Cupcakes?

Assorted things make me happy. I could look at an assortment of ANYTHING for hours and just be delighted by the...assortment. But you know what doesn't make me happy? Cupcakes. I think they're dumb. Sorry I know I probably offended about 99% of the population right there but really guys. Come on. There are cuter baked goods than cupcakes. And as I've said before, I would rather have a whole cake. Or carton of ice cream. Or whole cheesecake.

When a few friends asked me to bring a cake down to San Diego for the weekend, I asked them what kind. I got answers ranging from Boston cream pie to lemon to red velvet to anything-with-cream-cheese-frosting. I'm a very indecisive person and so eventually indecisiveness won and I surrendered to the cupcake craze. In my head, the beautiful assortment makes up for the fact that they are just stupid little mini cakes.

I made cupcake flavors that I already had ingredients for in the kitchen. Fyi. Mom. I ended up with S'mores, Lemon meringue pie, cookies and cream, Boston cream pie, strawberries & cream and peanut butter cup.

S'mores = chocolate cupcake filled with whipped ganache topped with marshmallow frosting and graham cracker crumbs [Yes, I made my own graham crackers...............]

Lemon meringue pie = yellow cupcake filled with lemon curd topped with meringue [I finally got to use my cool little blow torch from Hong Kong here!]

Cookies and cream = chocolate cupcake filled with pastry cream topped with Italian Meringue Buttercream mixed with oreos [aka leftover weird walmart brand oreos]

Boston Cream Pie = yellow cupcake filled with vanilla pastry cream topped with dark chocolate ganache

Strawberries and cream = yellow cupcake filled with vanilla pastry cream and strawberries, topped with vanilla buttercream [You can make colored sugar/sprinkles for the top!]

Peanut butter cup = chocolate cupcake filled with peanut butter cup filling topped with whipped dark chocolate ganache and peanuts

I'm not crazy. As you can see, I only really baked two batches of cupcakes. And I also made a chart of how to mix and match the different fillings and frostings. Yup. Nerdy Baker. :D