French Vanilla Cupcakes with Raspberry Buttercream

French Vanilla Cupcakes with Raspberry Buttercream

Today was my (Tabitha) turn to bake!

I proudly made the cupcakes and frosting for today's recipe... and Tricia decorated them :)

Role reversal!

This recipe calls for:

Cupcakes:

French Vanilla cake box mix

1 cup melted vanilla icecream

1/3 cup raspberry sauce (optional)

Frosting:

1 cup-1 1/2 cup Raspberry sauce/filling

3/4 cup room temperature butter

1 tsp. vanilla

2 cups powdered sugar

4 oz. softened cream cheese

1/8 cup milk

First I made the cake mix as directed on the box, and after mixing it all together (the point where you would be putting it in a pan to bake), added 1 cup of melted icecream.  Sounds odd right... too much liquid compared to dry ratio.  Nope, works wonders with cake!  Super great tip Tricia was told.

Once the icecream was blended in with the batter, I poured the mixture into greased cupcake tins. 

And swirled a little raspberry sauce into the second pan. 

I baked them at 350 for about 20 minutes.

On to the buttercream!

I mixed on low the butter, 1 cup of sugar, vanilla, and 1 cup of raspberry sauce.  Once that was all mixed I added the last cup of sugar and mixed on medium until completely blended.  

At this point the frosting was really thick, so adding a little bit of milk and the cream cheese lightened it up significantly.  You may also need to add a bit more raspberry sauce to make it noticeable.

I also made a small hole in a few of the cupcakes to see how they turned out being filled with the raspberry sauce. 

Then Tricia frosted them... 

I had also made a few chocolate designs beforehand. 

I melted 1/3 cup milk chocolate chips in the microwave  drizzled designs on parchment paper, and then froze them.

Ta da!

They are delicious... stop by the restaurant and try them out!

Happy baking!