Easter Cupcakes

WOW! Everything is starting to look like Easter around here! The daffodils are in full bloom. Some of our tulips are starting to show their colors and the plastic eggs are begging to be hidden! I don't know about you, but I love this time of year. And to make things even better, today we had 80 degree weather here in the beautiful Bluegrass state.

We took a nice little trip out of town yesterday and today, so when I got back tonight I was ready to get back into the swing of things. And what better thing to do than bake?!! Since our girls were such angels the whole trip I decided they needed a little early Easter treat. We don't do the typical candy filled baskets so instead I treated them to a yummy Funfetti Cupcake! But this is not just any old cupcake, this is one special recipe from my fabulous Adopt-A-Blogger friend, Clara!!!! I showed you earlier her IHeartFood4Thought site, but she also has this sweet cupcake baking talent she shares on IHeartCuppycakes.

You can see her original post for this recipe above. I tried to stick to the recipe since I'm not much of a cupcake chef and Clara knows what she's doing!

Makes 12 cupcakes

For funfetti cupcakes
1-1/4 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup sugar
6 tbsp unsalted butter, room temperature
1 large egg + 1 egg white, room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract (I was out of vanilla so used almond ext. instead)
1/2 cup half and half (I accidentally used 1 cup- worked well)
2 tbsp rainbow sprinkles

Clara used a buttercream icing but I tried a cream cheese instead.

1/2 block neufchatel cream cheese
2 cups powder sugar
1/4 tsp lemon extract
2 tbsp skim milk

Let cream cheese come to room temperature. Place block of cheese and sugar in bowl and beat with electric mixer until smooth. Add extract and milk gradually until creamy. Spread on top of cool cupcakes. Make sure to refrigerate cupcakes or the icing will run away. Haha! Found this out the hard way.

Preheat oven to 350degrees.

Line cupcake tin with liners.

In separate bowl, sift flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside. In a stand mixer, fitted with flat beater, beat the sugar and butter until well combined, about 2-3 minutes. Add egg and egg white, one at a time, beating on low. Then add extract (she used vanilla I used almond- both are good!). Gradually add flour mixture in 3 additions, alternating with milk in 2 additions, ending with the flour mixture. Gently fold in rainbow sprinkles. Spoon mixture into liners to 2/3 full. Bake for about 18 minutes but check with toothpick to make sure they are not wet instead. If they are not finished baking, return to oven for one minute increments until ready. Remove and place on cooling rack and allow to cool completely before icing.



WARNING: these will induce childhood memories!!!
Enjoy! My family sure did and honestly, it felt so good to NOT be giving them the box mix variety. I had been staying away from making cupcakes thinking I couldn't do it but thanks to Clara...I can!! IHeartClara