Unicorns, rainbow, and cupcakes!
I love sugar. Well, actually, to be more honest I’m addicted to sugar. Yes, I know, I know. Sugar is bad for you. Sugar is evil. Sugar is the devil. Sugar is Public Enemy number one. You know what, even knowing all that, it still doesn’t dissuade me from partaking in one of my favorite courses, dessert.
Now you may be saying, “What, really? I don’t see many dessert recipes on this blog?” and you would be right, there aren’t many dessert posts on the blog, but there is a good reason why. If I make dessert, I’ll eat dessert, and not like a normal person eats desserts. I’ll literally cut little bites here and there throughout a two day period and somehow, magically, the dessert is gone. I nibble throughout the day because small bites don’t add up to eating half of the dessert in a 24 hour period, right? Well, that’s my logic at least and the main reason I don’t make desserts that often.
One thing I try to do is use unrefined sugars, such as maple syrup or honey, to make it “healthier” (yes I know, sugar is sugar, but let me keep this one delusion of mine, okay?). The good thing for you all is that this post isn’t about a healthy version of dessert. This post is about making my favorite 4-year old the most fantastic colorful rainbow unicorn cupcakes for her birthday party that happened last weekend. Since this shindig required a lot of cupcakes, because kids love cupcakes, I decided to take a short cut and use a box. Plus it was easier to get all the colors using the Pillsbury Funfetti Cake Mix.
Now, even though I used a box, I still had to put my spin on it to give the cupcakes a made- from-scratch feel. I simply changed the oil to melted butter and substituted milk (I went with whole milk because, why not?) for the water. The eggs remained the same because it already called for three, but if your box mix says two eggs add another.
Ingredients:
Should I still write this? Well here it goes.
One box of Pillsbury Funfetti Cake mix.
Three eggs
1/2 cup of melted butter
1 cup of milk (I used Straus Organic Cream Top Whole Milk)
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line a cupcake pan with liners. I used two cupcake trays 12 each for a total of 24 cupcakes (which may have yielded only 23 because I had to test one cupcake to make sure it tasted right 🤣).
Melt the butter and blend with the cake mix, milk, and eggs in a bowl. My inversion blender has a whisk attachment, which makes it super easy to blend without getting the kitchen aid mixer out. If you don’t have an attachment to the inversion blender just use a regular mixer.
Fill cupcake liners about 1/2 to 3/4 full, place in oven, and bake according to box directions. I always place a timer for the minimum cooking time and check to see if the cupcakes are cooked. You can always cook more, but never less, so don’t end up with burnt cupcakes.
Let cupcakes cool and frost/decorate as you’d like. If you want to be fancy think unicorn themed and make the cupcakes almost too cute to eat (almost).
Wine to pair?
Ummmmm….so I’m not going to seriously pair a wine with cupcakes, but I will say I did drink a lot of Daou RosĂ© at the party. It didn’t necessarily go well with the cupcakes, but it did go well with fourteen 4 year-olds running around high on sugar and unicorn flair. Apparently sugar on top of sugar on top of sugar sends little ones into a tizzy. Seriously, I don’t know how you parents do it, so this cheers goes to you all. You all certainly deserve the RosĂ© far more than I do!
