Vanilla Coffee Cupcakes with Three Frostings

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About 5 minutes after my pastor's wife tasted the Vanilla Coffee Cake I made the other day, she placed an order for a dozen cupcakes.  So, that's what I did yesterday... I made cupcakes!

I used {almost} the same recipes for the cake and frosting, except I made a couple of changes to the frosting.  When I made it the other day the frosting was a little too soft for me.  I prefer a stiffer frosting that is easier to decorate with, so I altered the recipe to have less liquid.

 The cake was identical, half with chocolate chips, half without.

Since my kids had also made Mini Chocolate Chip Muffins for breakfast, I even added a little coffee frosting to a few of those... perfect for breakfast!!

These were frosted with the following tips... Wilton 1A (Brown Sugar Buttercream), Wilton 1M (Coffee Buttercream) and Wilton 199 (Chocolate Coffee Buttercream).

Anywho... here's my newer version for Creamy Coffee Buttercream Frosting (or three frostings..actually).  It was inspired from the frosting on the Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes. 

Ingredients:

• 1 stick of butter, at room temperature
• 4 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
• 1/2 cup shortening (3.5 oz)
• 1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
• 2 pounds confectioners sugar
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 3 tablespoons milk
• 1 tablespoon of instant coffee, dissolved in 1 tablespoon of water (optional)
• 1/2 - 3/4 cup cocoa powder (optional)

Directions:

1. Cream the butter, cream cheese and shortening together until smooth.
2. Add in the brown sugar.
3. Add the confectioners sugar 1 cup at a time until well combined (it will be a little dry)
4. Pour in the vanilla and add milk until desired texture is obtained.  
5. Add the liquid coffee and or/cocoa if desired.  The amount of liquid may have to be adjusted to account for the other flavors (ie., add more milk to off-set the dry cocoa, or use less milk if adding liquid coffee).  

For these cupcakes, I took one-third of the frosting and left it just as it was (without coffee or cocoa). I added instant coffee to the remaining, then took half of that and added cocoa.  So, I ended up with 3 portions...one buttercream with brown sugar & cream cheese, one coffee flavored, and one chocolate coffee flavored. 

Just for kicks, I thought I'd also share a picture of my photography assistant, Noah.  You can see his little fingers here...

And here he is with the cupcakes.  He's such a sweetie..and a great helper!

So, just FYI - these cupcakes are delicious!  Really, really great!

Update : I just linked up at "Cupcake Tuesday"!   Hop over there to see lots of cool cupcakes!!

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