Autumn Themed Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes

Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting 2.0 turned into my first real baking failure.  Well, half failure.  Half the batch turned into a hot mess.  The other half were fine.  Luckily i was doing mini cupcakes though, so half a batch made 48 mini cupcakes, lol.  Exactly what i needed!  So this post wont be too heavy with the pictures on baking.  And  ill omit the actual recipe to the pumpkin spice cupcakes i made  (just use last years for now, and add more puree and sour cream).  I added too much butter, and while the first batch was cooking, the rest of the batter sat out on the cold counter and the butter started to congeal back together... so when it baked it was like broken butter bubbles.  Not pretty.

I WAS trying to add moisture to the recipe. So i added more butter, pumpkin puree, buttermilk and sour cream. But the butter was too much in the end... haha.

Instead we will talk about how ridiculously easy it is to make cuppycakes look fancy pants.  I found this tutorial online last year and book marked it.  When i found the same sprinkles later on i bought them so that i could use them one day. (Side note:  these were all the rage a few years ago in the cupcake world.  But since im just starting, its okay that i am behind on the times.) Then, last weekend, with two Thanksgiving dinners (omg so much food in two days) and limited time it became the perfect opportunity.  

So i made myself some quick directions that doubled as a template for the trees.  All you need is melted chocolate chips, Leaf sprinkles from Wilton, some parchment paper and a ziplock bag.

Melt some chips in the ziplock, make a small snip at the end of the bag (no tip needed) and make a thick tree trunk.  Then draw 4-5 branches.  Before the chocolate starts to harden, throw some leaves onto the branches.

 Don't forget that it's fall!  Not that many leaves left, therefore not that many needed on your tree.  I just made 4 and start to finish including clean up was 15 minutes.  Super easy.  Could have busted out more, but i had things to do that day.

Then i just carefully placed one little leaf on each of the mini cupcakes.  

And then i stuck the big trees in a cupcake and put them with the rest.  Super easy, super looks like it was hard work.  It wasn't.  Don't tell anyone.  :)

photo credit: pandipoo

photo credit: pandipoo

They were all eaten happily, with no one knowing how close to disaster the actual baking process was.  Sure more butter was consumed than was needed...  but that's Thanksgiving for you.  Your loved ones slowly killing you with fatty food.

xoxo,

Anna

P.S.  Happy Thanksgiving!  :)  I'm off to Costa Rica for 9 days, but i will be back the second week of December with an uber cute cupcake  >.< .  And then maybe something for New Years?  We'll see.