I had been looking for an excuse to make these adorable cupcakes since I saw them on Pinterest a few months ago. Finally, a Starbucks loving co-worker had a birthday and gave me a good reason to get baking. I also happened to have the house to myself the whole weekend, which turned out to be a blessing since these little beauties took all of 5 hours to create.
The original recipe specified every component to be made from scratch- which I normally completely advocate- but if I were to make these again, I would take some serious short cuts. There is the cake itself, the creme filling, the frosting, and the caramel drizzle.
I would use a vanilla box cake mix and add 1 and 1/2 packets of Starbucks Via instant coffee packets. The creme filling turned out weirdly runny so, again, I would take a short cut on that by using cool-whip flavored with 1/2 packet of Starbucks Via and some vanilla. The icing- a sort of Swiss butter cream- was an epic failure, as my cooked icings always are (its my cross to bear in life). So, using what ingredients I had left, I made a traditional powdered sugar and butter frosting that I flavored with- you guessed it- a little bit of coffee.
The caramel drizzle was the only component I would go to the trouble of making again. I wasn't particularly impressed with this version, though. I had a hard time keeping it a consistency that could be drizzled.
Despite a lot of coffee going into these cupcakes, they were not overwhelmingly flavored and were delicious! After the little office party, the leftovers were even hoarded! I only ate one though....I was still a little miffed at the amount of work they took and I punished the cupcakes by only eating one.
Are you wondering how I got those adorable little cups? Well, a heck of a lot of cutting and pasting was involved. First, I searched for a Starbucks logo that was about the size I wanted. I printed and cut out a bunch. I found plain white paper cups at the dollar store and cut the tops off, then glued the logos on. I baked the cupcakes in traditional liners and then dropped them into the paper cup bottoms. After piping the icing on to look like a whipped cream swirl, I cut Starbucks straws into fourths and stuck them in (a special thanks to Julie who spotted me while I grabbed a big handful at the local 'sbucks. They got finished with a caramel drizzle and voila, amazingly adorable little faux Frappuccino's!
Here is the original recipe I found on Pinterest: Starbucks Frappuccino Cupcakes
No comments:
Post a Comment