Coffee Cupcakes

Last weekend my co-worker Lauren was celebrating her 50th birthday. Since it was such a big one, and we had a nice long 3 day weekend to look forward to, Cynthia and I decided that we should make her something. Lauren is always drinking coffee and makes several pots a day, so I figured I should do something coffee flavored and since cupcakes take less time to bake and decorate, and are easier to eat on the fly, I went with coffee cupcakes.

 I wasn't all too thrilled with these cupcakes.  This is not a recipe I would make again.  The cake came out a bit dry, and the icing was too thick.  Also, the coffee flavor comes from instant espresso powder.  This is true of a hell of a lot of coffee recipes.  Only rarely do you actually brew a cup of coffee and throw it in (although that is the case in my fudgey cake recipe), but I guess maybe the espresso powder I was using was larger bits than ones I had used in the past, because it gave the icing a real gritty texture, you could literally crunch on it a bit if you got a big piece of a bean in there.  Not exactly the feeling you're going for when eating this kind of cupcake.  I have another recipe for cuppuchino cupcakes that I might try in a bit, and hopefully I'll be able to alleviate that problem in some way.  Maybe I just have to crush/grind up the powder a bit more, or maybe I should go with brewed coffee or instant coffee powder instead of the espresso powder.  I don't think a coffee flavored extract would really give the flavor I'm looking for.  Either way, it was a good learning experience and Lauren seriously loved them.  She ate 2 or 3 in the office and I packed up 4 for her to bring home for the weekend.  She said she ate them all herself and didn't share.  You go girl.

Julibean <3