My cousin’s birthday was a few weeks ago and I offered to do the catering for the party.  The birthday girl just wanted apple pie, so I had free-rein to decide what kind of cupcakes to make for the other kids at the party.

They were expecting about 15 kids.  After consulting friends on what would be a good flavor for kids (my sister and I only had ice cream cakes for our birthdays growing up), I decided on a Snickerdoodle cupcake with a Brown Sugar Buttercream frosting.  I thought this would go nicely with the apple pie, playing up on the cinnamon in the pie.

Snickerdoodle cupcake

Makes 24 cupcakes

Adapted from Always with Butter

• 1  1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1  1/2 cup cake flour
• 1 Tbsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 Tbsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp fresh ground nutmeg
• 2 sticks butter, softened
• 1  1/2 cups sugar
• 4 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1  1/4 cups milk

Preheat oven to 325°F.  Grease two muffin tins  and set aside.

In a medium bowl, sift together flours, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg.  Set aside.

In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.  Add eggs one at a time, making sure each is well incorporated before adding the next.  Mix in the vanilla.  With a spatula, mix in flour mixture in three batches alternating with milk, ending with flour mixture.  Be careful not to overmix, you’ll want to stop when the dry ingredients are just combined.

Bake for 20-25 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.  Allow to cool before frosting.

Brown Sugar Buttercream

• 3 sticks butter, softened
• 2/3 cup brown sugar
• 1  1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 5 cups powdered sugar
• 6 Tbsp half and half

Using an electric mixer, beat the butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon.  Alternate adding powdered sugar and half and half.

I would love to try these cupcakes with some cream cheese in the frosting.  The buttercream was Excellent, I’m just more partial to the slightly tangy taste of cream cheese frosting (although I’m not sure if that’s too much of a grown-up taste for a bunch of kids…)

I also made sandwiches for the party, which included Peanut Butter and Jelly, Egg Salad, and Turkey and Cheese.  I made little flags to label the different kinds.  I also made chocolate covered strawberries and bananas.  The strawberries were a huge hit and ran out!  I cut off the tops of the strawberries because I thought it would be easier and less messy for the kids to eat…although it made covering them a bit harder, I think it was worth it.

I used bowls from home to add goldfish and carrot sticks to the sandwich platters.