Cupcakes two ways

OK, so it was really cupcakes three ways, plus some cookies. I had a bake sale to raise money for my leukemia walk, and I made two things I've made before - zucchini spice cupcakes and rosemary shortbread cookies - as well as two things I haven't - rhubarb cupcakes and devil's food cupcakes.

The rhubarb cupcakes were a really thick batter, with quite a lot of butter and thick chunks of rhubarb. This batter looks like gorgeous chunks of vanilla rhubarb ice cream or something.


I accidentally added too much sugar and sort of burnt them, but they turned out OK. Martha's recipe calls for whipped cream, but I spread some cream cheese frosting on there instead. (I already had a bunch of it for the zucchini cupcakes.)

After I spread the frosting, I topped it with some rhubarb and vanilla bean syrup. They turned out pretty cute, especially with my little red frosting cups.


The devil's food cupcakes were pretty awesome, and in fact might have been one of my favorite cupcake recipes ever. The batter was very thick and chocolatey, being based on a mixture of Dutch process cocoa and water. The recipe also has the most vanilla I've ever seen in a recipe: a tablespoon and a teaspoon!

The awesome chocolate ganache frosting was really good, too - I was afraid it wouldn't set, but it set beautifully. It was bittersweet cocoa, cream, and some corn syrup. Then I made some chocolate curls to put on top. Needless to say, the end result was dramatic.


Awesome. I tried both of these cupcakes, and they were awesome. I have eaten the zucchini cupcakes before, and they are also phenomenal. I think they're the best use of zucchini I've found! At any rate, the bake sale went awesome, my coworkers raised $92 for the cause, which is really great. Sweet deliciousness for a sweet cause!