bit of freshness to it. We used a simple vanilla buttercream (with vegan butter) frosting to act as a binding agent between the strawberries and cake. It was delicious and presented beautifully! I would highly recommend it!

Caramel Apple Cupcakes with Vanilla Bean Cream Cheese Frosting and a Carmel Drizzle

This was truly a rich and decadent cupcake. It was simply delicious, but not a cupcake you could eat 2 of in one sitting. While making the cake we started to panic a bit. The last step was to add the chopped 4 apples. Before we did that we had all the other ingredients mixed and the consistency was more like a cookie dough than a batter. Obviously I had never baked like this with apples before because as soon as I blended them in the juices of the apples mixed right in and changed the "dough" into a DELICIOUS "batter" (no but really, we were licking every thing to get a good taste of this batter. And don't worry once it had been licked it was put in the dishwasher :) The vanilla bean buttercream was also full of flavor. We couldn't find vanilla paste but used the pure Vanilla instead. I think it turned out just fine. The carmel drizzle was the perfect finishing touch. You felt like you were eating a carmel apple in cake form. YUM!

Cynda and I also enjoyed frosting these cupcakes. We really felt like pros using the frosting bags and using some of the technics we saw on Cupcake Wars!