Better late than never....

Greetings, Dear Reader. Welcome once again to the latest rendition of Recipe Tuesday. This week, I've done sort of an Outward Bound! type thing... I'm cooking over at Sic_un's, I've brought my glass bowls, all ingredients, my spat, my grater... I've used his muffin tins (he has them! I don't. Hm. This says something, but I'm not quite sure what), his measuring cups and his teaspoon measure. And his stove. You get the picture.

Speaking of pictures, no pictures. I still need to actually BUY the batteries at the STORE when I'm there instead of wanting to get in and out as fast as possible. This Recipe Tuesday is because we're having 'treat day' for Valentine's at work. Our team is, at any rate. We're exchanging valentines and having sweet stuff. Hey, gets me off the phones, right? I still think it's rather... Third grade-ish, but that's me. As I said, I get off the phones. Without further ado...


UltraOrange Cupcakes with CreamCheese Frosting

Make your cupcakes according to directions HERE.
At the point where you would fill the cake pan, fill paper-lined muffin cups 2/3 full of batter. Bake them at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes or until you get a clean toothpick test. I wound up with 22 cupcakes out of 1 batch, and most were a very scant 2/3 cup. So make your cupcakes.
COOL THEM THOROUGHLY.

While your cupcakes are baking, you can mix the frosting:
8 oz. Cream Cheese-CHILLED
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 tablespoon orange zest
1 tablespoon orange juice
2 to 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar

In a medium bowl, beat everything except the powdered sugar until blended. Add the powdered sugar 1/3 to 1/2 cup at a time, blending until smooth and your desired consistency. If the frosting gets too stiff, keep beating a few seconds until it thins. Do not overbeat.

Frost your cupcakes, cupcake!


Notes: Apparently, if the cream cheese is chilled and the butter soft, it won't get grainy. So that's how I did it. What I did with the orange juice is used the juice of 1 small orange in the frosting and regular bottled orange juice (non-concentrate, pulp free) for the cake. I managed to get just 2 tablespoons of zest out of it using a fine grater.