Cupcakes

One of my favorite places in Portland was Saint Cupcake. The cupcake shop makes the most delicious cupcakes in all sorts of interesting flavors. We sampled toasted coconut cream, lemon berry, vanilla with vanilla butter cream, and the fat Elvis. My favorite ended up being the toasted coconut cream. It was perfect just the way it was...buttery vanilla cake with cream cheese icing covered in toasted coconut. Now, the fat Elvis really enticed me. This cupcake consisted of a semi-sweet banana chocolate chip cake with a peanut butter chocolate icing topped off with a banana chip. With all of that you would think that it has to be pretty close to perfect. While it was delicious, I found myself thinking of all the things that I would do to make it better. Throughout the week I kept day dreaming of fun combinations of cupcakes that I could make.

Once we returned, I decided that I was going to create my own banana chocolate chip cupcake. So I googled cupcakes finding a plathera of cupcake blogs. Apparently, I am not the only cupcake crazy person out there! One of my favorite sites is Cupcake Project. The cupcake project was started by a lady who was making cupcakes for her friends' wedding. In preparation, she worked to master the art of cupcakes by creating a new tempting treat every week. Along the way she blogged about the things she discovered, the recipes she created, and the feed back from her friends. The project began as a nine month adventure... (You must read this!)http://www.cupcakeproject.com/2008/01/sweet-success.html, but continues today as a passion for creating delicious treats. Her site is full of great ideas if your in the mood for cupcakes.

After searching blogs and recipe sites, I had million ideas floating around in my head. So I decided to start my own mini summer cupcake project. This weekend I created my first cupcake "Good Morning" which is a close cousin to the fat Elvis. Good Morning consist of a sweet moist banana-nut cake with chocolate chucks covered in a chocolate fudge icing. I topped my cupcake with a banana chip in honor of my original inspiration Saint Cupcake. If I do say so myself, they are pretty fabulous. I have several ideas in mind for June inspired by Ben & Jerry's and fresh fruit??? I bet your mind is turning....if you have any inpiring flavor combinations let me know and perhaps I'll turn your cupcake dreams into a mouth watering reality!