Cupcakes! Cupcakes!

September has proven to be quite a "cakey" month.  I had two occassions of multiple dozens of cupcakes to bake, and I really enjoyed the process... so much so that dreams of my own little cakery keep swirling through my head!  Larger cakes are fun to make, too, but there is a certain ease to cupcakes that requires less worry.  Plus, I get to use lots of sprinkles!

In the past I've used a large "star" tip to swirl frosting on the little cuppies, and while I do like how that looks, I decided to opt for the more "homemade" look that seems to be sweeping the professional cupcake circuit.  And locally, there a few little cake shops that frost theirs that way, so I thought I'd give it a try.

Between the two events, the flavors of this month were chocolate/chocolate (always a favorite), vanilla/vanilla (another solid one), vanilla/strawberry (yum!), chocolate/espresso cream, pumpkin/cream cheese, and lemon/blackberry.  For the lemon blackberry cupcakes, I tried a new cream cheese frosting recipe that uses only cream cheese, vanilla, sugar folded into whipped cream.  It was much lighter than the butter based icings I tend to use and yummy!  I want to try it on a full-sized cake- maybe a banana or carrot- to see how well it holds up to piping and decorating. In the mean time, chomp on these pictures! :)