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August 19, 2010

The Bake-n-Blog Cupcake Extravaganza is here!!

The big day has arrived!! It’s time for Staci Edwards Design’s Bake-n-Blog Extravaganza!! Staci came up with the delicious idea for bloggers to select a recipe from the web site Ming Makes Cupcakes, bake a batch of their selected cupcakes, and then blog about them. I selected the Graham Cupcakes with Key Lime Cream Cheese Frosting.recipeI chose this recipe for a few reasons — first off, hello, cream cheese icing?!?! YUM!!!!!! And I love lime. And I was intrigued by the concept of a cupcake with graham cracker crumbs actually IN the batter. And all the ingredients are things I either already have or will use in the future. And they sounded easy enough to make!! Taking a picture of each step added to the time required to make them, but I’m sure you could whip up a batch pretty quick.

So here we go… Kelly makes Ming Makes Cupcakes Graham Cupcakes with Key Lime Cream Cheese Frosting. Wow,that’s a mouthful!!

1. Gather the ingredients.

1 ingredients

2.  Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt into a large bowl.

2 sifting flour

3. Making graham cracker crumbs the old fashioned way!!

3 graham crackers whole 4 crushed graham crackers

4. Adding graham cracker crumbs to the flour mixture.

5 adding crackers to flour 6 crackers flour mixed

At this point, I realized that I was going to have to use the mixer to mix in the butter. So, out came the ancient KitchenAid…

blender

5. Mixing the butter into the dry ingredients.

7 add butter in blender 8 butter blended in

6. Adding the sugar.

9 adding sugar 10 sugar mixed in

7. Mixing in the eggs.

11 add eggs12 mixing eggs13 eggs mixed in

8. Measuring the vanilla and milk. Forgot to get a shot pouring of them going into the mixing bowl.

14 vanilla and milk

9. The batter is ready!! And being a batter freak, I had to try a little sample… YUM!! This is probably really weird, but I love eating batter more than eating the final product!!

15 batter ready

10. Muffin tin with empty cupcake liners.

16 empty cups

11. Muffin tin with filled cupcake liners. The recipe makes exactly 12 cupcakes, even with me sneaking a bit of batter to eat :-)

17 cups filled

12. Cupcakes are almost ready!!

18 cooking in oven

13. And voila, 12 baked cupcakes :-)

25 cupcakes out of oven

Now on to the best part — cream cheese icing!!

14. Softened butter and cream cheese cubed and waiting in the mixing bowl.

19 butter cream cheese in bowl

15. Fresh-squeezed lime juice. Confession — I didn’t use key limes. I had 5 limes in the fridge, so I used one of them. Hey, at least I used real lime juice and not juice out of a bottle!!

20 lime cut21 lime juice measured

16. In goes the lime juice.

22 pouring lime juice in

17. In goes the icing sugar.

23 add icing sugar

18. Mixing the icing. I had a sudden brainstorm at this point. My very favourite cream cheese icing has an extra ingredient — melted white chocolate. So I decided to add some white chocolate to the lime cream cheese icing (about 2 ounces).

24 mixing icing

All done!! I could have eaten the entire bowl of icing with a spoon. Whenever my mom made carrot cake when I was a kid, she’d always say we should just skip the cake and eat the icing!!

26 icing ready

I put the icing in the fridge to firm it up a bit before I frosted a cupcake for me and a cupcake for hubby. I topped them off with graham cracker crumbs and thin slices of lime.

28 2 cupcakes

My cupcake :-P

27 1 cupcake

My half-eaten cupcake :-)

29 bite

Hubby eating his cupcake… (yes, he has WAY too much chest hair!!)

brian

One last big bite!!

brian 2

All gone!!

30 all gone

And the final verdict??

YUM-A-LICIOUS!!!!!!!

These are some seriously yummy cupcakes. The tops are a little bit crunchy, and the insides are light and moist. And the icing… MMMMMMMMM, the icing!!!!!! Love the combination of the cream cheese icing with the lime. And this recipe makes enough icing for a lot more than 12 cupcakes. So, break out the spoon and enjoy!! :-)

And on a related note, I picked up 12 of these silicone cupcake liners in Nova Scotia:

danesco cups

I think they’re a great idea because you can use them over and over — much more economical and environmentally friendly than paper liners. You can check them out on the Danesco web site.

Be sure to head over to Staci’s blog to check out all the other cupcake reviews in the Bake-n-Blog Extravaganza. And then get out your baking gear, ‘cause I bet you’ll want to try them all!! :-)

sig purple

25 comments:

Staci Edwards said...

Yay! I'm so glad you enjoyed the Bake-N-Blog!
Although perhaps your hubby enjoyed it more... LOL
I really want to get some of those silicon liners, heading over to Danesco next.
Thanks again for participating Kelly!
Chat soon!
Staci
xo

sally said...

Kelly, your cupcakes look almost identical to Ming's original ones. So beautiful - well done. My Aunty in Australia made the same as you, and I know both her and her official taste testers loved them.

Shannon @ What's Up Whimsy said...

Your cupcakes were my second choice for this fun event, but all the ingredients intimidated me, so I went with a safer bet. Yours turned out amazingly though!

Molly Page said...

Your cupcakes turned out so pretty! I'm glad to hear they were as yummy as they were gorgeous.

As a side note, I love the backsplash in your kitchen. It's fantastic.

Jacqueline Sears said...

Oh where to begin!!

First, your cupcakes look beautiful! Second, the addition of white chocolate sounds very tasty. Third, I like a man with hair on his chest! Fourth, the backsplash in your kitchen is gorgeous! And fifth, I prefer to eat the batter too!

Happy baking!

Nick Lovelady said...

Excellent Kelly! I LOVE key lime anything so this is one that I'll have to try.

Definitely try those Guinness Choco ones... worth it all the way!

Cheers!

girlaboutOtown said...

OMG. Those look delicious. Now I want a cupcake for breakfast. :)

Angela said...

Those are some gorgeous cupcakes!! Listen, tasting the batter and the frosting is just good quality control, if you ask me. Your family should thank you for it. :)

Angela ala Cupcake #7

Wendy said...

they look too good to eat! I'm sure they were delicious ~ cograts!

Christine at The Glam Blog said...

Kelly....I am loving the creme cheese frosting. Great job....so glad your hubby enjoyed them. My neighbourhood cupcake party was a hit!! Chat soon!!
Christine

Cristin // Simplified Bee said...

They turned out beautifully! Love all the action shots.

xo,
cristin
(cupcake #8)

amariaf2000 said...

Will you make these for me when you take me along to Nova Scotia on vacation? :-)

~angela @ peonypatch

Sorry I haven't been around much lately. Work has been crazy since around May!

Tricia said...

Good golly, those look delicious! Oh my, and the frosting. I am such a frosting lover! I will definitely try your variation.

XO*tricia (#14)

Margaret said...

Hello Kelly - I am so impressed with your lovely series of step-by-step photos! And your mixer - I love it! You're not the only one with a vintage mixer - mine looks about the same age, identical in shape to yours, but white not silver and it is a Sunbeam. It used to belong to my Mum and I'm planning to keep it going and not get a new one.

Vanessa@decor happy said...

They look delicious and love the play-by-play! Tasting the batter is the best part, I agree. Love your first shot with your sparkly backsplash and gleaming counters!

Joy Moxley said...

Love the photo take-by-take! They look wonderful and will definitely have to try it.

Margaret said...

Hi again Kelly - I've posted some photos of my Sunbeam mixer in case you'd like to see the non-identical twin!

Sara said...

Hi Cupcake Twin. I love looking at your photos and hearing about your experiences with our cupcake. I used key limes for mine and they tasted just like Key Lime Pie with Vanilla crumb crust. So GOOD! I made them less than 24 hours ago and they are already gone.

I am so happy that you were my Cupcake Twin.

All the best, Sara
www.thecoyotefamily.blogspot.com

Kate said...

Hi - my sister made these too ! Yours look so divine - well done !!

Natalie said...

glad they were a success for you. they look so delicious! love the icing.

Susan said...

Hi Kelly,

I'm back! I hope you had a wonderful holiday. I need to catch up on all my blog reading and writing

I don't bake so I am living my baking life precariously through you, hope you dont mind. I must say we did good. Those look uber delic...

cheers
Susan

Mary said...

Your cupcakes look great! I had my eye on these ones because I love all the ingredients too. Nice step-by-step photos!
:)

Julie S said...

Oh YUM those cupcakes look fantastic! And I too love cream cheese frosting, its the best :)

Julie (cupcake #27)

Steph@TheGraniteGurus said...

Okay, these look delicious! This was a recipe I wanted to try anyway. I'm definitely going to have to make a point of trying it out.
Also I've seen those silicone cupcake liners before and I've thought about purchasing them. Good to see you liked them.
I actually originally read about the Bake-N-Blog via your blog...so I owe you a big thanks! It was fun!

Linda @ theLENNOXX said...

Yummm.... I HAVE to try making these, they look so tasty! And for all the action shots of you baking; I just kept admiring your stunning kitchen!

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