Cupcakes, Cupcakes, Cupcakes!!

For the last couple of months all I seem to think about is food. Cooking, baking, dreaming up recipes, salivating over my ideas and "creations". It's pretty ridiculous. I watch the Food Network constantly. As well as Cake Boss, Cupcake Wars and any other baking/bridal show. It's become quite and obsession that has turned into a passion.
So, this past Saturday my friend Courtney and I decide to attempt baking using our own recipes. Well, we attempted to bake from scratch. Not using a box from Pillsbury or Betty Crocker.
I had a few ideas I wanted to try. We used a basic batter recipe and frosting recipe and then added ingredients in to change the flavors.
I have to say, it was pretty challenging, but a lot of fun. We made a huge mess, twice! I should have taken pictures of the kitchen, lol.
About 4 or 5 hours after we started baking in the kitchen, we had 48 cupcakes that needed to be frosted.
This was the fun part. Or, at least it should have been the fun part.
Our lemon-basil frosting did not hold up very well. It tasted amazing, but it sort of liquefied after sitting out for a while. The maple-brown sugar cream cheese frosting was way too soft. It didn't hold up well in the piping bag and as soon as it hit the cupcake, which had been cooled off for quite some time now, it began to melt and drip off the sides. Very tasty, but again it did not hold up at all.
The fudge frosting with almond extract for the cocoa-almond cupcakes, was to thick and refused to budge from the piping bag. Another frosting disaster.
As for the cupcakes, well, they all tasted fantastic, however, the basic batter recipe we used seemed to be to heavy. All of our cupcakes were on the dense side.
All of our hard work, only to prove that we've got A LOT of work ahead of us!

If anyone has any ideas/tips that could help us with our frosting, I would greatly appreciate the assistance. I think the lemon-basil frosting for the strawberry lemonade cupcake went south when we added a bit of lemon juice to it. I think maybe the acid in the lemon broke down the butter and made it runny....? I'm not sure.
As for the cake batter, well, we just need to try other recipes. We'd like a basic, yummy, moist vanilla cake recipe that we can modify/add to for each cupcake flavor. Any recipes or ideas are greatly appreciated!!
I've attached a picture of our cupcake creations. They all looked and tasted great, but the consistency was off......for all of them. So disappointing. But, practice makes perfect! And I am a perfectionist! =)






Stay tunned for more cupcake creations!