GIVE ME A (SPRING) BREAK CUPCAKE

Oh how I deserve a (spring cupcake) break!
I've stuck to my running every night. Yah. you heard it: running every night at 10pm.

As you can see from my lack of posts, prior to Spring Break I had huge stacks of marking to plough through. That coupled with the running nightly and I wasn't in any mood to bake. I just wanted to sleep.

Though night time isn't the ideal time to run because of the huge adrenalin rush prior to going to bed, I'm sufficiently exhausted from the day that when my head hits my ergonomically designed memory foam pillow, I'm out for the count!
Not that I'm rationalizing eating a treat, but I've actually lost about 7 pounds just with the addition of all this running. It's not a lot of running, mind you. I can only afford 20 minutes a day, but I've been increasing my speed and I'll keep pushing myself by either doing that or increasing the incline on my treadmill.

With the running and the low-carb/refined foods restriction, I think I can allow myself a wee chocolate cupcake. I made a huge batch of tiny cupcakes and regular-sized cupcakes. Of course, I indulged in only one mini one :)

I brought the tray of cupcakes to school for my colleagues because I thought we needed a treat for the tough few weeks leading up to report cards. Heck, we sure deserved it.

here's the tray of cupcakes: note the mini ones...they're only a mouthful; less than half the size of the regular-sized cupcakes

for pink gerberas, I used a 103 Wilton tip and plopped a dragee in the centre.

the buttercream frosting was tinted pink, but I intentionally didn't mix the colouring in thoroughly because I wanted a variegated look to the petals.

since I bake at night, I soon lost motivation to complete the decorations on the cupcakes and instead of finishing the gerberas with green leaves and vines, I decided to keep it simple ;P

The cupcake recipe I used was my favourite Barefoot Contessa chocolate layer cake recipe; but I adapted it for cupcakes instead. I reduced the baking time. Then I used the Wilton buttercream flavoured with almond extract. It's easy to pipe with and holds up well.