Let me tell you a funny story… At the beginning of the school year, my class helper, Aimee, made up Audrey. This imaginary student really took off with my class of girls and now we talk about Audrey every week. She is our class imaginary, special friend. The funny thing is I get confused from time to time and call her Aubrey… Good thing she’s not a real student or that would be bad news! It’s been a bonding experience to have Audrey be apart of a our class. The girls have really rallied around her and love to make up stories about what she likes and what she’s been up to. It’s quite hilarious! The class decided that today is Audrey’s birthday a couple of months ago. No surprise that is is on a Wednesday night so they can celebrate it.
I try to make something special for the class when I know there is going to be a birthday. Audrey’s birthday is no exception. Originally I planned on making yellow cake with chocolate frosting. It was easy. However, my creative side just had to take over. I’ve got a couple cans of pumpkin in the pantry that I’ve been dying to play with. So of course, I looked up recipes on my handy Betty Crocker app and found one that sounded good. I turned plain yellow cake mix into Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes with Pumpkin Spice Frosting.
I followed the cupcake recipe to the letter – except when it came to the pumpkin pie spice. I don’t own that spice, but I do own all the spice that make it, so I quickly threw together my own pumpkin pie spice. When it came time to think about frosting I was in a bit of a pickle. Most pumpkin recipes call for cream cheese frosting. I didn’t have any cream cheese frosting and I felt no need to run out and get some. Instead I used the basic vanilla butter-cream recipe and added pumpkin and spice! Thus creating Pumpkin Spice Frosting!
I tried to make the frosting really thick, but I found that when I started to pipe it onto the cupcakes it started to soften just a little too much. Instead of completely frosting the cupcakes I decided to go with a drizzle effect. The pumpkin on pumpkin flavoring is good, but I thought less is more in this situation. Once the cupcakes were frosted, I used holiday sprinkles to add the finishing touch.
Tonight I plan on bringing birthday candles and putting one in each on the cupcakes. I’ll let each girl blow out a candle in celebration of Audrey’s birthday. Since she is a special friend to the entire class, I figured that they all can take a unique part in celebrating her birthday.
Amy Scott's Thoughts 