Who Wants a Cupcake...or is it Cheesecake?

I've been thinking that I want to start getting more creative with my baking. With people like Peabody of Culinary Concoctions and Helen of Tartelette (two of my most favorite bloggers) whipping up fabulous creations, I've been feeling a bit inspired. These two ladies have some of the most creative minds I've seen when it comes to decadent, show stopping desserts. My mouth salivates when I visit their blogs. They take very basic simple recipes and add their own special touch to them to make each and every dessert their own. And I totally wanna be like them when I grow up!



So I started thinking in general about flavors that I like and then I started figuring out ways that I could put them together. To start my mind immediately jumped to a white cupcake. I love the simpleness of the plain white cupcake, but I wanted to give it a little pizazz. Think, think, think...many ideas popped into my head like adding chunks of candy bars or stirring in nutella, but that was killing the whole reason I like the white cupcake, it's simple and light. After my mind drifting through ideas for a few minutes I finally stopped on something that I really thought could work and stay true to the air, soft feel of the white cupcake. Cheesecake!



Yes I did! I said cheesecake, and while I wish it could've been homemade I don't yet have a food processor at my new apartment, so I couldn't make my own cheesecake. I decided to go with Sarah Lee's frozen strawberry topped cheesecake. I cut the creamy, still frozen, cheesecake up into bite size chunks, slipping a few into my mouth when Baxter (my Terrier sous chef) wasn't looking. After whipping up my cupcake batter and pour it into the cupcake pan I excitedly dropped the cheesecake morsels into the center of the cups and sent them off to the oven, fingers crossed.



Upon opening the oven door everything looked ok, my biggest fear was that the cheesecake pieces were going to make huge sink holes in the cupcake, but thanks to my crossed fingers, my cupcake creations were spared :) After the cupcakes had cooled I took a tub of cream cheese icing that I had on hand on shmeared it on top of my fluffy white cupcakes. And to give the cupcakes that extra special attention to detail I rolled them in graham cracker crumbs, just to hit home that cheesecake flavor.



The second I finished rolling the last cupcake in the crumbs i quickly grabbed my knife and picked my sacrificial cupcake, cutting straight into his heart. Which revealed a white cupcake exterior gently cradling a gooey, creamy red and white cheesecake center. I had succeeded! My cupcake creation was a hit, and was just the start of more fabulous creations to come!