Prickly Pear Cupcakes

In my plan for the week, I actually didn't intend to make Prickly Pear cupcakes, or much by way of desserts. But things change. 

For a few weeks I'd casually mention to Darrow that if he'd use the toilet I'd make him any treat he wanted. He'd say "Nope!" or "No, thank you." and we'd leave it at that. Well yesterday it happened and he promptly remembered the promise of treats and cupcakes were the prize of choice. So I got to looking for Prickly Pear cupcakes (because he doesn't have a preference yet). 

I almost just did a substitute in a cake mix like I did for the waffles, but wanted to find something that might have a stronger Prickly Pear flavor. Through Pinterest I found a great recipe by Cupcake Project. It looked like it'd have good flavor and would be very doable. And it was! It was easy to put together and baked up beautifully. I got 23 cupcakes out of my batch. Weird. But oh well. 

But then it came time for the frosting. I didn't wan to make the prickly pear lemon bars to blend into the frosting that she had, and it sounded like there wouldn't be much prickly pear flavor, so I went on the hunt for a frosting that would do the flavor justice. 

In my searching, I remembered reading about a flour frosting, so I searched it and found an easy recipe quickly. It involved combining flour and milk, and cooking until you get a thick batter before adding vanilla, butter, and sugar. With the recipe calling for 2 cups of milk, I got curious if I could substitute the prickly pear juice for the milk in the recipe. I wanted to use as much juice as possible in the recipe, and this one fit that bill. I figured it was worth a try!

And it worked!! That was the best frosting I've ever had. Light, but so totally yummy! The substitution worked perfectly! I only did a half batch because a full batch covered 3 dozen cupcakes and I didn't need that much frosting.

Now, I'm not an expert frosting applicator. So my frosting looks meh...but we weren't going for pretty, we were going for yummy! Taste before beauty!

So they baked fine, and the frosting held together. But if it doesn't taste good, what's the point?

Luckily these taste great! There is a subtle fruity flavor without being truly fruity. Great description there, huh? The frosting was light, fluffy, and had the perfect flavor without tasting like sugar! It was sweet, but not overwhelmingly so like many frostings. The cupcake was moist and yummy while being fluffy and cohesive. These are definitely some new favorites!!

So there it is! Prickly Pear recipe test #2 done! And it was a success!