What I Learned from a Cupcake

Hello and Happy November!

I can’t believe I said November, boy time flys,Christmas is next month!  Eck! I am so not prepared for that holiday, but who is?

Today was our work Halloween Party.  I must admit, I work with the oddest people, I guess thats why I fit in.  Everyone dressed up and we had lots and lots of sweets!  We had so many sweets we had to order lunch in, just to get some good nutrition!  Did you dress up?  This is me, I was suppose to be a wolf, but I look more like a cat.  I was going to put makeup on, but my friend Andrea, said my face may confuse people to what I am cat or wolf. Lol  Here is me next to my cupcake, cookie tray I brought.

Here is all the sugar we ate and have left over for the week!!  Now that is scary!

Here is myself and my girls I work with.

Austin Powers came for a visit and so did Jason!

I don’t know who this is , but scared the heck out of me!!!

What I learned from a cupcake!

1.  Don’t make mini ones if you want to be all fancy, it’s a pain in the butt and took forever!!!

2.  Don’t eat the batter, not only will you rack up calories, you’ll get a stomach ache!

3.  Don’t make your own frosting!  I added about 30 calories to the cupcake, making homemade frosting rather then using can.

4.  Again don’t make mini ones, because even though there small, you end up with 56 of them, and that is to many!!  Even though they taste so good!

5.  Mini cupcakes don’t travel well and they don’t look as cute as they did when you made them!

Want to see the little devils that was a pain in the butt?

They are so cute and tasted so good!!

I got 56 cupcakes out of this batch.  I made three different colored batter, one orange, one yellow and I kept one white.  With a teaspoon, I added the first color, yellow,then carefully added 1 teaspoon of orange batter.

Then the white batter.

This is what they looked like turned out.  Pretty cool!!

Candy Corn Vanilla Cupcakes with Vanilla Butter Cream Frosting

1 Box of Betty Crocker’s White Vanilla Cake Mix

5 Egg Whites or 3/4’s cup liquid egg whites

3/4 Cup of Water

1/4 Cup of Canola Oil

1/4 Cup of Unsweetened Apple Sauce

Butter Cream Frosting:

2 Sticks of Butter

2 Cups of Confectioner Sugar

1 tsp. Vanilla Extract

Yellow and Red Food Coloring

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350

Line two mini baking pans with cupcake liners or 2 Regular size Muffin pans to make bigger cupcakes

In a medium bowl, mix all of the cake ingredients, and beat or mix until no more lumps.

To make orange and yellow batter- Take about 3 cups of batter and pour into two bowls, so you have three bowls of batter all together.

To make yellow batter, I used 3 drops of yellow and mixed.  You may use more to get more of a vibrant color.

To make orange batter, I used 1 drop of red and 2 drops of yellow and mix together,if you need more of an orange color add more yellow.  The red is strong and you don’t want your batter pink.

I took a level Teaspoon to pour the batter,  first layer, I added I tsp. of yellow, and then I took 1 tsp. and added the next layer of orange and topped it off with the white batter.

Once all cupcakes are filled, place in the oven for about 12 minutes.  Check the box for bigger cupcakes, I think 17 – 20 minutes.

Once cupcakes are cooled, time to make the frosting.

In a medium bowl add butter and 1/2 cup of confectioner sugar, and beat well, once all incorporated add about 1/2 cup more and beat, and add your vanilla.  Beat well together, and keep adding the sugar until you get the taste you like.  I ended up using about 2 Cups of Sugar.

Once you have the consistency and flavor of the batter you like, time to separate the batter into 2 separate bowls.  Same as I did for the batter.  For yellow, I used 3 drops of yellow food coloring. For orange I used 1 drop of red and 2 yellow for orange.  Add more coloring for a more vibrant color.  My cupcakes, were kind of pastel.

Take 3 ziplock bags and cut the corner off, but not to big, your hole should be the size of a #2 pencil.  Add your frosting to each bag.  So you have three separate bags, with the three colors.  Time to frost the cupcake.  Do one circle with yellow, then do an inner circle with orange and top with a little white.  Time to put a candy corn on top!  Your done!!

Note:  I recommend making bigger cupcakes, since it’s way less time consuming, unless you need a bunch of cupcakes!  The whole process took me almost 3 hours to make these cupcakes.  If you want to save calories, use canned frosting, the butter cream tastes so good, but it adds a lot more calories and fat to the cupcakes.

Calories per cupcake:  92,  Fat:   4.7,  Cholesterol:  9.2,  Sodium: 63,  Carbs: 12,  Sugar: 9, Protein: .06

I am happy with these cupcakes.  I love the colors, very fall and Halloween!!  You could even make these for Thanksgiving!!  I will make a bigger batch of these for other holidays!  I love the three colors on the inside and the three different frosting colors!  It was fun to make, no matter how much I may complain!

I hope you try these!   I think they are very impressive!

Now that November if here and October is behind us, it’s time to step up with healthy eating and exercises!  Today when I came home from work, I was overwhelmed by guilt from eating all this sugar.  I haven’t done that in over  a year!  I  did 43 minutes of strength training and I did a 3 mile power walk!  It felt good!  So starting right now, it’s going to be eating better and being healthier!  The holidays are coming, one down two to go, so I want to keep up with being healthy so I can indulge over the holidays without guilt!!

Have a great day!!