Brown Sugar Cupcakes

Inspired by this post from Ezra Pound Cake (originally Martha Stewart), and having just been turned down for an internship, I decided to put off my job interviews and make something delicious. This will also be my first time baking cupcakes (I KNOW!) and I'm not great at frosting, so this will be an adventure.

The batter was a lot thicker than I was expecting it to be. I really had no idea what it would be like, so I'm not sure if that's this recipe or all cupcake batters. I ended up spooning it into the paper cups; it stayed light and fluffy until I popped them in the oven. 

I ruined one when I pulled it out the oven {{klutz}} but I thought, "Frosting should cover it..."

For frosting I used my mom's classic cream cheese recipe, plus a little brown sugar. This recipe is so easy I've been making it since I was five or six years old. In middle school I brought it to class for us to eat with spoons--it's that good. However I was little iffy on the details of the recipe and did the following:

8 oz Neufchatel cream cheese (low fat Philadelphia)

1 cup butter

1 tsp vanilla

pinch of salt

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 tbs milk

and 1 box powdered sugar.

Not enough powdered sugar! I would probably double it next time. As you can see, the frosting is more than a little droopy. (Also, this is one of the bad ones. All the good looking cupcakes disappeared before I had a chance to take pictures.) I also like the frosting to be a little more cream-cheesy, less buttery, but that's just personal preference.

All in all, I was happy but not elated about the final product. The cakes and the frosting were both a little too sweet for me, and the cakes were a little dry. Of course, my family loved them.