Pinkalicious Cupcakes

My three year old daughter has a favorite book, and it is called “Pinkalicious.” I suspect that if you have a young daughter or granddaughter that you know exactly what I am talking about right now. If you have not heard of this charming book- it is about a young girl that turns pink from eating too many pink cupcakes.

Pia has wanted to make “Pinkalicious” cupcakes for ages. For some reason today- I decided it was the day! She was over the moon, and my heart just about exploded when I saw her dressed for the occasion. (see pictures):

(my little pinkalicious Coco)

I wound up making just a vanilla cupcake , colored pink with food coloring. But we made them more exciting by taking the core out of the cupcakes and filling them with homemade raspberry jam.

Then they are topped with a lovely Vanilla buttercream, of course, tinted pink, and topped with sprinkles and a maraschino cherry!

The girls truly went nuts when they saw the cupcakes- even Coco was magnetically drawn to them! If you have a young girl in your life, make these with her- I promise that she will be so delighted!

(Pia was taking pictures of the cupcakes too)

Because we had kind of a freakish Spring day in Seattle today- the kids were outside all afternoon. I threw in a picture of them “riding bikes” and playing on the patio as they worked out some of the sugar and Henry supervised☺

Pinkalicious Cupcakes, makes 1 dozen cupcakes
½ cup butter, room temperature
2/3 cup sugar
3 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1 ½ cups flour
1 ½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1/3 cup milk

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Prepare a muffin tin with cupcake liners.

In the bowl of a standing mixer combine the butter and sugar. Beat until creamy and well combined.

Add the eggs and vanilla and beat well.

In a separate bowl combine the dry ingredients.

Add the dry ingredients to the bowl and combine partially.

Add the milk and three drops of neon pink food coloring and one of the purple (more if you like!) . Beat until well combined.

Scoop the batter into the cupcake liners.

Bake the cupcakes at 350 degrees for 17-20 minutes or until fluffy and just baked through.

Let cool before you frost.

Vanilla Buttercream Frosting
10 oz butter
4 cups powdered sugar
¼ cup cream
1 Tbs water
2 tsp vanilla bean paste

1 1/2 cups raspberry jam
“neon” food coloring
white sprinkles
12 marashino cherries

Whip all of the ingredients together on high for about 3 minutes or until the frosting is very fluffy. ( I added vanilla bean paste to create a really flavorful frosting- but extract is great too).

There should be about 4 cups of frosting, divide it into two bowls: 1 cup and 3 cups in each.

In the 1 cup of frosting, add 3 drops purple and 6 drops pink neon food coloring. Mix well.

In the 3 cups of frosting, add 3 drops of pink neon food coloring. Mix well.

Using a cupcake corer, take the middle out of each cupcake.

Pipe or spoon the raspberry jam into the middle of each cupcake.

Frost the tops of the cupcakes with the lighter pink frosting and follow immediately with sprinkles.

Decorate the cupcakes with the rest of the dark pink frosting and top the cupcakes with a cherry!

Very Pinkalicious!