C is for Cupcake - Two ways!

I don't remember what motivated me, but a while back I decided to make cupcakes from scratch. It was more work and pricier, initially, but it was so good! Totally worth it. Jump ahead a few years and I made them again for my son's 1st birthday party. I didn't have as much attention/time/care to put into these as I once did, so they didn't turn out as perfect as before, but still very flavorful.

Cupcakes and Frosting
via sweetpeaskitchen.com

Cupcake ingredients:
2 1/4 cups cake flour
1 cup + 2 Tbs whole milk, at room temperature
6 large egg whites (3/4 cup), at room temperature

Lions and Hippos

2 tsp almond extract
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups + 2 Tbs granulated sugar
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp table salt
12 tsp unsalted butter, softened but still cool
Muffin pan paper liners

Frosting ingredients:
20 Tbs (2½ sticks) unsalted butter, softened
2½ cups Confectioners’ sugar
1/8 tsp table salt
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 Tbs heavy cream

Decorating ingredients - optional:
Mardi Gras decorations

• Purple, green, and yellow food coloring
• Purple, green, and yellow sanding sugars

Animal decorations

• Caramel corn
• Nutter Butter cookies
• Candied eyes
• O-shaped cereal
• Black decorating gel
• Red, yellow, and blue food coloring

Making the Cupcakes

• Preheat oven to 350.
• Line muffin pan with paper liners.
• In a 2-cup measuring glass, combine milk, egg whites, and extracts and mix with fork until blended.
• In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, on low speed combine cake flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.
• Add butter and continue beating at slow speed until mixture resembles moist crumbs, with no powdery streaks remaining.
• Add all but 1/2 cup of milk mixture to crumbs and beat at medium speed for 1½ minutes.
• Add remaining 1/2 cup of milk mixture and beat 30 seconds more.
• Stop mixer and scrape sides of bowl.
• Return mixer to medium speed and beat 20 seconds longer.
• If you are making the animal cupcakes:
• Pour batter into muffin pan
• If you are making the Mardi Gras cupcakes:
• Split the batter into 3 separate bowls
• Mix in the food coloring into each bowl
• Put batter into individual pipping or ziplock bags
• Squeeze/layer each color into the muffin pan (for example, purple, then yellow, then green)
• Bake 15 to 17 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
• Transfer muffin pan to wire racks to cool completely before removing cupcakes. Cool completely prior to frosting.
  
• Decorate!

The original recipe used these as Mardi Gras cupcakes which is how I originally decorated them and they turned out great. I loved the cupcake so much, I decided to try to make these again with a single batter color and added the animal decorations on top (thanks to some Pinterest inspiration). I made and decorated the animal cupcakes the day before and kept them in a plastic container in the basement. However, that ended up being a bad idea. The caramel on the lions ended up melting off and making a big mess and the cookies on the hippos ended up soggy. I do not bake enough to really give advice on how to solve these problems, I just want to let you know that it happened. :)