The Little Bee's Bday Cupcakes

Im still recovering from the dizzying amount of cupcakes for the Little Bee's bday party in school. The cupcakes were Strawberry Shortcake - inspired (the Kid's current favorite character). Two sections of 4-year olds feasted on these cute little things. I was a bit paranoid baking my own to feed the little mouths, so I was very strict on hygiene more than ever. I dont ever want to encounter other parents complaining of upset tummies. But its hard to have upset tummies with sweet little things fortunately. They keep well overnight on room temperature just covered with foil, still unfrosted of course.

For the cake, I used the amazing one-bowl Amazon Cake, with some slight modifications. Instead of white sugar, I made it half-half with firmly packed brown sugar. I found it is a lot moistier with the substitution. Next time, Im going to try all brown sugar and see how it goes. And since Im making cupcakes, I reduced the baking time to half. This is the basic recipe, though for 50 cupcakes, I had to increase everything 5-fold.

Amazing Cake

Adapted from Cafe Beaujolais by Margaret Fox and John S. Bear

Serves 6-8

1 1/2 cups flour

1/3 cups unsweetend cocoa (Double Dutch Dark)

1 tsp. baking soda

1 cup sugar ( I used half-white, half-brown)

1/2 tsp salt

5 T corn oil

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

1 T cider vinegar

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Whisk together the flour, cocoa, baking soda, sugar and salt. In a separate bowl, whisk together the oil, vanilla and vinegar with 1 cup cold water. Whisk in the dry ingredients, blending until completely lump-free. Sccop into cupcake pans with liners. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool before removing from the pan and frost.

The frosting recipe is from Billy's Vanilla Vanilla Frosting recipe. I ran out of vanilla though, and luckily had Lemon Extract, which worked out beautifully especially for the kids' tastes. I found some gummy red berries, and used this to top the cupcakes.

Im quite happy with the results, and will surely do this again. It was a hit with the kids and were all gone after class!