One of my most favorite things during summer is to meetup with my friends for a nice summer picnic.

This past weekend, there was a cupcake picnic sponsored by the blog Cupcakes Take The Cake, one of my favorite websites. The picnic was a lot of fun and had some really yummy cupcakes made by a variety of bloggers, bakers and food enthusiasts. It was a lot of fun meeting the owners of the website as well as other people who baked these delicious treats.

So what did I bring to the picnic? Nothing less than Watermelon cupcakes! I wanted to make the cupcakes to look like a watermelon, and also to have a rich and juicy ‘melony’ flavor. Here’s my recipe for this summertime treat, Watermelon Cupcakes!

Watermelon Cupcakes:

makes about 18 cupcakes

- 2 cups All Purpose Flour

- 1 cup Granulated Sugar

- 1 tablespoon Baking Powder

- 1 teaspoon Salt

- 4 tablespoons Strawberry Nesquik (powder, to give an extra flavor)

- 4 tablespoons Unsalted Butter, room temperature

- 1 cup Milk

- 1 Large Egg, room temperature

- 1 tablespoon Unsweetened Applesauce

- 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract

- 1/2 cup Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips (to look like watermelon seeds!)

- Watermelon Liqueur or Watermelon Schnapps

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F.
2. Cream the butter until light and fluffy. Add sugar and cream the mixture. Add the egg, and mix again!
3. Mix the Strawberry Nesquik , Vanilla Extract and the Applesauce on the milk, it’s easy to incorporate.
4. In a medium bowl , whisk together the flour, salt, and baking powder.
5. Add 1/3 of the dry ingredients to the butter mixture and mix, then add 1/2 of the wet ingredients. Continue alternating with the wet and dry mixtures, ending with the dry. Stop mixing once just as the ingredients become incorporated; do not over beat!  (If you want you can add some red food coloring to make it more red!)
6. Fold in the chocolate chips. Scoop into cupcake papers about one half to three-quarters of the way full.

Bake for 18-22 minutes. They’re ready when you insert a toothpick and comes out clean!
Allow the cupcakes to cool for five minutes in the pan, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
To add the watermelon flavor you can add some watermelon syrup, watermelon jam, but the only thing available for me was watermelon liqueur. I use some watermelon pucker to moist the cupcakes,and I really like the combinations of flavors!

Watermelon Cream Cheese Frosting

- 1 1/2 cup Confectioners Sugar

- 1/2 cup (1 stick) Unsalted Butter, room temperature

- 4 tablespoons Cream Cheese, room temperature

- 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract

- 2 tablespoons Watermelon Liqueur

- Green food coloring

In a medium bowl, using an electric mixer, beat confectioners’ sugar, unsalted butter and cream cheese until smooth, 4 to 5 minutes. Add the vanilla and the Watermelon Liqueur.

Add the green food coloring until you’ve got the desired color.

To make it more fun, you can decorate with fondant ants!

The picnic was so much fun..

Some posts about the picnic:

Cupcakes Take the Cake -picnic photos

Cupcakes Take the Cake

Cupcakes Take the Cake – smiles

Cupcake Forum