New year...new me.

My resolution this year?  Bake more cupcakes!
I even sat down trolling the internet for HOURS to find ideas.
Some of my inspirations are as follows...

• Olive oil
• Pear cupcakes w/ honey buttercream--The Flying Cupcake makes a pretty good one, but I'm going a different route.
• Vanilla chai w/ white chocolate raspberry buttercream
• Banana w/ caramel frosting
• Chocolate cupcakes w/ balsamic raspberry/pomegranate frosting
• Vanilla almond w/ blackberry buttercream from Love and Olive Oil b/c I've been meaning to try them

The list goes on for 1.5 notebook pages, but I digress.  You'll probably see most of them in the near future anyway.
My journey began January 1st with champagne cupcakes by Gimme Some Oven.
I used some leftover Spumante from the night before, and they were fabulous!  They even passed the 2 year old and the mother in law test!

In fact, I liked them so much that I decided to alter the recipe to make gin and tonic cupcakes a couple of days later.  They had a great crumb, but I thought the taste of the flour overpowered the tonic taste in the actual cakes.  I'm going to try altering an angel food cake recipe next time, but here are the results from my first gin and tonic trial.

I adapted this recipe from Gimme Some Oven's champagne cupcake recipe.... 
I cut the recipe in half to make 12 cupcakes.

Tonic Cupcakes:

• 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 3 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. salt
• 2/3 cup softened butter
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 3/4 tonic water
• 6 egg whites
• lime green food coloring

Gin and Lime Buttercream Frosting Ingredients:

• 3 1/4 cups powdered sugar
• 1 cup butter, at room temperature
• 3 tablespoons of gin, at room temperature
• 1/2-1 tsp of lime juice
• zest of 1 lime

Let's get started!
 Preheat your oven to 350°.
Cream butter and sugar together in a large bowl.  Sift dry ingredients together, and alternate adding them with the tonic water.
With an electric mixer, beat the egg whites until they form stiff peaks.  Fold in at least 3 drops of lime green food coloring.
Fold in 1/3 of the egg whites to the batter until they are combined.  Fold in remaining egg whites until they are JUST combined.  Streaks are fine...they actually look really pretty!
Fill liners 2/3 full, and bake for 20-22 minutes.  Toothpick test just to make sure!

Now the best part....
Clean your electric mixer up, and beat the softened butter until it is nice and fluffy.
Beat the sugar in batches on low speed, and then on medium for at least 2-3 minutes.
Add the gin and lime juice, and beat for another minute.
Add lime zest; beat until just incorporated.

When the cupcakes are completely cool, frost them, and enjoy!  You can add extra lime zest or sprinkles for decoration.  Candied lime segments/peel would also be really nice.


So that's that!
...for now!

What should I try next?