Cupcakes-Simple

It was Nana's birthday and these are what she asked for.  I was afraid they'd be kind of boring but they ended up looking and tasting pretty good!

Yellow Cake with Buttercream Frosting

Ingredients:

Cake
1 box Yellow Cake mix
4 eggs
1c buttermilk
1/2 butter, melted

Frosting
1c (2 sticks) butter, softened
1tsp vanilla flavoring
1/2 tsp rum flavoring
3c confectioner's sugar
1-3tsp milk

Optional
sprinkles
mandarin orange slices

Directions:

1. Mix cake mix, butter, eggs, and buttermilk until integrated on low speed, then beat on med-high for 2min
2. Fill cupcake liners 2/3 full and bake @ 325F for about 15min, until slightly brown on the top
3. Beat butter and extracts until butter lightens in color, then slowly add confectioner's sugar.
4. Add milk as needed for the right consistency (I like mine fairly soft and I only needed about 2 tsp).
5. Pipe frosting onto cooled cupcakes, I topped mine with sprinkles and a mandarin orange slice.
Yield 2 dozen


Notes:
-I heard adding alcohol based extracts to butter before adding other ingredients can enhance the flavor which is why I added the extracts to the butter before mixing. 
-I dried my orange slices in paper towels before topping the cupcakes with them so they didn't melt the buttercream or make the sprinkles run.


The Verdict:
Surprising pretty and delicious.  They'd be a good base cupcake for those people who are kind of picky about their cupcake flavors.  You could substitute the Rum flavoring for pretty much any flavor and top with different kinds of fruit and still not have an overpowering flavor.


Original Recipe from:  No one in particular, just basic cake mix and buttercream recipe this time :)