Well it's December 1st, and the holidays are in full effect. Hanukkah starts today and only 25 more days until Christmas! I have yet to shop for anyone (sorry guys! lol). As my grad classes are winding down for the semester I decided to make some cupcakes for one of my classes that is ending today (any excuse to try a new recipe creation).
I decided to make cran-orange cupcakes. I made some last year, which were pretty good. But I wanted to tweak the recipe a bit. For the cake, I made a yellow cupcake batter and added fresh orange zest. Then I cooked the cranberries first with water and sugar (like you would cranberry sauce) but left them whole and drained the excess juice when cooled. The cranberries are then folded gently into the batter. For the frosting, I'm hooked on the SMBC (swiss meringue buttercream)! The cream cheese frosting I did last year was good, but can be so sweet with an already sweet cupcake. So I did a white chocolate SMBC. To top it all off they are garnished with sugared cranberries and a fondant holly leaf. 
Very happy with my result this year. Hopefully my classmates will enjoy them too :) Happy Holidays!
