Shirley Temple Cupcakes

College Memories all baked into a personal-sized cake.

 

Last weekend, I got to check something off of my bucket list (and if you are any child, tween, teenager, 20s, 30s or even 40-something female, it is probably on your list too). I got to see TAYLOR SWIFT live. In the flesh. Needless to say, my life is complete.

But that’s not exactly what this post is about. But I’m getting there. So my 3 biffels from college came in town for the concert (we’d been waiting for this for MONTHS). And the night before the concert, we all got together for dinner at my bestfriend Deborah’s house for dinner. She made this delicious maple-something-or-other-pork for dinner (you can read about it here). If you know anything about me, you’ll know that I took it upon myself to whip up some baked goods for the evening as well. THAT’S what this post is about.

In college, the 4 of us would always start of our college-nights with a concoction we liked to call “Dirty Shirley.” Basically a spiked Shirley Temple. Since many of our nights began with this drink, you could say that many of our memories are associated with this drink. So what would be more perfect for this reunion than Shirley Temple Cupcakes?!

I found a recipe online for these, but it was gluten-free and made from scratch. I (1) didn’t have time to make them from scratch, nor (2) did I care if they were gluten-free (sorry.), so I just used a box of white cake mix and then doctored it up a little bit.

Shirley Temple Cupcakes

Ingredients

• 1 box of white cake mix
• 3 large eggs
• 1/3 cup canola oil
• 1 cup Sprite
• grenadine (amount may vary)
• red food coloring
• 1 jar of frosting (I used white, but you can use any light-colored flavor that you like)
• maraschino cherries

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 (or whatever the cake box tells you)
2. In a mixing bowl, beat together the eggs, cake mix, and oil using an electric mixer (I use a hand electric mixer). Pour in the sprite and mix it in (to prevent it from fizzing all over the place, mix it in and then continute beating with an electric mixer)
3. Divide the cake mix evenly into 2 mixing bowls. Set one aside.
4. In one mixing bowl, add grenadine 1 tbsp at a time until desired cherry-flavor is reached (yes, you can taste your batter. just remember that raw eggs could carry salmonella!) Add a few drops of red food coloring if the batter isn’t red enough for you. I wish I would have added more food coloring. My cupcaked had a pinkish color, and I was really shooting for red)
5. Line a muffin pan with 15 muffin cups.
6. Fill each muffin cup halfway with the red-cherry-batter.
7. Top each muffin cup with the white batter until the red batter is no longer visible (muffin cups should be about 2/3 to 3/4 full)
8. Bake according to directions on the back of the cake box
9. While the cupcakes are baking, mix 1 tbsp of grenadine into the frosting. Add red food coloring as needed to reach desired color (I wanted my prosting PINK!)
10. After the cupcakes have baked and cooled, frost the cupcakes with the super-cute pink frosting.
11. Before serving, put a maraschino on top!
12. Enjoy!
    

    Inside the cupcakes!

 

 

Finished product!

CHEERS!