Butterfly Cupcakes for The Nesties Meet Up

This past weekend I met up with some other women from The Nesties group on meetup.com. It was a lot of fun, and of course I had to make cupcakes for the gathering!
I made lemon cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and chocolate butterflies!

I think they came out fantastic, and didn't taste that bad either. Cam took the remaining to work, and they were gone in minutes! The butterflies were fun to make, mainly because they were quite small.

Lemon Cupcake recipe:

* 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
* 2 teaspoon baking powder
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1 cup butter, softened
* 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
* 2 tsp. vanilla extract
* 3 eggs
* 2 cartons dairy sour cream
* 2 teaspoon finely shredded lemon peel
* 2 teaspoon lemon juice



Instructions:
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degree F. Line thirty 2 1/2-inch muffin cups with paper bake cups; set aside. In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; set aside.

2. In a large bowl, beat butter with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add granulated sugar and vanilla; beat until well mixed. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add flour mixture and sour cream alternately to beaten mixture, beating on low speed after each addition just until combined. (The batter will be thick.) Stir in lemon peel and juice.

3. Fill cupcake tin 3/4 full Bake in preheated oven about 18 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted in centers comes out clean.

Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients

* 1/2 cup of butter, room temperature
* 8 oz of Philly cream cheese , room temperature
* 2 - 3 cups of powdered sugar
* 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Method

1 With an electric mixer, mix the butter and cream cheese together, about 3 minutes on medium speed until very smooth. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl to ensure even mixing.

2 Add the vanilla extract and mix. Slowly add the powdered sugar. Keep adding until you get to desired sweetness and thickness.


The butterflies were made my standard way. Melted chocolate in a piping bag. I did the outline with milk chocolate mixed with black coloring. Then melted two bowls of white chocolate and colored them accordingly. I just made up different designs and piped those as well. Set them in the fridge to set and there you go, cute little butterflies!