My first paying cupcake gig (sorta)

A coworker asked me to bake some cupcakes for his Christmas Eve family dinner.  We went back and forth, suggesting flavors for days, and when my manager got me this Cupcakes and Other Goodies recipe book for Christmas and we looked through it, we made the final decision: 

• Carrot cake with cream cheese frosting
• Cookies and cream with vanilla buttercream and crushed Oreos on top
• Peanut butter cup (vanilla cupcake with a surprise peanut butter cup in the middle) with peanut butter buttercream and crushed Reese's peanut butter cups on top.

He paid for all the ingredients, so all I had to do was execute.  Phew, 3 dozen cupcakes, 3 different flavors!  I'm tired just thinking about it.  It was fun...and messy.  Here are the recipes and results.


Carrot cake cupcakes:  marthastewart.com
Cream Cheese Frosting:  allrecipes.com

Vanilla cupcakes (just drop the Reese's PB cup in the dough and it will bake around it):  wilton.com
Peanut butter buttercream:  wilton.com

Cookies and cream cupcakes:  from Cupcakes and Other Goodies recipe book
Vanilla buttercream:  wilton.com

Once they were all frosted and ready to go, I wanted to be goofy and plate them like they do on Cupcake Wars:

Since I baked more than a dozen of each in case of errors or baking irregularities, there were extras that were boxed up in these cute little boxes Dave got me.  He was sweet to get them for me to use for Scott's cupakes, but there was only enough space for 1 dozen cupcakes, not 3.

 
The ones we tasted were awesome, but there ended up only being 12 carrot cake ones, so I didn't get to taste them.  Hope they're yummy!