Sweet Cuppin' Cakes: Do It Your Own Self

Saddly, I closed all of the windows in my apartment and turned on the air conditioner. It was a little bit hot, today, and I was baking and having people over and so I decided to just go ahead and turn on the a/c. It felt kind of weird and defeaty, too, because today was the day of our Scentsy party to welcome in all of the Autumn and Winter scents and products. Also, I am super anxious for summer to be over. I think that it just might be, but I don't want to get my hopes up. I'm not sure I've got it in me for another heat wave. Until today, I've had the windows open and the a/c turned off for almost two weeks and my apartment has been downright cold. And I've loved every chilly minute of it. It's probably safe to do it again, I would imagine. After I finish this post.
So, I invited Sarah to come to Mac and throw us a Scentsy party, today. I woke up and my house was an absolute disaster. The way I feel about the cleanliness of my house is completely nonsensical. When I call up a friend and say, "hey, wanna come watch a movie tonight?" I don't really care about what my house looks like. But when I plan something weeks in advance, I suddenly feel the need to break out the wet Swiffer over my hardwood floors and dust the top of the microwave. So my house wasn't really an absolute disaster to the point where anyone would notice anything different--but it there were a lot of things that I wanted to accomplish. I wanted to do all of my dishes (I did some of them). I wanted to clean the litter box (I did do that--you can't very well invite people over to smell your house and have a dirty litter box. You could but it would be rude.). I wanted to mop my kitchen floor but decided that it wasn't such a big deal and probably no one would notice. And then, naturally, I spilled half a gallon of pink lemonade inside of the refrigerator. So not only did the refrigerator get cleaned out, that floor got a good Cinderella style scrub down with soapy water, a rag and bare hands feet.

Anyway, since Sarah was going to talk about the Fall and Winter catalog, we wanted to have nice autumn time-y treats. I have been a little bit obsessed with cupcakes as of late so that was the obvious choice (it's so nice to not have to wash plates and forks) but I couldn't find any recipes that excited me. Most fall-time foods involve pumpkin and, frankly, I don't love pumpkin at all unless it's in a milkshake. From Sonic. Brought to me by my little sister. And it makes such a huge mess when I take the lid off (why would you take the lid off?!) that I'm forced to drink it over the sink.

I. Love. My sister.

What I really wanted was to find a way to put a chai latte, the ultimate cold-weather drink of choice, into a cupcake. I couldn't find a recipe so I just made up my own. And let me tell you, it was freaking delicious. Semi-homemade at its finest. I assure you, this cupcake is Sandra Dee's wet dream.


Chai Tea Cupcakes with Apple Cider Buttercream Frosting
1 box of cake mix. I don't know what kind I used, the kind with "pudding" in the batter and it was less than a dollar. These things appeal to me. (Note: if I had to do it all over again, I would have gone with a spice-flavored cake mix instead of white)
3 eggs
1/3 cup of oil
1 T. Vanilla extract
1 cup of water very strongly brewed chai tea, cooled. I had Stash green chai (which is my favorite) and so that's what I used.

Follow the directions on the box, more or less. Dump it all into a bowl. Mix that stuff up and dump it into cupcake liners. Bing, bang, boom. I baked mine for exactly 18 minutes and they came out absolutely perfect.

The highlight of these puppies was certainly the frosting. I couldn't think of a way to chai-it-up in the frosting department using what I had in my house so I went for something completely different. What is the second most delicious hot beverage for cold days? Apple Cider. And I just so happened to have some packets of instant cider mix to add and make it all very tart and sugary.

Frosting:
Powdered sugar I have no idea how much, honestly.
1 stick butter I will surely be shunned from the baking community for admitting this but I used margarine. That's what I had!
Two packets of instant apple cider mix probably could have backed off and gone with just the one.
Any cinnimony spice that I could find in my pantry. I used Vietnamese cinnamon and apple pie spice but you can use whatever you want or like
Teeny tiny bit of water

Mix it all up until it reaches a reasonable consistency. If you need it to be softer, add tiny bits of water at a time. If you want it to be a little more stiff, add more powdered sugar. Then you frost all of your cupcakes. I remember that when I first started frosting cupcakes, I kept getting frustrated because I didn't know how to make it look pretty without a pastry bag. I don't have a pastry bag anyhow but if I did, then I sure wouldn't use it anyway. It's impossible to clean those things, man. So, anyway, I made a little video for you. I hope you find it to be helpful.

So we frosted the cupcakes and I put water on for tea and then the friends started coming over.

And we smelled things and played games. Everyone got a prize but Katie, undoubtedly, won the best prize when her name was drawn for a plug-in warmer. When I talk about Scentsy, I sound like a weirdo but when you're at a Scentsy party, you are loving life. I assure you.

And then you order all a reasonable amount of the things that your little heart wants, your sister will go home and order them for you and you will receive them in no more than three weeks.

*Sigh* And then you go put on your grown up pants, go to bed, and face the facts that tomorrow is Monday. Remember boys and girls, you are in charge of how you react to your Monday. And if it's just too much to bear, come on over to my apartment because I have a fridge full of these.

I love you so much that if I tried to explain it to the fullest degree, you'd probably get freaked out a little bit.
-Libby