Chocolate Raspberry Cupcakes

I cheated.

I'm sad to admit that this post will not contain a recipe. Why? Because I cheated. I baked cupcakes for a softball game and I used a box for the cake batter. A box, people! I am so ashamed.

Although no excuse is going to be good enough, let me explain anyway. For my softball team last week I REALLY wanted to bake cupcakes (kind of a trend considering my last post was also about cupcakes) because the day before our game was my sister's birthday. For me, cupcakes and birthdays go together like peanut butter and jelly - a perfect combination. However, I didn't have the time or ingredients to bake a scratch recipe in time for the game. We had just driven back from a trip to Southern California that day and only had a couple hours until game time. After some pondering and cabinet searching, I came across a box of chocolate cake mix. I promptly threw the mix in my mixer along with the eggs, oil, and water. SO easy! Why don't I do this all the time? Well, because I feel like I'm cheating. For me, using the box takes about half the fun out of the whole baking process. I can taste the difference when I opt for more high-quality ingredients. I'd like to say that I'll never cheat again but I'm only human and never is a very long time.

To add a personal touch to these cupcakes, I decided to add a filling and scratch buttercream. For the filling, I just used some raspberry preserves. I used a small round fondant cutter to remove a cylinder of cake from the top center of each cooled cupcake. I spooned in the preserves and then replaced the removed cake piece.

For the buttercream, I just mixed up my usual concoction of a stick of softened butter, about 1 lb of powdered sugar, a small amount of milk, and this time I substituted about a 1/2 cup or raspberry preserves for the vanilla. Then, just continue to add more and more powdered sugar (almost up to 2 lbs total by the end) until it reaches the consistency I like for piping. One of these days, I'll get around to doing a whole post just on buttercream, complete with step-by-step photos. One of these days.

The cupcakes came out wonderfully! They were beautiful and the filling added some extra moisture to that light and boring box cake. The day-old ones were even better as the filling had more time to permeate more of the cake. Adding the preserves to the frosting also gave them a cute, natural pink color. Happy birthday, Sis!