Mint-Filled Brownie Cupcakes

Ladies and Gentlemen...I have found Martha's best cupcake yet! It's chocolaty, fudgy, minty, creamy and chewy, and the best part is, it is so simple to make! The only downside is this recipe only makes 12 cupcakes!!!

While I was making these cupcakes I was worried the batter was too granular (on account of the sugar), but it turned out great!

I used silver metallic liners to play on the chocolate covered peppermint treat that is hiding inside! These cupcakes are so good, no frosting is needed!

Sayks Rating:

Difficulty: *

Taste: ***** the best!

Appearence: **** simple, but who doesn't love a yummy surpirse filling!

Occasions: the perfect desert cupcake, chocolatly, rich and mint! Perfect after a meal!

Who ate them: I was having a few people over to watch the hockey game (we won!)

Roasted Banana Cupcakes with Honey-Cinnamon Frosting

A friend of mine (L.H!) raved about these cupcakes, so I just had to try them for myself! The ingredients were few and simple so I thought it would easy to make at my mom's while I was visiting her for the weekend. I probably should have read all the steps first because between roasting the bananas, let them cool, sifting the dry ingredients, mixing the wet, blending them, whisking the egg whites and folding them in the batter...an hour later i was finally ready to put them in the oven!
I used silicon pans (that's all my mom had) and it worked pretty well, except i didn't use paper liners...i made both regular sized and experimented with mini cupcakes and they were delish!
the honey cinnamon frosting was AMAZING! Alternatively you could leave them naked (without frosting) and have roasted banana muffins!

Sayks Rating

Difficulty: **** (thought not 'difficult', there were a lot of steps)

Taste: ***** ( the honey-cinnamon frosting makes for a sophisticated cupcake)

Appearance: *** (I didn't have my icing tips with me)

Suggestions:( fresh bananas will turn black pretty quickly, so next time I'll use dried bananas for decoration)

Occasions: Luncheons, ladies card games ( my mom recommended that), on the go breakfast (specially without the frosting)

Who ate them: My family ate some and brought the rest to my granny-in law :) the mini's were a hit!

Carrot Cupcake

If I see carrot cake with cream cheese frosting on a restaurant menu, there is no doubt about it...I'm ordering it! So I was really excited to finally make my own in a cupcake! Martha's recipe was generally easy... but the most tedious part ( and i mean TEDIOUS!) was grating the carrots. It took me about 30 minutes to grate 3 carrots...(maybe I need a new grater...or stronger arms lol)

I found this cake light, (both in texture and colour) as some carrot cakes can be pretty heavy! But I found this blended well with the richness of the cream cheese frosting.
I even left half of them naked (without frosting) and ate them as muffins in the morning!

Sayks Rating:

Difficulty: *** (mostly due to the carrot grating!lol)

Taste: **** (with and without frosting!)

Appearance: ** (loved the light colour, but simple)

Occasions: with icing; desert, brunch. Naked; breakfast!

Red Velvet Cupcakes

I've always heard of red velvet cake (specially for wedding cakes!), but I've never actually tried it...until now! I made these cupcakes with a friend...and it's a good thing I did because she was paying attention to how many cups of buttermilk I was adding in! She saved the cupcakes !!! Other than that, this recipe calls for distilled white vinegar, but I just used regular white vinegar and they turned out just fine :) Martha suggests icing these cupcakes with her recipe for cream-cheese frosting...YUM!

Sayks Rating:

Difficulty: **

Taste: *** I loved the airy texture and tangy frosting

Appearance: **** (red cupcake...you can't go wrong!)

Occasions: any classy occasion to bring cupcakes, like weddings or dinner parties!

Who ate them: I brought them to a house warming party and added the house number on the candy chips!