MORE CUPCAKES?

OK...so I'll admit it, I've been on a bit of a cupcake rampage lately. Cupcake week over at Martha Stewart isn't helping either. Last weekend I had plans to try chocolate cupcakes with peppermint frosting but my guinea pigs were less than thrilled with that.

I decided to go with vanilla cake and lemon frosting (again) as it is always a favorite. The twist though, I bought this lovely kit (at Target): I should have taken a few more pictures of it BUT I can tell you this:

• It comes with 3 fun decorating tips
• a filler tip (can you imagine lemon pudding in a white cupcake?! I can't wait to use the filler tip!)
• disposable plastic decorator bags (way better than the parchment ones I usually make but, plastic = worse for the environment. note to self: purchase reusable pastry bags)

Man was this fun! All of my cupcakes had beautiful rosette tops and I broke out the spring sprinkles again. The little mini cupcakes I gave as a gift to some hard working nurses and the larger cupcakes were saved for us!

I did have an *issue* though...and a strange one at that - have any of you run into this:

I made one pan of mini cupcakes (24) and one pan of regular sized cupcakes (12). The regular sized cupcakes rose beautifully (see above) but the mini cupcakes barely rose at all. I am thinking that it may have had something to do with bake time? I cooked the bigger ones longer. The mini's were cooked all the way through and despite them not really rising, they were delicious all the same. I don't get it...

But back to the cupcake decorating kit...you really nead one