Chai Tea Latte Cupcakes And A Brand New Logo!

Oh man. Today I am both sad and incredibly happy. Sad because my best friend in the world, Erica, just left me after a glorious weekend together. Happy because we made amazing chai tea latte cupcakes together PLUS I am finally debuting the new Baking Therapy logo!!

Where to start?

First, let’s talk about the new logo. I am THRILLED and humbled that I know someone like Nick who is an incredibly talented illustrator and someone who willingly made a brand new, custom designed cupcake logo for this little blog-oh-mine. When I first asked him to design something, I had no idea if he would really do it, and he did and I’m just so excited it’s hard for me to properly communicate that to you guys.

I mean seriously. Look at that thing. He even added a little pancake garnish like the one from my pancake cupcakes. And I didn’t even ask for that!! He is just THAT creative. Man.

So what do you guys think? I think it’s kind of the shit. Sorry to any parents who read this but that’s truly how I feel right now.

If you want to see more of Nick’s amazing artwork, check out his website by clicking here.

Alright, on to the cupcakes!

Last night, with the help of my friend Erica, we made Chai Tea Latte cupcakes!

This one is SUPER easy and REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY good. Like seriously good.

Here is what you will need:

1 Box of white cake mix (I prefer Duncan Hines)

Everything for your basic butter cream recipe (Find that in “The Basics” section on this here bloggy blog)

6 bags of Chai Tea

Vanilla

Milk

Vegetable Oil

Let’s make some cupcakes!

Start by taking your 6 bags of Chai Tea and brewing them in 1 1/4 cups of milk. I use skim milk and my cupcakes turn out great.

Brew the tea for 12 minutes over a medium heat, stirring frequently.

Once the milk turns a nice light shade of brown (almost like a coffee with a lot of milk) you are done with that step. It should take the full 12 minutes.

Put that in the fridge to help it cool down.

Next, put all of your ingredients for your cake mix (minus the 1 1/3 cup of water) into a bowl. Add  1 1/3 cup of the tea/milk combo, plus 1 teaspoon of vanilla, and mix those delicious ingredients together.  Save the rest of the tea/milk combo for your frosting.

Bake your cupcakes.

Once they have cooled, make your butter cream. Add the rest of the milk/tea combo 1 tblsp at a time, until you have a nice chai flavor. Add 1 tsp of vanilla as well. If you notice that the frosting isn’t the right texture, add more sugar.

Pipe the frosting onto those babies, and add a little sprinkle of cinnamon for the garnish.

And voila! You’ve got a delicious vanilla chai cupcake to show off to all of your co-workers…or friends, family, dog, whatever you choose.

Thanks again for stopping by and another extra special thanks to Nick for my brand new logo!

The Cupcake Request Line: Dear Jessica…I’ve Got Your Mojito Waiting!

Last week’s Cupcake Request Line was a total fail. Nothing worse than starting a feature with a fail to really get your confidence BOOMING.

Ugh.

Thankfull, Shawn was super awesome about the whole thing, AND I bought some extracts today to make sure that I get both cherry and cola flavoring in my next attempt at a Cherry Coke Cupcake.

Alright, enough about the fail, let’s get to the major win that are Jessica’s Mojito Cupcakes!

Dear Jessica…the moment you suggested Mojito cupcakes, I knew they would be a winner.

I knew from the moment you commented, that I wanted to make these taste EXACTLY like a Mojito. So what better way to do that, than to literally MAKE one and dump it all into some cupcakes?

I muddled together some fresh mint, lime juice, simple syrup, and rum. I left out the soda water since I knew that would just water down the flavor. I did this before I even started the batter, because I really wanted the flavors to have time to mesh.

I used a box of white cake mix, and added some lime juice. I decided to use FRESH limes, and juice them, but I realize now that perhaps buying the lime juice in a bottle would be a better, more potent choice because the lime flavor didn’t really jump out at me in the cake.

For the frosting, I made a basic butter cream recipe (found here) and after straining out the crushed mint from my mojito concotion above, I threw it all in the frosting.

And then it happened…..I thought I FAILED AGAIN! AHHHH!

The flavors weren’t really there. So I dumped more rum in, dumped more lime juice in, and eventually the flavor was found.

That’s really how I do it most of the time. Just keep tasting and adding until the flavor is right. Now, because I put a lot of liquid in the frosting, I had to keep adding in more sugar.

Then I baked those suckers, piped the frosting on and added a little straw and cherry to make it look like a drink!

Since this is a Cupcake Request Line batch, I will be dropping them off to you, Jessica, today after work.

And that’s it!

Next week will be Chai Tea Latte Cupcakes, in celebration of my best friend Erica (who loves tea!) coming into town.

Thanks for stopping by, and please, submit your Cupcake Request Line suggestions here.

The Cupcake Request Line…Call Now! Errr Post Now!

Today I posted about my Pancake Cupcakes in honor of National Pancake Day and people on Facebook kinda went nuts. Swoon. I am really really excited about it and totally humbled that anyone cares enough about my little hobby to respond to any of my posts. You guys really know how to make a girl feel good!

Soon after, my awesomely supportive brother posted a link to my blog on his Facebook, a page that is filled with fans of his radio show Huff & Stapes. On it, a really cool dude by the name of Shawn asked if I took requests.

I’d thought of doing this before, but didn’t really have an audience to take requests from.

Well, now I’ve got Shawn and gosh darnit, inspiration has arrived!

So here’s what I’m going to do. Every week I am going to take a request from one of you guys, and bake a cupcake just for you. Heck, if I can figure out how to do it, I may even mail you one of the completed cupcakes (don’t hold me to that, but I will DEFINITELY look into it!) Update: I’m totally going to figure out a way to ship you cupcakes, so you can hold me to it.

I like being creative with my baking, so make it something fun.

For example, I know my brother loves tequila, so I plan to make him a margarita cupcake with tequila in it.

Update: Wow! We are booking up quickly 🙂 Here is the cupcake calendar…put your requests in soon!

You can suggest the entire cupcake, or just give me some inspiration of a food/drink that you like that you want adapted into a cupcake.

Leave your request in the comments below.

Once everything is said and baked, I will create a blog post dedicated to you and your cupcake choice!

Let’s get this thing started!