The part when I cheat

It's not easy to make cupcakes in college. I don't have the ample stores of flour, sugar, butter and eggs that are so plentiful at home. So when I was asked to make a couple dozen cupcakes for a bake sale, I copped out. I cheated. I made these Brownie Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Cups:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/peanut-butter-brownie-cupcakes-recipe/index.html

All you have to do is make boxed brownie batter, pour it in cupcake tins, stick a mini Reese's Peanut Butter Cup in the middle, and bake the whole thing. Almost TOO easy. But man, were they delicious!

AWWW YEAH.

I wanted to make them prettier, so I tried melting a peanut butter cup and drizzling it across the top, but it looked like a weird lumpy gross thing. I yearned for the amply-stocked kitchen of Park City; I'm sure I could have melted peanut butter chips or even chocolate chips for a pretty little drizzle. A drizzle, for shizzle. But that's for another day. 

For the second flavor, I made the Banana Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Granola frosting. I also made a huge flour disaster mess. The bowl was too small -- don't blame me! I cheated on these ones too -- I bought cream cheese frosting from the store. I didn't realize just how different store-bought frosting tastes, though. It's definitely not as good as the homemade kind, but I was not willing to sacrifice an entire wing of the dorm in a poisonous cloud of powdered sugar that exploded from a too-small bowl. (If I were to actually die that way, though... what a way to go!)

I made SO MANY CUPCAKES! And they turned out so well. Great success. And they all sold at the bake sale!

Cupcakes in the Springs

This past weekend, I decided to go on a cupcake hunt in the Springs. I wasn't sure there would be any shops in this relatively po-dunk town, but a Google search came up with like four places! Happy times! I decided to go to Couture Cupcakes because they had a cool website and lots of flavors. The shop is about 20 minutes away, but paired with a dinner at Olive Garden, it's totally worth it.

The shop itself is kind of strange -- they're either going through a remodel or shutting down. There's plaster everywhere, and I think I saw a bit of insulation. Not exactly hygienic. (I am my mother's daughter, after all.) I decided to brave the asbestos threat and chose three cupcakes - as seen below.

Lemon blueberry, chocolate peanut butter cup, and cinnamon roll.

To tell the truth, I was underwhelmed. Perhaps I'm actually becoming a cupcake snob, but these didn't taste fresh or homemade. The frosting was too sweet and tasted like it came out of a can, and the cake was dry and kind of bland. To sum it up, there was no love in these cupcakes.

We still ate every bite anyways, of course. Are you kidding?

Moral of the story -- I like my cupcakes the BEST! Except when they boil and collapse and go down in flames (metaphorically. no real incendiary incidents yet.) But other than that, it's yummier - and more cost-effective - to just make them myself.

~Hannah