I’m pretty certain that any girl who reads food blogs has wanted to have a cupcake fondue party. Courtesy of several sources, and many re-linkings, it’s probably impossible to have looked up cupcakes or party ideas or girly baking recipes on blogs and missed all the fun that everyone else is having.
I am not immune from adorable ideas, or excuses to have parties. So, my friend and I finally threw one.
With six kinds of cupcakes. Lemon, coconut, Mounds (i.e., coconut with chocolate), chocolate amaretto, peanut butter-filled chocolate, and pumpkin. By the way, you need 24 of these if you don’t already have them.
And, yes, it was every bit as adorable as it should have been. Especially because she got fall sprinkles (from Target, in case you’re looking). And maybe it was also cute because we made cake batter martinis….with cake vodka.
We opted to make a glaze for our fondue – so we could heat it up, and so we could switch it to chocolate half way through. We also opted for a variety of cupcakes so that everyone in attendance could find something they like.
Vanilla-to-Chocolate Glaze for cupcake fondue
5 Tbs butter
2 cups powdered sugar
1 – 2 tsp vanilla
2 – 4 Tbs hot water
Put in a fondue pot, heat, and blend together. Turn it to a lower setting while you’re actually dunking your cupcakes.
When half the glaze is gone, switch to chocolate by adding 1 Tbs butter and 1 cup chocolate chips, blending together over medium-high heat. The glaze won’t be entirely smooth, but will be delicious (and good for capturing sprinkles). Move quickly, as when this sets, sprinkles won’t stick so easily.
Cupcakes
And, just in case you ever get into a situation where you want to make lots of different types of cupcakes in small amounts, here is my secret trick: use cake mixes, but spice up portions of them with fun add-ins.
White cake mix (substitute at least 1/4 of the water for lemon juice; it cuts the sweetness):
- Lemon variation (for 1/3 batter): mix in the zest of one lemon
- Coconut variations (for 2/3 batter): blend together 1/4 cup sweetened condensed milk and 1 cup coconut; add 1/2 to 1 tsp on top of each unbaked mini cupcake. for a “mounds” cupcake, put 2 – 3 chocolate chips in each mini cupcake before topping with the coconut mixture. the coconut bakes down into the center of the cupcake and on top as well
Chocolate cake mix:
- Chocolate amaretto (for 1/3 batter): add 1 – 2 Tbs amaretto to the cake batter
- Peanut butter-filled chocolate (for 2/3 batter because people love these): bake cupcakes as usual; after they’ve cooled, use a plastic bag with the tip cut off to pipe in a blend of cream cheese and peanut butter, being careful not to split the cupcakes
Breadwinner 