Cinnamon Toast Crunch Cupcakes

When I first found out about Pinterest last summer, I immediately told my friend Tori about it. Tori, being against most forms of social media including Facebook, decided to check it out but refused to make an account. Instead of pinning her finds, she does it the old fashioned way - with a bookmark. Account or not, Tori is always on top of the latest Pinterest phenomenons. It was no surprise to me that when I asked her what to bring to her annual Memorial day weekend party, she requested these Cinnamon Toast Crunch Cupcakes.

Butterfluffer Cupcakes

Butterscotch + Marshmallow Fluff = Butterfluffer!

Last week I bought a huge jar of fluff to make s'mores bars for a friend's birthday. So on Saturday, when I was trying to come up with a creative cupcake flavor, I knew I just had to use the fluff. Then it hit me that I had been stock piling butterscotch pudding and butterscotch chips to make my favorite butterscotch maple cupcakes, and I thought, why not butterscotch and fluff?

Dark Chocolate Zucchini Cupcakes with Chambord Ganache

Summertime means sun, heat and ... zucchini. Anyone who has a garden knows that it seems like you pick all the zucchini in the garden one evening and the next evening there's twenty more. My parent's refrigerator is full of zucchini, some the size of a baseball bat.

I didn't want to make your typical spiced zucchini bread, though I do love it. I wanted to disguise my zucchini a little bit more because after all, zucchini is a vegetable and as far as I'm concerned, veggies have no place in my desserts (this goes for fruit as well, though I do make some exceptions).

Fresh Strawberry Swiss Meringue Frosting

...and a lesson in love and life from yours truly

I fully intended to use this post to describe how perfect this Swiss Meringue recipe is, but recent events in my life have lead me to this instead. Once my fingers hit the keyboard, I couldn't stop... so here it is. (If you're solely here for the recipe and not the life lesson, scroll to the bottom)

I learned a valuable lesson in love and life yesterday. Three weeks ago I decided to end my one year long-distance relationship. It was a tough decision, but one that I had been contemplating for a few weeks. Mistakes had been made recently and our lines of communication suffered due to distance and work schedules. I made up my mind to end it and did so cordially and matter of factly. There was no struggle, no fight. It was just... over. I woke up the next day with a new lease on life. I would focus on myself, get to the gym, lose a few pounds, work on my blog, reinvigorate my career and reconnect with old friends.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Stuffed Cupcakes

When I first told my friends that I had found that it's possible to stuff RAW cookie dough inside a cupcake, no one believed me. "It's true," I said, "I saw it on a food blog." Knowing that my friend Rachel was coming home from Virginia to celebrate her birthday, I taunted her with the delicious possibility of such a cupcake.

I've tried cookie bottomed cupcakes and oreo stuffed cupcakes but never a cupcake stuffed with RAW dough. How was this possible? Would the chocolate chip cookie stork drop a ball of baby cookie dough inside my cupcake? Does the cookie monster take responsibility for this?

No. It's simple. You freeze the cookie dough.

Strawberry Peach Champagne Cupcakes

A Guest Post by Maggie

This guest post comes to you from my friend Maggie. Maggie and I were roommates at Elizabethtown College. I had the privilege of being a bridesmaid in her beautiful wedding last year. We share a mutual love of baking and she has quite possibly the biggest sweet tooth of anyone I know. When I started the blog, I immediately went to Maggie and asked her if she would be interesting in writing some guest posts. Maggie and her husband Preston live in Lambertville, NJ.

I love the idea of champagne cupcakes - they just sound so fun and festive to me. I've always wanted to make them but never seem to have any champagne left over around the house. My husband and I recently celebrated our first wedding anniversary and there was a left over bottle of champagne that needed to be put to use! This was the perfect time to make the cupcakes. Even better, it was peach champagne. I love all peach flavored things and wait all year for my mom's peach pie (she only uses fresh, local, peaches with a cookie crumb crust. It is absolutely amazing). So I knew it was time for champagne cupcakes.