Side Project Pictures: Sugary Cupcakes

Yikes, January is going by so quickly. I still have so many recipes and pictures to share from the holidays...but the days just keep passing, and I keep not posting. Making matters worse, I've been doing quite a bit of sugar baking lately. I made cupcakes for a staff meeting, and took some quick pictures before I delivered them. My parents taste tested everything, and my fellow workers were full of compliments, so I thought I'd link the recipes. For reasons I don't feel like explaining, most of the of cakes for the cupcakes are lactose-free, though the same cannot be said for the toppings.

I made chocolate and vanilla cupcakes. Though I now realize I didn't take a picture of the chocolate ones, my mom said they were her favourite. I used this Vegan Chocolate Cake recipe. For the vanilla, I used this Simple Vanilla Cake recipe, and substituted the milk with lactose-free cream. I decided to try the topping recipe from Martha Stewart's Hi-Hat Cupcakes. I had a few minor glitches while making them, including a thermometer getting stuck in my beaters, so, for one reason or another, the topping never stiffened appropriately. However, they still dipped without melting, and everyone loved them at work. Too bad about the topping though...Martha makes them look so nice.

For a third type of cupcake, I made an angel food cake recipe from my baking manual, divided it into cupcakes, then filled and topped them with a strawberry puree whipped cream...I just blended some strawberries in my blender, and added them to a basic whipped cream recipe. These were my dad's favourite.

I made a fourth kind of cupcake, from this Flourless Chocolate Cake recipe, for a gluten-free co-worker. She really loved them, but I never got a chance to take any pictures, as I made them the morning of my meeting. These cakes were not lactose-free.

Anyways, that's all for now. I just thought that sometimes online recipes aren't always so reliable, so it's nice to find a couple that have been tried and tested.