I recently joined the Martha Stewart Cupcake Club – a group of bloggers who together make a recipe from Martha Stewart’s Cupcake Book each month and post on the 15th. What fun to be joining this group. This is my first post for the club. This month’s pick was Zucchini-Spice Cupcakes. Timely indeed, considering I have some zucchini lying about and I’ve run out of ideas for them. I recently made Martha’s Lemon-Zucchini Cornmeal Cookies (Sept Everyday Living) and was happy to have another Martha zucchini baked item to make with zucchini.
The batter
These were easy to whip up. The recipe uses vegetable oil and brown sugar, and includes cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg as spices. Other key ingredients are walnuts (I used pecans instead) and some lemon zest which is an interesting touch. As always, I cheated and did my wet ingredients and then dumped in my dry ingredients without sifting. I know Martha would be appalled.
I grated the zucchini in the Cuisinart (which is on its last legs I think, since it is now over 20 years old – a wedding gift). I think that if you wanted to be
Out of the oven
sneaky, you could peel the zucchini so there wouldn’t be any telltale green in these cupcakes to give you away to your kids. I was tempted to do that, but ultimately I was too lazy to peel.
I filled 24 cupcake holders and put it in the oven to bake…..and bake…. and bake. I always have this problem with Martha’s recipes. It took an extra 10 minutes for these to finally be done. When they came out they looked and smelled great.
The book says to use the cream cheese frosting recipe from the back of the book, so I did, but I used light cream cheese and organic cultured butter. Cream cheese frosting is just evil. It tastes so darn good on anything. You can fool
Frosted
yourself that zucchini cupcakes are healthy until you slather on a mound of cream cheese frosting. This frosting recipe made far too much in my opinion, even after I mounded it on the cupcakes.
Results? Excuse me while I wipe the cream cheese from my upper lip. They were good. Really good. They were like a light spice cake. The nuts are a nice addition. They were so good that I had to get them out of the house (this is part of my Martha philosophy – Martha Stewart makes desserts, but she has one serving and then shares the rest and gives it away). Bye-bye cupcakes! I know you will be enjoyed by people at Mr. MarthaAndMe’s office!
First bite
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I too loved these and had to get rid of them quick! Great job! They turned out beautifully!
They look perfect and I agree that they were delicious! How nice of you to share!
The last picture is great! Looks soo good!!!
i’m trying to get rid of mine as well! they are too too good to be laying around the house unfortunately, my coworkers are afraid of zucchini right now. boo. yours look great!
Your photos & cupcakes are fantastic.
Wow, great photos!! They were tasty weren’t they.. I am also trying to adopt the ‘taste, then give away’ philosophy! Let’s hope it works 🙂
Hello –
I grated some fresh nutmeg on top to give it more color and flavor.
I agree.. cream cheese frosting is deadly! And in my opinion it made way TOO much too.
Did the office enjoy?
Your cupcakes are so pretty. I love the little bits of green. These went fast at my house.
Yes! The comment from Doug Rose is from someone at the office who ate them. A big hit.
I’m not a sifter either, too lazy! And when you do the one bowl kind of recipes, it seems like why bother. The green in the cupcakes was pretty fun, but I am not a big fan of zucchini in my sweet dessert treats!
I remember Martha had someone on her show making their shop’s cupcake recipe and Martha was shocked and horrified that they didn’t sift. “No sifting?” she asked as she arched her eyebrow. So funny.
They look fantastic! I can definitely see the zucchini in there!
Thanks for baking along with is this week!
Next time I will absolutely use my food processor! I totally didn’t think of it, and hand grated mine, which was time consuming and mildly infuriating!
They really are delicious! Thanks for reminding me that mine took and extra six minutes. I should have put that in my post.
Glad you enjoyed.
YUM! I dont sift either. SHHHH! I hate sifting because i get all messy and what not. I just go with it. haha.
Interesting idea to peel the zucchini, and sneaky too! I never would have thought of that!
This is my first week baking with the MS Cupcake group, too Your cupcakes look great.
Yum, those look really good. I’ve finally adopted the strategy of bake, eat a little and give the rest away.
Thanks for baking along with me this week! Your cupcakes look fabulous! You’re so right about the cream cheese frosting – super dangerous. I have some leftover and keep looking for things to slather it on around here 🙂
Very tasty and I was able convince they’re healthy (not that its ever stopped me). And thank you very much as well. It was a very interesting flavor combination, I really enjoyed it. I didn’t even realize it was zuchini and cream cheese at first.
Beautiful with those little specks of green.
Cream cheese frosting is dangerous and absolutely divine.