Pinterest Projects: Rum Cupcakes

I'll just say it now ... don't bother making these if you want any flavor at all - especially any hint of rum.

So for my Pirate Pool Party I made delicious rainbow cupcakes with sand and a pirate flag. They were so tasty and cute to look at ... but they weren't my only consideration. I thought it would be fun for a more adult dessert. I looked through many recipes (on Pinterest of course) and decided to make some cupcakes with RUM!! I was VERY excited and certain these would be my new favorite!

Something different about these, compared the other cupcakes I've made, was that they were 100% from scratch. I was certain if my mother-in-law was still with us she would have been proud of me! 

So there I was, armed with my iPad directions, measuring cups and a ton of ingredients. Um, can we just discuss how expensive hoity toity butter can be? Psh, been there, done that.  I mixed everything together - and I was so underwhelmed I can't even give you a recipe. Flour, brown sugar, sugar, blah blah blah. 

The fun part was taking eggs and mixing them with some spiced rum. Maybe I should have added more rum..... Then I mixed the two together to get my cake mix. As a girl that proudly cooks her things from a box - I have no shame or guilt in that - and neither should you - the texture difference was something I noticed right away. This nonsense from scratch felt heavy and thick. Hmm. I started to get concerned. But I hadn't yet tasted it, so who knows. Maybe it would be delicious. These also took longer to cook that my trusty box type, making this whole process in the heat of summer even more tedious. Granted I have A/C but still.

I made the frosting from scratch as well. I thought I had one of the ingredients, but didn't - so I substituted pineapple juice. The frosting was made from powdered sugar, crushed pineapple and then the juice the pineapple was in. Hm, there was obviously something else in it but I am blanking on that. It all mixed together fine and I actually had a ton leftover. Aside from the pineapple chunks it really lacked flavor. Maybe the rum would tie it all together!  Maybe.

Here is my finished product. They tasted as good as they looked. We had a few tastings. Some with frosting. Some without. Warm out of the oven and also cooled. I thought they tasted like a sugar cookie. So really it wasn't a BAD flavor. It just wasn't the flavor I wanted. And the texture was thick and heavy just like I suspected it would be. In the end I sent all of them to work with Man Friend and didn't care what happened to them as long as I got my serving tray back. I figure guys will pretty much eat anything - especially if it is free. So the moral of this story is..... just make a cupcake from a box and drink the rum!