MSC: Zucchini-Spice Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

Have I mentioned how excited I am to be a part of the Martha Stewart Cupcakes Club (MSC)? Well, I totally am. I am so honored to be a part of it, and so excited to bake my little butt off.

What is MSC? Well...MSC is about cupcake love, freedom, and community. Our goal is to make and bake the 175 cupcake recipes in Martha Stewart's Cupcakes book. All of those involved share one major thing - a love of baking and especially all things cupcakes.

And now, I've officially survived my first cupcake challenge with the Martha Stewart's Cupcakes Club!

See! I did it!

Tracey from Tracey's Culinary Adventures selected this month's recipe, the Zucchini-Spice Cupcakes (pg. 44) with Cream Cheese Frosting (pg. 303). To be honest, I've never baked anything with zucchini before, so it was an adventure from the get-go for me. I'd also never zested a lemon, so that was interesting too. All in all, despite the fact that I was doing some things I've never done in baking, I still enjoyed making this recipe. Maybe it was because I baked these while Husband was home to watch the munchkin and because I could kind of zone out and get into the baking zone.

I did omit the nutmeg, mainly because I wasn't about the drag my butt to Publix for just one missing ingredient that I could go without, but the flavor still seems to be quite amenable. I also wasn't a huge fan of the consistency of the frosting. Mine was really soft, and a little difficult to work with as a result. I had to immediately refrigerate the cupcakes, otherwise the frosting started to slide off the cupcakes, which wasn't so fun. I've made a few different cream cheese frostings and never had that problem before, so I'm not sure if I did something wrong or if that's just how Martha's is. Then again, the recipe did say something about refrigeration and the frosting recipe said to hand frost, not to pipe - I can't imagine this frosting piping too well, but I'll bet when I check out everyone else's blogs I'm going to see some piped cupcakes, because I am clearly a big novice compared to some of the other bloggers participating in these monthly challenges.

Mmm, look at all that frosting!

Next month's recipe will be hosted by Kim at What the Whisk, and she has selected the Pumpkin Patch Cupcakes, which I'm sure Husband is going to be counting down the minutes for. Pumpkin is one of his all-time favorite things about the fall, so I have a feeling he's going to love these. Stay tuned!