Cupcake Recipe: The “Brad Roberts”

I want to take a quick minute to thank Brad Roberts. He donated to the Job Hunters Kickstarter campaign at a level that got him a dozen Geeky Hostess cupcakes of his choice. Without him, we may not have been funded! So if you’re a Job Hunters fan out there, thank him. In fact, you wouldn’t have gotten Season 2 of Job Hunters OR this delicious cupcake recipe without him! (And yes, that is a cupcake on top of the Season 2 script. And yes, I did purposely cut off the title. I’m mean like that.)

Brad chose to have me create cupcakes based off of this Apricot Nectar Cake recipe. What resulted was a light, fluffy, and fruity cupcake that works with or without the frosting! (Brad prefers the cake in a more traditional format sans frosting. I, being a bit obsessed with anything buttercream, choose to keep the frosting. It’s delicious either way!)

Brad Roberts Cupcakes

Ingredients:

• 1 box yellow cake mix
• 4 eggs
• 3/4 cup vegetable oil
• 3/4 cup apricot nectar
• 1/3 cup hot water
• 1 (3 oz.) package lemon JELLO mix

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place 24 cupcake wrappers in cupcake tins.

Mix the cake mix, eggs, vegetable oil, and apricot nectar together.

Dissolve the JELLO mix in the hot water and add to cake batter. Mix well.

Pour the batter into 24 cupcake tins evenly.

Bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick/cake tester can go through the cake cleanly.

Let cool.

Lemon Buttercream Frosting

Ingredients:

• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 4-5 cups confectioner’s sugar
• 1 TBS vanilla extract
• 3 TBS lemon juice

Directions:

Mix the butter and confectioner’s sugar together until well mixed, light, and fluffy.

Add in vanilla and lemon juice, mix well.

If the frosting is too soft, add in more confectioner’s sugar. If it’s too stiff, mix in a bit more lemon juice.

Fill a pastry bag and pipe onto the cupcake.

Are you a frosting or no-frosting kind of person? Let me know in the comments!