The Perils of Food Coloring - Cupcakes

Once upon a time I had two wonderful ideas.  They became the not posted and won't be posted Orange Lemon cupcake and the Strawberry Lemonade cupcake. In one I substituted orange juice for water and in the other I added a package of strawberry lemonade drink mix to the batter.  Thus led to this recipe and another idea (partly thanks to a former friend and fellow amateur baker). 


Blue Raspberry Lemonade Cupcakes with Lemon Cream Cheese Icing.

Don't get me wrong, this is an awesome recipe, however it did not turn out quite right, but I know exactly why and will not be posting the exact recipe I followed. 

To make it easy:

Ingredients for Cake:

1 white cake mix.  You are about to see what happens when yellow cake mix is used.
3 eggs
oil
1 package blue raspberry drink mix
1 concentrate lemonade mix
Sugar
blue food coloring

Directions:

The Blue Raspberry Lemonade - See, a pretty blue-green color!

1. Make the blue raspberry lemonade/concentrate lemonade mix.  It's easy.  Follow the directions for the concentrate lemonade.  Add the blue raspberry lemonade.  Add a cup of sugar (I know.  That's a lot of sugar, but the drink tastes funny without the sugar.) and mix.  It should be a wonderful blue-green color.
2. Make the cake.  Follow the directions for the oil and the eggs.  Substitute the water for the blue raspberry lemonade that you just made.  
3. Add the food coloring until desired shade of blue. 
4. Bake according to directions on the box for what you are attempting to make.  I did my usual 20 minutes for  the cupcakes.  Next time, I'd do 18.  Seriously, set the timer for the MINIMUM time needed.
5. Take out of the oven, do the toothpick test previously explained (Land of Cupcakes, part 1), and let cool.  
6. Ice


Now, in looking at these pictures somebody is going to think, "Those are green!"  Yes, they are green.  Why are they green.  Because I used a yellow cake mix (with my grandmother's modified recipe that I will never use again) and when you have yellow + blue + blue-green it will always equal a blue-green that looks more green than blue. 

So not blue!

Slightly overbaked

 
 








Cream Cheese Icing


Ingredients: 


1 eight-ounce package cream cheese
4 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoons vanilla
2 teaspoons lemon flavoring
1 stick of butter

Directions: 
 
1. Blend the cream cheese and the butter.
2. Add the vanilla and lemon flavoring.
3. Slowly, seriously - 1 cup at a time, add in the powdered sugar.  

This is a recipe I will shortly be modifying.  I am honestly not happy with it, but until that day (and post) happens, this does work.  When you ice the cupcakes it will spread a little bit and a lot of icing is not necessary because this is a very rich icing.    


However, when I gave Bobby his share, he ate 3 of them before going home and they smell wonderful! Megan asked if they were supposed to be green.  Dad ate more than his fair share, which meant he ate somebody else's cupcake.  Despite their lack of perfection, and inability to actually be blue, these are, so far, my favorite cupcake experiments to date.