New Year's cupcakes

For my mother's new year's eve gathering, I made a batch of cupcakes from my new cupcake book, a Christmas gift from my mother. The book contains beautiful photos of the wee cakes, with a nice combination of easy, medium and difficult recipes.



After perusing each recipe, I decided on making the Black Forest Cupcakes because I wanted to use up a jar of brandied cherries that I'd canned way back in June 2004(an unusually bountiful cherry year). The recipe calls for blending cherries with their juice and then adding it to the batter. I thought the extra brandy flavor would be good, despite the fact that I put a hefty amount of Kirschwasser in the batter as well.

The other reason I chose this recipe came from the fact that I didn't need to use frosting. I prefer not to make or eat frosting, which is why Matthew rarely likes my cakes. He insists that a light sprinkling of powdered sugar and some fresh flowers do not make for a satisfying cake topping, and he's right. But I will say, my black forest cupcakes were delicious with just a few cherries, a little whipped cream and some chocolate curls to adorned these sweet little cakes. No frosting necessary!



We ended up with two left over the next day and I will say, they still tasted great, but didn't necessarily hold up as well as I'd hoped. They looked a bit wilted. Of course, my mother didn't refrigerate them, which may have helped keep them fresh longer, now that I think about it.