Once upon a time, I really wanted to try my hand at cupcake baking. I came across this new fangled idea when I was surfing Mugglenet.com and came across a recipe for Butterbeer Cupcakes by the Collegiate Baker. When reading up on what the Collegiate Baker did I realized that she actually adapted her recipe from that of another blog from Confessions of a Cookbook Queen.

When perusing the recipe I realized that I am not exactly a fan of butterscotch to begin with, but Butterbeer is a popular beverage that is described by JK Rowling as

a little bit like less-sickly butterscotch

Ok, so now I’m tempted… I am really really tempted, especially since the homemade frosting became a major draw for me.

INGREDIENTS For the Cake: 1 box yellow cake mix 1 cup cream soda 3 eggs 1 stick of butter, melted 1/2 cup melted butterscotch chips

For the FROSTING: 1 stick of butter, softened 3 tablespoons of cream soda 3 cups of powdered sugar 2 tablespoons of butterscotch ice cream topping butterscotch chips for topping

DIRECTIONS:
Step 1: (Starting with the cake portion): Mix the yellow cake mix, cream soda, eggs, melted butter, and melted butterscotch chips (in that order) in a medium/large mixing bowl.

Step 2: Mix on medium speed for two minutes.

Step 3: Follow the temperature and time directions as instructed on the yellow cake mix box.

Step 4: (Now for the frosting): cream the butter and cream soda by mixing on medium speed for approximately two minutes.

Step 5: Mix in powdered sugar, one cup at a time for easy mixing.

Step 6: Then mix in butterscotch topping.

Step 7: When cupcakes are cooled, cover each with frosting and top with butterscotch chips.

The major issue I had here was no recipe mentioned the size of the yellow cake batter mix. Ah well, this is where improvisation comes in handy, I had a partial box of cake batter and a smaller box of the yellow cake batter. So I readjusted the recipe and instead of cream soda I ended up using orange cream soda and I anted up the amount of butterscotch ships in this recipe.

As for the frosting: I decided not to use the cream soda, instead I used vanilla extract. I still kept the butterscotch ice cream topping, however, to keep the butterscotch connection. What resulted was a tray of Butterbeer Cupcakes that pleased even the most particular of my friends. Heck they even loved the frosting choosing to overly dunk the cupcakes into the frosting.

So in love with the frosting I chose to keep that frosting for future incarnations of cupcakes, in fact I adapted the recipe above so I had chocolate cake batter (or chocolate brownie mix) instead of yellow cake batter. I used cinnamon chips instead of butterscotch chips and also used traditional cream soda instead of the orange flavored cream soda. Though not as much of a hit as the butterbeer, it still was a nice kick in and of itself.

Originally I had baked the cupcakes in a smaller size, thinking having bit sized cupcakes would cause them to disappear faster. Meaning that when people come up to eat a cupcake, they would be so small that people would forget just how much they have had before. While with a traditionally sized cupcake people may be more likely to watch how much they eat. Turns out that it didn’t happen… if they liked what they are eating, they will eat… else they will watch what they ingested. Ah well.

All in all this recipe I felt was a total win for me and for my friends. It is a nice and easy recipe and a lot of fun… so here’s hoping that there would be another major group get together so I could bake these again and give it another shot.