Strawberry Cupcakes

Want the taste of summer in a cupcake? This is it! Martha's Strawberry Cupcakes with strawberry Meringue Buttercream frosting!

The recipe is pretty easy, the most time consuming part is chopping the strawberries for the cake, the buttercream and the garnish!! I even went a step further and picked my own strawberries! But Martha does give alternatives such as using jam for the frosting or even using a simple sweetened whipped cream instead ( strawberries and whipped cream...yum! )

I really found this recipe was like eating fresh strawberries...it's definitely a keeper!

Sayks Rating:

Difficulty: **

Taste: *****

Appearance: ***** (classic cupcake swirl topped with chopped strawberry)

Occasions: Picnics, summer get-together, showers,it's even kid-friendly!

Blondie Cupcakes

This is another winner folks! I like to describe this cupcake as a "Blonde Brownie". It's chewie, light, nutty, filled with butterscotch and toffee bits! No icing required! Need I say more??

Now i accidentally overcooked these cupcakes ( when the timer went off, I was watching 'Law and Order", and thought: " oh I'll just take them out at the commercial, and forgot about them!!" but they were STILL delicious! I"ll definitely be making these again!

My husband described these cupcakes as: " More flavour then you would expect from a cupcake" :)

Sayks Rating:

Difficulty: *

Taste: *****

Appearance: **** simple but sooo good!

Occasions: since there is no frosting, and don't need to be refrigerated, they are great to bring anywhere!

Who ate them: My husband brought them camping with the boys!

One-Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes

What's in a name? Everything with this cupcake! It's as easy as a Betty Crocker or Duncan Hines boxed cake mix!

The recipe does however ask for buttermilk, which I don't like buying because you can only buy it in a 1 litre carton, and so much goes to waste. This time, I used a trick one of my readers recommended, which was spiking regular milk with vinegar. And it worked just fine!

This cupcake was light and airy, I even made them into mini bite-size cupcakes!

Martha recommended using Swiss Meringue Buttercream, but I used Martha's Fluffy Vanilla Frosting ( my favorite)...YUM!

Sayks Rating:

Difficulty:*

Taste: ****

Appearance: ****

Occasions: This is one of Martha's 'Go-To' cupcakes and mine to!

Who ate them: I made them for my sister's graduation!

White Cupcakes with Pastel Buttercream Peaks

This recipe is fairly simple to make and the ingredients are as basic as they can come ( Every baker has them on-hand in their pantry). SShhh The secret to the 'white' cupcake is Martha only uses egg whites, (instead of the whole egg).

The best part of these cupcakes were the way they were decorated! The peaks turned out great! I would suggest filling the piping bag with frosting and let it cool in the fridge for a few minutes before you start piping so the peaks come out and stay strong.

I have to say these weren't my favorite cupcakes, but I will definitely be decorating cupcakes like this again! Simple yet impressive...An amateur baker's dream!!!

Sayks Rating:

Difficulty: *

Taste: *

Appearance: *****

Occasions: Since the peaks remind me of fireworks, anything worth celebrating!

Who ate them: I was testing these out for a wedding, so I passed them out to my neighbours!

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!