#100 - Root Beer cupcakes

Alright, a little bit of background here. I'm getting married this summer to the most amazing man I've ever met (The Gamer). Because I'm insane, I have this idea that there is no reason we need to hire a bunch of vendors to do the stuff that we can do ourselves. Despite everyone telling me not to, we're doing all of the food, including the cake, ourselves.

And by ourselves, I mean myself and my absolutely amazing team of family and friends. My mom and dad are really excited about the barbecue shish-kabobs that we're planning on serving, but they're a little skeptical about me making my own cake.

Or rather, cupcakes.

There are a couple different reasons behind the cupcakes. The first is that I like cupcakes, pretty simple. I think they're fun to make, fun to decorate, and fun to eat. The second, which is more practical, is since we're not having the reception catered, we're not going to have any servers. Rather than asking someone to take time out of having fun to cut and serve the cake, everyone can just help themselves to a cupcake. Makes everything a whole lot simpler. The third reason is because everyone has different tastes. I'm a serious chocoholic, The Gamer is kind of meh on chocolate but doesn't hate it, unlike a few of my other friends. We're both major peanut butter fiends, but I have a good friend who is highly allergic to peanuts. By doing cupcakes, I can have three completely unique flavors and everyone can be happy. Unless someone was hoping for coconut, because I'm not having anything to do with that.

Anywho, I've been researching ideas for a couple months as far as flavors go, and I've got a list that I'd like to try. Today was my first batch of potential-wedding cupcakes. Root beer cupcakes! I was going for root beer float, but I'm still not sure if that's the experience that I got. Either way, they turned out awesome.

The recipe is courtesy of The Cupcake Project, which appropriately is all about wedding cupcakes. Seriously, I can spend hours going through these recipes. I love it.

Root Beer Cupcakes
Makes 12 cupcakes

• 1 C root beer soda
• 1 t apple cider vinegar
• 3/4 C sugar
• 1/3 C canola oil
• 1/2 t vanilla extract
• 2 t root beer extract
• 1 1/3 C flour
• 3/4 t baking soda
• 1/2 t baking powder
• Pinch of Salt

1. Combine your favorite root beer (I used Barqs because it's The Gamer's favorite) with the cider vinegar and let sit for a few minutes.
2. Whisk in the oil (I didn't have canola, I used vegetable) and sugar and stir vigorously until frothy.
3. Add the extracts, then slowly add the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Stir just until combined, do not overmix.
4. Fill your cupcakes liners about 3/4 of the way to the top and bake at 350 for 18-22 minutes (18 minutes exactly in my oven, and it tends to run on the colder side. I'd probably check at around 16 or 17 in a hotter oven, like the one at my mother's house)

The cupcakes came out moist and fluffy and delicious with a very distinct rootbeer flavor and smell. The Gamer loves them. SCORE!

I used a different frosting than Stef over at The Cupcake Project for these. I'm sure the cream soda icing is amazing and I love the soda fountain idea, but I don't have any cream soda extract, and really, what I love about root beer is root beer floats. So I used her Vanilla bean buttercream frosting as a jumping off point and adjusted it to fit my needs. Here's what I came up with.

Vanilla Buttercream Frosting

• 1 1/2 C powdered sugar
• 1/2 C sweet cream butter (room temperature)
• 3 teaspoons vanilla extract (adjust to taste, 2 teaspoons would probably have been fine, but I really wanted a strong vanilla flavor)
• 1 1/2 Tablespoons Whipping Cream

 Combine the sugar the the butter (which you do not want to melt! Just have it be soft enough you can squish it around with the sugar!) and stir until creamy. Add in the vanilla extract and the whipping cream and mix for another minute or so. Add more vanilla to taste or more sugar if you want it stiffer. It came out pretty stiff for me, but your results may vary.

Holy bejeebus the frosting was good. This the first success I've had with homemade buttercream. The butter flavor was pretty prominent, so I might experiment with substituting half of the butter for shortening, but we'll see. The vanilla flavoring was amazing and I think the whipping cream added a nice richness.

I loved the frosting so much I wanted big ol' rosette swirls on my cupcakes. And they were good, but The Gamer had a point with his comment that the flavor of the frosting kind of overwhelms the more subtle flavor of the root beer. I'll use a smaller tip next time and go for a thinner coating, but dang they were good.

A smaller tip would probably be wise in general, since I realized I wasn't going to have enough frosting after the first six cupcakes. I tried one of the skimpy ones and had to agree that the root beer flavor really shines when it's not mounded with delicious icing. I think it's good either way, but I think The Gamer is going to win this one.





These are a definite contender for wedding cupcakes, but we'll have to see after a few more trials. I'm aiming for three flavors for the cupcakes, and maybe a different flavor for "our" cake, which will be more cake-like so that we can cut it. Hopefully with a sword. We're still working out the logistics of that.