Butterbeer Cupcakes!

I think it would be safe to say I've been on a bit of a baking kick lately. I used to bake fairly often when I was in high school, but as soon as I began university I found it difficult to set aside time to even just throw a batch of cookies into the oven. But the past few weeks I've been making dozens of cookies, and the other week I decided I wanted to retry a recipe I made once before moving out for first year that I had botched a bit from lack of proper ingredients. (NOTE: When a recipe asks for "Butter Flavouring" don't just add extra butter. Just... don't.) The recipe I'm referring to is the scrumptious Butterbeer Cupcake recipe from the blog Pastry Affair. This recipe is pretty complicated, and as my baking game has been pretty low lately I enlisted my friends Katia (her blog is here) and Brandon to help me out!

While I do love baking on my own, sometimes it's really nice to have some friends for help and good conversation. (And wine. Wine is always nice.) These cupcakes have three steps to them: the main cupcakes, the ganache, and the buttercream. Together they create an incredibly sweet cupcake that is a pretty good interpretation of what real Butterbeer actually tastes like.

After our night of baking, the recipe left me with quite a bit of ganache left over. Ours ended up a bit stiffer then the original recipe, as we refrigerated it a bit to cool it down for filling the cupcakes and adding it to the buttercream. So the next day I swirled some ganache on top of the cupcakes I had left, though with the amount that's leftover I could fill and decorate a few more batches or about a hundred bowls of ice cream.

All in all, if you love baking and Harry Potter as much as me, these are a must-try. For a once-in-a-while treat these are awesome to share, as they are very sweet and after baking just one cupcake was enough to make us feel that wonderful full stomach lethargy that only baked goods can provide. So if you're planning a Harry Potter themed party, these are perfect.

Stay sweet.

x,
Mickie