Mini Doughnut Cupcakes

These are some miniature chocolate cupcakes I whipped up the other day. I call them doughnut cupcakes because I think they look like doughnuts or doughnut holes - with the small round chocolate base, the vanilla frosting, and the colorful round sprinkles. I was making my signature chocolate cake batter for the exhibition competition, but of course I only need to submit three small pieces. I have tried halving this recipe before, which doesn't seem to work out so well, so I made one round cake and used the rest of the batter to make miniature cupcakes. Then I whipped up a small batch of my vanilla buttercream, and used my large open star tip to pipe a swirl of buttercream on each. Then I sprinkled on some colored sprinkles. Because the buttercream icing had already hardened, and the chocolate cake is very moist and sticky, the sprinkles stuck to the cake and not the icing. I liked this effect, the plain swirl of icing surrounded with sprinkles on a chocolate cake.   

Flower Cupcakes

This is how I decorated the miniature cupcakes I was referring to in yesterday's post. I halved my standard two-layer chocolate cake recipe to make 36 miniature cupcakes. They only took 15 minutes to bake. Then I decorated them with buttercream icing. Decorating them also took only about 15 minutes. Mini cupcakes are so quick to do, and I used relatively simply designs, as it is hard to do detailed work on cupcakes so small. I made three different flower designs using two different colors, pastel pink and blue. I am certainly done with winter and ready for spring, but I don't think Mother Nature agrees with me, so I will just have to get my dose of spring in cupcake form for now.

Design 1: A simple pink rose using a fluted flower tip.
Design 2: Pink flowers using a fluted flower tip and an open star tip for the center.
Design 2: Blue flowers using an open star tip to pipe round swirls for the petals and the center.

Mini Cupcakes

Here are some mini cupcakes I made. Cupcakes have become increasingly popular in the past few years, largely due to their "cuteness" factor, and the popular concept of everyone getting their own individual serving. They are easy to portion out and serve, are much easier to eat (no plate and fork required), and can be a lot quicker to decorate than one big cake. They are bite-sized and fit perfectly in the palm of your hand. I even went a step further and made miniature cupcakes. These cupcakes are probably two-bite cupcakes, or they may even be small enough to just eat all at once. They are quite cute, and are remarkably quick and easy to decorate.

When it comes to muffins and cupcakes, it is always nice to have some variety. Size is one way to achieve this. Muffin tins tend to come in three different sizes: regular, giant/jumbo, and miniature. Of course, the capacity of each of these tin sizes will vary depending on the manufacturer, but generally you will be able to find paper liners that will work for your pan. Paper liners come in more than just three sizes; they have tiny ones, miniature ones, regular, medium, large, and giant. They also come in a wide variety of colors and patterns, including holiday-themes. You can even get heavy-duty cups that don't need to be placed in a muffin tin for baking - they will hold up on a cookie sheet on their own. I like to use paper liners for baking all of my muffins and cupcakes because it is a lot faster than greasing each individual cup, makes them easier and neater to eat, and provides a little bit of decoration to the baked product. They are also inexpensive and readily available.