PrissyCook

When I was in the third grade, I invited all my third grade girlfriends to my birthday party. It was a My Little Pony birthday party. Nobody came. I was devastated. So to this day, I have panic and anxiety when hosting a party. IDK. This isn’t Dr. Phil, so I don’t want to get into it. So, when I sent out invitations to a Cupcake Happy Hour at work…I was a nervous wreck.

• I tidied up the stacks of paper on my desk.
• I made sure I had extra breakroom napkins.
• I placed the trashcan so it was easily accessible.
• I put on my favorite Pandora station (Debbie Gibson, Tiffany and NKOTB)
• and I waited…..

I hate it when people are casually, socially late. I think it was a full 3 minutes after the hour before people started trickling in. UGH!

I think my Cupcake Happy Hour was a success. I mean, my colleagues don’t need to know that I was sweating through my organic deodorant waiting for somebody anybody to show up!

Onto my cupcake experience: What was important to me and making a horchata cupcake was the flavor of almond and cinnamon. I made a batch of horchata with intentions of infusing that concoction more into the recipe much like was done on Chockylit, but I didn’t know how the flavors would stand up once mixed with the other ingredients and baked.

I decided to take a basic yellow cupcake recipe and substitute almond extract for vanilla and to add cinnamon. The consensus was that people liked them.

Horchata Cupcakes
Makes 12

12 paper liners
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking power
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons almond extract
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 large eggs
1/2 cup milk at room temperature

1. Preheat over to 350 degrees.
2. Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt together in a small bowl to aerate and combine; set aside.
3. In a large bowl with an electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat butter until creamy, about 2 minutes. Add sugar gradually, beating until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes, scraping down the bowl once or twice. Beat in almond extract. Beat in eggs one at a time, scraping down after each addition, allowing each egg to be absorbed before continuing. Add the flour mixture in 4 additions, alternately with the milk.
4. Divide batter evenly among cupcake wells. Bake for 18 minutes.

For frosting I used a premade vanilla frosting and I mixed in 1 teaspoon of almond extract.

For other Horchata cupcakes on the web:

Chockylit

Bake and Destroy

For my Sugar Skull experience click here.

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Tags: happy hour, Horchata, my little pony, office party, Sugar Skulls