Homemade Cupcakes

As much as I love cupcake bakeries, (which is a lot) I am equally fond of making cupcakes myself. I haven't baked very much recently so I decided to play it safe and make chocolate cupcakes with white chocolate frosting.

I used this recipe to make the cakes and they turned out really well. The cupcakes themselves were moist, chocolatey and slightly denser than traditional cupcakes. I used a basic white chocolate frosting recipe to top the cakes and found it to be a perfect compliment to the cake without being too sweet. Enjoy!

Sprinkles Chicago

Over the holiday break I was lucky enough to get to spend a good chunk of time in Chicago catching up on all of my must-try restaurants. I started my quest at the newly-opened Sprinkles Cupcakes on Walton Street. For anyone that hasn't heard of Sprinkles Cupcakes they are dubbed the original cupcake bakery. They started in Beverly Hills and have since expanded to many of major cities around the country with the latest addition being Chicago. So of course, be a cupcake fanatic, I had to try it.

I went with a friend and we ordered a chocolate-vanilla cupcake and a chocolate-marshmallow cupcake. The cupcakes were very good and I was impressed by the flavor offerings that the menu displayed. The decor was also really neat, although it was hard to appreciate due to buzz of the new opening creating quite a crowd.

I tried my best to document my trip with my new Flip camera (see below) but I have to admit that the camera-work may make you feel a bit sea-sick : / So bare with me as I learn to improve my film skills and I hope you enjoy!

Phoebe's Cupcakes

For anyone that follows my Twitter feed (thank you, by the way) it's pretty obvious that I have a fondness for cupcakes. So it shouldn't be at all surprising that I try to use some of my free time seeking out new cupcake bakeries to try.

This past weekend, I went walking through Lincoln Park in hopes of finding some great farmer’s market deals when I happened upon Phoebe’s Cupcakes. I stopped inside and was immediately drawn to the simplicity of the store. There weren’t 800 different cupcakes competing for my attention. In fact, there were only six to choose from. Even though the selection was limited, I still had a difficult time picking a flavor considering all six flavors sounded delicious. Since I couldn’t pick just one, I ended up going with a salted caramel and a red velvet one rationalizing it to myself as needing to try more than one flavor in order to get a proper opinion of the cupcakes at Phoebe’s :)

Store front of Phoebe's Cupcakes

Pretty chandelier hanging in the store

Really cute dispenser display with colorful sprinkles to add to your cupcake purchase.

Salted Caramel Cupcake: Vanilla Cake soaked in Homemade Caramel with Caramel Buttercream Frosting topped with Himalayan Rose Sea Salt

Red Velvet Cupcake: Classic Southern Red Velvet Cake with White Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting topped with Red Sprinkles

Surprise! Caramel on the inside of the cupcake too!