So as I already mentioned, Hurricane Irene came through and kept everyone indoors all weekend long. I decided that I was going to get a little bit of baking in while I had the chance. I had a few cupcake flavors I wanted to try out, so that’s exactly what I did! After all, we were in a Cupcake Emergency!

I baked up some Chocolate Cupcakes…

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And I made my Basic Buttercream…

I wanted to do a few different flavors of Buttercream, so I divided up the Basic Buttercream and went to business!

I took some Oreos and threw them in Vitamix. I had Oreo crumbs that were nice and fine. So I decided to do a Cookies N’ Cream Buttercream.  Vanilla Buttercream + Oreo Crumbs = YUM!

Chocolate Cupcake; Cookies N’ Cream Buttercream

I still had some of the fine Oreo crumbs leftover, so I decided that I wanted to do a Chocolate Buttercream dusted with Oreo Crumbs. So I added in some Penzeys Natural Cocoa Powder and a very small sprinkle of Williams-Sonoma Espresso Powder.  And let me tell you – between these two ingredients, the Buttercream comes out oh so chocolatey. The Epresso Powder really enhances that rich chocolate flavor.

Chocolate Cupcake; Chocolate Buttercream; Oreo Crumbs

Mr. Curly Fry loves Kit Kats, so I wanted to incorporate those into a cupcake. So I used the Chocolate Buttercream. Talk about a Chocolate overload. But in a good way!

Chocolate Cupcake; Chocolate Buttercream; Kit Kats

I had some Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough in the refrigerator so that inspired me to make a Chocolate Chip Cookie Cupcake. When I was making the Cupcakes, I put some Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough in the center of the cupcake and baked it. So there’s chocolate chip cookie baked in the center of these bad boys!! Then I topped it off with Chocolate Buttercream and garnished it with a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie.  How can you go wrong with that?

Chocolate Cupcake with a Chocolate Chip Cookie filling;
Chocolate Buttercream; Chocolate Chip Cookie garnish

Last, but certainly not least! I wanted to do a Peanut Butter Buttercream. Is there really a better combination?! Peanut Butter + Buttercream = Heaven! This was my favorite cupcake of the day…the Chutter Butter! The Peanut Butter Buttercream was so creamy and smooth…it had my taste buds doing back flips! I seriously could have sat there with a spoon if I had any extra Buttercream left!

Chocolate Cupcake; Peanut Butter Buttercream; Nutter Butters

What flavor of Buttercream would you like to see spotlighted here on the blog?!