1-up Cupcakes

These Super Mario inspired cupcakes are made with the Magnolia Bakery vanilla cupcake recipe, and a green tea cream cheese frosting. They're perfect to feed a video game player, and in some instances may add exponentially increased levels of happiness to your life!

1-up Cupcakes:
Makes 12 large cupcakes and 24 small cupcakes

2 3/4 cups flour 1 cup unsalted butter, softened 2 cups sugar 4 large eggs 1 cup milk 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 325°F, and line cupcake tin.

Cream butter in a large bowl and slowly add the sugar. Add the eggs one at a time, followed by the dry ingredients in three parts, alternating with the milk and vanilla. Fill liners 3/4 full, and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. After cupcakes cool off, frost with Green Tea Cream Cheese Frosting:

Green Tea Cream Cheese Frosting: makes more than triple enough to frost one batch of these cupcakes. 1 cup butter 8 oz cream cheese 3 cups powdered sugar 2 tablespoons matcha powder

Beat together butter and cream cheese. Sift in sugar and matcha powder.

Reserve 1/4 of your frosting for the light colored spots on the 1-up cupcakes. With the remaining 3/4 of the frosting, add more matcha powder to reach a darker green color. It also helps to add some yellow and blue food coloring to the frosting in order to achieve a visible color difference.

To frost the cupcakes, make a layer of dark green frosting on the cupcake top with a butter knife. Then, with the lighter color of frosting, pipe on small circles, making small spiral shapes with the tip of your frosting bag. A small plastic bag works just fine for this.

And voila!
1-up cupcakes in two different sizes.

Snack on the bite sized ones as you decorate the larger ones, and be sure to share with your friends!

Cupcakes for a Party (x2)

On Sunday I baked green tea cupcakes and chocolate cupcakes to take to two parties. They're frosted with marshmallow frosting, and decorated with strawberries and animal crackers.


Some alterations I made to the previous recipes are:
1. I used margarine in the frosting, instead of butter. The frosting turned out thinner than I had hoped, and would not stay in the chrysanthemum shapes featured in the last post.
2. The Green Tea Cupcakes were made with regular flour instead of rice flour, and rice milk instead of soymilk.

I really had a lot of fun experimenting with decorations, as you can see below. My favorite is the octopus shaped out of pieces of strawberry!

Chocolate Rain Cupcakes

These cupcakes were inspired by a friend who asked for Chocolate Rain cupcakes for his birthday. Literally, it's a reference to Chocolate Rain, a youtube video with 39,000,000+ views by Tay Zonday.

'Chocolate' practically requires a chocolate cupcake, and 'rain' connotates a great flood where only two of each animal were saved on a boat. This explains my post earlier this week about the animal crackers.

After much deliberation, I settled on a chocolate cupcake recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World with Green tea glaze frosting, to represent a dirt hill covered in grass. Animal crackers graze, while a light chocolate rain falls down upon their backs.

Chocolate Rain Cupcakes
makes 12 cupcakes

1 cup soymilk
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/6 cup canola oil
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup all purpose flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 325°F and line muffin tin with cupcake liners.

Whisk soymilk and vinegar together and set aside for a few minutes to curdle.

Add sugar, oil, and vanilla extract. Beat until foamy.

Sift together remaining ingredients and add in two batches to wet ingredients. Beat well and fill cupcake liners 3/4 full. Bake 15 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.


Prepare the green tea glaze, and frost the top of each cupcake. Then, place one animal cracker on top of each cupcake.


In a double broiler, melt semisweet chocolate chips. When melted, drizzle your chocolate rain. Enjoy!

Green Tea Mochi Cupcakes

Last week, I made Green Tea Mochi Cupcakes with my sister, and they turned out too good not to share. The recipe was modified from the Green Tea Cupcake recipe in Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. Instead of using regular flour, I used Mochiko (rice flour), which gave the cupcakes a crispy exterior and sticky interior. I think that since I substituted mochiko for flour, I should have added extra baking powder to counteract the denseness of the rice flour. I'll have to try again later.

Green Tea Mochi Cupcakes:
Makes 12 cupcakes

1/2 cup soy yogurt
2/3 cup soy milk
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/6 cup canola oil
1 1/4 cups rice flour (mochiko)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
4 teaspoons matcha powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup granulated sugar

Preheat oven to 325°F, and line cupcake pan with liners.

Whisk together the yogurt, soymilk, vanilla, and oil. Sift in remaining ingredients. Fill cupcake liners all 3/4 full and bake 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool on racks before topping with glaze:

Green tea glaze:
2 tablespoons margarine
1 cup confectioners' sugar
1/4 teaspoon matcha powder
2 tablespoons soymilk
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Mash up margarine in a bowl with a fork. Mix in sugar and matcha powder. Then, beat in remaining ingredients. Spoon on top of cupcakes, and enjoy!