I had hopes to make a Halloween cake for a charity auction last weekend. I bought the cake mix (yes, I was going to keep it simple with a box mix) and planned to bake the cake on Thursday night. Friday night would be for decorating. Saturday I would deliver the masterpiece.
Thursday night I got out all the ingredients to bake the cake, but realized we were out of eggs. I didn’t have it in me to drive to the store and figured I’d just double up on Friday night to do it all.
Friday night I remembered we had a prior commitment, but I still planned on cramming the cake backing/decorating into the evening — somehow. We got home that evening and I was wiped. Not only was I frustrated and tired, but I realized that I didn’t have a container to put the cake in for the auction. What now?
I ended up scrapping the project and didn’t have an entry in the auction. I felt horrible all Friday night and Saturday morning. My feelings of failure of not being able to do something so simple as bake a cake — something I LOVE to do — brought me down. Later, while at the auction, I noticed they had plenty of cakes. Too many actually. They couldn’t give them away. Funny how I let this become such a stressful event and it turned out to work in my favor.
Let’s get to these cupcakes now, shall we? I had cake mixes and ingredients for homemade icing sitting around waiting to be used. I also had tons of candy corns. I had to do something with all these ingredients. Plus, after all that unnecessary stress, I needed a creative outlet.
I used a white cake mix and make six jumbo cupcakes and then about 3 regular cupcakes. I used the candy corns on 3 to make Halloween cupcakes.
These turned out so cute. I love all the color from the candy corn.
I made one of the regular cupcakes with a simple pumpkin candy on tip. Sometimes simplicity is best.
Let’s talk about the frosting for a minute. This came from a book that I was sent, “Shortcut Desserts: 123 Yummy Easiest-Ever Recipes.” After I looked through the book I knew I had to use this frosting recipe: white chocolate cream cheese frosting. It’s so simple it’s embarrassing. It’s so delicious it’s sinful.
I used three of the jumbo cupcakes for the Halloween cupcakes, but I needed the other three to make these jumbo coconut cupcakes for my mother’s birthday.
These cupcakes were so simple: just bake the cupcake, frost with the deliciousness of the white chocolate cream cheese icing and dunk upside down in a bowl of sweet coconut flakes. Turn it right side up and fill in any gaps with small handfuls of more coconut.
Love the all white of the icing and coconut flakes. These were big and delicious.
Let’s get back to that frosting. It came from 
the new magazine “Shortcut Desserts: 123 Yummy Easiest-Ever Recipes.” There are so many recipes in this book that I want to make: the chocolate-resberry cream cake, whipped cream frosting, lemon-cream cheese frosting, eggnog pumpkin pie, peanut butter swirl cheesecake. I could go on and list all 123 desserts. The book is designed to help the busy chef create elegant and tasty desserts. I set my sights on this white chocolate frosting. Here’s the recipe:
White Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting
(adapted from Shortcut Desserts (originally from Country Living magazine)
8 ounces cream cheese (softened)
1/2 Cup unsalted butter (softened)
8 ounces white chocolate chips (melted and cooled)
pinch of salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Beat above ingredients until creamy and blended.
Add 2 cups confectioners’ sugar. Beat until light and fluffy.
Chill 20 minutes before using (I didn’t wait and dove right in!)
Makes 4 cups.
