Pinkalicious Cupcakes
January 22nd, 2011
Pinkalicious Cupcakes
My three year old daughter has a favorite book, and it is called “Pinkalicious.” I suspect that if you have a young daughter or granddaughter that you know exactly what I am talking about right now. If you have not heard of this charming book- it is about a young girl that turns pink from eating too many pink cupcakes.
Pia has wanted to make “Pinkalicious” cupcakes for ages. For some reason today- I decided it was the day! She was over the moon, and my heart just about exploded when I saw her dressed for the occasion. (see pictures):
(my little pinkalicious Coco)
I wound up making just a vanilla cupcake , colored pink with food coloring. But we made them more exciting by taking the core out of the cupcakes and filling them with homemade raspberry jam.
Then they are topped with a lovely Vanilla buttercream, of course, tinted pink, and topped with sprinkles and a maraschino cherry!
The girls truly went nuts when they saw the cupcakes- even Coco was magnetically drawn to them! If you have a young girl in your life, make these with her- I promise that she will be so delighted!
(Pia was taking pictures of the cupcakes too)
Because we had kind of a freakish Spring day in Seattle today- the kids were outside all afternoon. I threw in a picture of them “riding bikes” and playing on the patio as they worked out some of the sugar and Henry supervised☺
Pinkalicious Cupcakes, makes 1 dozen cupcakes
½ cup butter, room temperature
2/3 cup sugar
3 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1 ½ cups flour
1 ½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1/3 cup milk
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Prepare a muffin tin with cupcake liners.
In the bowl of a standing mixer combine the butter and sugar. Beat until creamy and well combined.
Add the eggs and vanilla and beat well.
In a separate bowl combine the dry ingredients.
Add the dry ingredients to the bowl and combine partially.
Add the milk and three drops of neon pink food coloring and one of the purple (more if you like!) . Beat until well combined.
Scoop the batter into the cupcake liners.
Bake the cupcakes at 350 degrees for 17-20 minutes or until fluffy and just baked through.
Let cool before you frost.
Vanilla Buttercream Frosting
10 oz butter
4 cups powdered sugar
¼ cup cream
1 Tbs water
2 tsp vanilla bean paste
1 1/2 cups raspberry jam
“neon” food coloring
white sprinkles
12 marashino cherries
Whip all of the ingredients together on high for about 3 minutes or until the frosting is very fluffy. ( I added vanilla bean paste to create a really flavorful frosting- but extract is great too).
There should be about 4 cups of frosting, divide it into two bowls: 1 cup and 3 cups in each.
In the 1 cup of frosting, add 3 drops purple and 6 drops pink neon food coloring. Mix well.
In the 3 cups of frosting, add 3 drops of pink neon food coloring. Mix well.
Using a cupcake corer, take the middle out of each cupcake.
Pipe or spoon the raspberry jam into the middle of each cupcake.
Frost the tops of the cupcakes with the lighter pink frosting and follow immediately with sprinkles.
Decorate the cupcakes with the rest of the dark pink frosting and top the cupcakes with a cherry!
Very Pinkalicious!
There’s just something about PINK that feeds our girlie side!! Love the cupcakes and the pics; yes, we did have a beautiful day here! spring is going to return to us someday, I can feel it!
3:59 am on February 20th, 2011
Love the pink-ness of these cupcakes!!
3:59 am on February 20th, 2011
AHAHAHA! Love it!! man, that dog is HUGE. I mean…HUUUUGE.
4:01 am on February 20th, 2011
i don’t know what looks sweeter, the cupcakes or the cutie pies “riding bikes”???
4:03 am on February 20th, 2011
I loved seeing the girls with cupcake fun and dressed for the occasion. Enjoying the view while in China. Like that cupcake corer, a great idea. Mom
4:04 am on February 20th, 2011
Beautiful cupcakes and beautiful girls! I love the pinkness too!!
4:04 am on February 20th, 2011
This is adorable, and the cupcakes look delicious!
4:05 am on February 20th, 2011
LOVE the pink cupcakes. your girls are beautiful….but that dog. OMG! he is awesome!
4:06 am on February 20th, 2011
Oh my gosh!!! These are too cute. Perfect for Valentine’s Day! Me thinkest a Pinkalicious tea party is in order! Where did you get her fantastic dress?
4:07 am on February 20th, 2011
Very cute and yummy looking! Your daughters are precious too because they both matched the “pinkalicious” theme!
4:08 am on February 20th, 2011
Adorable!! The cupcakes and those sweet girls!!!The dog is pretty cool as well. I am reall amazed at the wonderful sunshine in Seattle in January!! Lucky you guys!
4:08 am on February 20th, 2011
Did you use cake flour on these darling cupcakes?
3:16 pm on February 20th, 2011
Karen- I didn’t! Just AP. I have used cake flour for cupcakes before, and while unbelievably tender and tasty, they make for kind of a flimsy cupcake? So it is a toss up!
3:16 pm on February 20th, 2011
I had better not show this post to my own 2 little girls before making these, or else I will here the following phrase over and over and over again: Mommy, are the pinkalicious cupcakes done yet? Are they done yet? Huh?!?
3:18 pm on February 20th, 2011
These look amazing! Do you think I could add cherry juice to the cupcake batter instead of food coloring? Can’t wait to make these! Jen
11:55 am on April 1st, 2011
I have no idea! But please tell me if you do- I would love to use a natural alternative!
1:33 pm on April 1st, 2011
These are wonderful! I used half cake/AP flour, and used half vanilla/ almond extract. I used 6 tsp marascino juice for the batter which made a nice blush pink color and used 2 tsp for the icing plush i gtt of food coloring. Gave a great old fashioned cupcake flavor. Thanks for your wonderful recipes!! Jen
12:15 pm on April 5th, 2011
So cute! I loved it when my daughter loved pink. So fun. Now she’s 13 and her color is BLACK. *sigh Enjoy those cute girlies!!
Heather
3:55 pm on January 12th, 2012
These are wonderful! My little girl LOVES pinkalicious! I recently wrote about this as well and made pinkalicious pink pancakes! http://squashblossombabies.com/2011/10/03/beet-pancackes/
4:01 pm on January 12th, 2012
HAVE to check those out!!
6:32 pm on January 12th, 2012
Love that you filled these with raspberry jam. Your little gals are soooo cute & so is your big pup!
9:03 pm on January 12th, 2012
These are precious! And pink! My daughter would’ve loved these when she was little. What am I saying…she would love these now!
5:36 am on January 13th, 2012
best cupcakes I’ve made to date…we’re VEGAN so I substituted Earth Balance soy butter, rice milk, egg replacer and used homemade strawberry jam for the jam filling. Thanks for a staple cupcake recipe for our family!!!
5:03 pm on January 14th, 2012
I bet you have a fight over who gets to be the cupcake core eaters! Love these pretty in pink cupcakes!
12:49 pm on January 15th, 2012
Hi Heather! Just wanted to let you know that I had a Pinkalicious party for my daughter’s 3rd birthday and used your cupcake recipe (mine weren’t as lovely as yours as you can see by the photos) but the instructions were great and they turned out lovely! The icing is divine (which might explain my daughter’s pink poop the day after the party!)
Here is the link to some photos:
http://www.sarahgrahamphotography.com/blog/january-8th-lilah-turns-3/
8:09 am on January 21st, 2012
Thank you Sarah! I went to your site and was BLOWN AWAY by your photography!!!! gorgeous!!
8:19 am on January 21st, 2012
Awww. Thanks, Heather. LOVED the idea and the cupcakes were SO perfect! Thanks again for the awesome recipe! This was my first attempt at cupcakes!
10:31 am on January 24th, 2012
Do you have any ideas on making these pink without using food coloring? I want to make them but they’d have to be pink without food coloring due to allergies. Glueten-free and pink. I was thinking of using a strawberry-puree? What do you think?
The pictures are gorgeous by the way!
2:03 pm on January 31st, 2012
Hi Stephanie! You should look into natural food coloring for future use. I think India tree makes great ones. Personally I like the color that raspberry puree gives more than strawberry- it is a truer pink!
2:06 pm on January 31st, 2012
How many cupcakes does this recipe make?
11:37 am on April 21st, 2012
Also, where did you get your cupcake liners for these?
11:43 am on April 21st, 2012
1 dozen! I got those at my grocery store, but I bet you could find them on-line!
2:50 pm on April 21st, 2012
Can you tell me which type of flour and what you are referring to as cream? I am baking these for my daughters bday this weekend and just needed to know thanks!!
9:35 am on June 25th, 2012
AP flour, and when I say “cream together” I just mean “whip together”! Good luck! I hope they turn out great
10:28 am on June 25th, 2012
oh- unless you mean the cream in the frosting? I just mean whipping cream. You could also substitute whole milk- but I would use a little less if you do that.
10:29 am on June 25th, 2012
Ok thank you do so much! These cupcakes are Presh and I look forward to seeing how mine turn out:)
11:25 am on June 25th, 2012
thank you so vary much i need this recipe for a friends little one for her birthday and i hope she will like they
12:15 am on October 31st, 2012