Dee-Dee's Recipe Roundup

Today I am featured over at Whatever Dee-Dee Wants.com on her recipe roundup.  For a full week she hosts different bloggers sharing a recipe.  It's a great way to get new recipes and meet new bloggers too.  She's featuring the Rootbeer Cupcakes I made last month.  You really should try them if you haven't.  I need to make them again. This weekend!

Check out the other great recipes this week with Dee-Dee too.  I can't wait to try a few of them myself.

Rootbeer Cupcakes

I wasn't sure what I thought when I first heard root beer cupcakes mentioned.  But I do love cupcakes and I love a good root beer.  So I was excited to try them when my friend Steph made them.

They did not disappoint!

So I had to get the recipe and try them out for myself. 

Here's the original recipe, followed by what I did when I made them.

Root Beer Cupcakes
1 box yellow cake mix
2 eggs

2 cups root beer

1 3 oz pkg instant vanilla pudding
1 tsp. root beer extract

Mix ingredients together in a large bowl.  Fill cupcakes 1/2 to 2/3 full.  Bake at 350 degrees for about 16 minutes.  Cool cupcakes completely before frosting.

Frosting

1 8 oz container whipped topping, thawed

1 square softened butter

2 cups powdered sugar

1 tsp. root beer extract

Mix whipped topping, softened butter and root beer extract together until smooth.  Add powered sugar and mix until desired consistency.  Frost cupcakes!  They may be stored in the refrigerator to keep frosting from getting too soft.

Now, I thought I had all the ingredients I needed but I didn't. I did NOT want to make one more trip to the store that day so I improvised. I just substituted the water in the cake mix with root beer and added 1 tsp. root beer concentrate.  Then I added the rest of the regular ingredients called for on the box, i.e oil and eggs.

I couldn't find root beer extract but I did have root beer concentrate.  It may be the same thing.  I'm not really sure.  But it's what I used.  They were soo yummy.  So root beery.  I will definitely be making them again soon.  Thanks Steph for sharing these with me!

Cupcake Conference 2010 Summer Social

I went to the Cupcake Conference Summer Social a week ago.  It was soo much fun!

I went with these cute girls; Kelli,  Dee-Dee and Brittany.  The Social was held at The Grand America Hotel in one of the suites on the 23rd floor. 

It was beautiful. 

So were the views. 

We spent some time in the pastry kitchen with the executive pastry chef, Fernanda Dutra.

Then we had a little cupcake decorating contest.

We spent the remainder of the evening back in the suite.  We had more cupcakes, met new friends and won a bunch of prizes.  I won some beautiful earrings and an amazing cupcake stand.

Brittany may have won a cupcake bedazzled snuggie. 

Who am I kidding? 

Of course she did!

It was a wonderful, sugar-high, cupcake loving, gift winning, new friend making, swag bag receiving, lots of laughing night!

Thanks to these cute girls for all the planning!

 I can't wait to see what else is in store with the Cupcake Conference!