My family’s and friends’ eyes lit up as I brought out a plate of these cupcakes with their simple cream cheese frosting and their equally simple yet delightfully tempting decorations. 

I’m mad about The Australian Women’s’ Weekly cookbooks and their recipes.  In the covers of everyone of these cookbooks boast this statement “…where every single recipe has been triple tested by the Australian Women’s Weekly Test Kitchen to guarantee your success first time every time”.  I put this to the test.

Below are 3 recipes for cream cheese frosting I made and used in my cupcakes as seen in these pictures.  The frosting is just perfect for my taste.  Each recipe makes enough frosting for 12 standard cupcakes.  I used French vanilla cupcakes.

Recipe: Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients:

30 g unsalted butter, softened

80 g cream cheese, softened

1 ½ cups powdered sugar, sifted

Instructions:

• Beat butter and cheese in small bowl with an electric mixer until light and fluffy.
• Gradually beat in sifted powdered sugar.
• Put a dollop of cream cheese on each cupcake.

 Decorating Ideas

I topped mine with blue berries.  However you can use any pretty berries on yours – they all look delightful.  Pile the berries on or just use a single berry, it’s your cupcake!

Recipe: Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients:

30g unsalted butter, softened

80g cream cheese, softened

1 teaspoon finely grated lemon rind

1 ½ cups powdered sugar, sifted

Instructions:

• Beat butter, cheese and lemon rind in small bowl with an electric mixer until light and fluffy.
• Gradually beat in sifted powdered sugar.
• Put a dollop of cream cheese on each cupcake.

 Decorating Ideas

I topped mine with walnut pieces as seen in the picture.  Again the berries would look just as delightful.

Recipe: Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients:

60g unsalted butter, softened

160g cream cheese, softened

2 teaspoons coconut essence

3 cups powdered sugar, sifted

Instructions:

• Beat butter, cheese and coconut essence in small bowl with an electric mixer until light and fluffy.
• Gradually beat in sifted powdered sugar.
• Put a dollop of cream cheese on each cupcake.

Note: This recipe makes more cream cheese frosting because the decoration for this recipe uses more of the frosting.

Decorating Ideas

You will need 1 cup of flake coconut, toasted.  Remove cases from your cupcakes.  Spread cakes with cream cheese frosting, including the sides.  Coat the cupcakes with oasted flake coconut and top each frosted cake with a raspberry.

Thank s to The Australian Women’s Weekly Cookbooks, I had success the first time round and was able to reproduce the same result again and again.  I’d like to share with you this experience because their recipes embrace my ideas of easy cake recipes with amazing results.

In the tradition of easy cake recipes, here is the simplest frosting you can make – the flavored whipped cream.  Try sweetening whipped cream with a little powdered sugar and adding a few drops of vanilla essence, or citrus essence, or cooking chocolate powder.  Honey and maple syrup make good flavorings, as do liqueurs such as Cointreau an orange liqueur.

 Recipe: Basic Flavored Whipped Cream

This recipe frosts up to 16 standard size cupcakes.  I rather like my whipped cream a little sweeter so I would add 4 tablespoons of the powdered sugar.

Ingredients:

1 cup heavy whipping cream

1 tablespoon powdered sugar

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

• In a large bowl, using an electric mixer on medium-high speed beat the cream, powdered sugar, and vanilla until firm peaks form.
• Top each cupcake with a spoonful of whipped cream.

Variations to the Basic Vanilla whipped cream

Cointreau Flavored whipped cream

• Follow the basic recipe and substitute the vanilla extract for 2 teaspoons of Cointreau.

Note: Instead of Cointreau you can use Grand Marnier also orange flavored liqueur.

 Chocolate Flavored whipped cream

• Follow the basic recipe and add 2 tablespoons cooking chocolate powder.

Note: You can add liqueurs to this by adding 2 teaspoons of the desired liqueur.  Cointreau works well with chocolate whipped cream too.  You may want to try adding Kahlua or Tia Maria both of which are coffee flavored liqueurs giving the mocha flavor to your whipped cream. 

I’m partial to the liqueurs in whipped cream; they really do turn an otherwise simple frosting to a mouth-watering one.

Decorating Ideas

As you can see from my pictures, I used very simple decorations on the whipped cream – sliced orange and shaved dark chocolate using a vegetable peeler.  It is also very fun to decorate cupcakes, so just let your imagination lead you.