Mountain Dew Cupcakes, Take 2

I delivered yesterday's cupcakes to the daycare this morning, and Bella Kate and her mom, Mrs. Corey, loved them! The daycare teachers liked them, as well, and I've already gotten some new potential customers who are friends of Mrs. Corey! How exciting!

Since the last Mountain Dew Cupcakes didn't turn out as I'd hoped, I decided to give them another go using a different recipe. This one involves a boxed cake mix using Mountain Dew instead of water, a soak of reduced Mountain Dew, and a fluffy Mountain Dew frosting.

Cake Ingredients:

1 white box cake mix

3 egg whites

1 1/4 cups Mountain Dew soda

1/3 cup vegetable oil

3.4 oz. package of pudding (I used cheesecake pudding for this recipe because it's really all I had... it was either that or pumpkin spice!)

Icing Ingredients:

1 cup vegetable shortening

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, soft

1.5 pounds confectioner's sugar (I had a 2 pound bag and used over half of it, roughly 1.5 pounds)

Mountain Dew (use what you have left from dipping the cupcakes)

Lime green food coloring

Cake Directions:

1. Preheat your oven at 350 degrees, and place 24 cupcake liners in a tin.

2. Add all ingredients to a standing-mixer fitted with a large bowl, or to a large bowl to use with a hand mixer, depending on what you have. Mix on low speed for 30 seconds, then medium-high speed for about 2 minutes until all ingredients are incorporated and no lumps remain. (This is what the box mix I used instructed to do. If the box you use calls for something else, follow those instructions.)

3. Fill the liners 2/3 full and bake for about 18 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of one of larger cupcakes come out clean.

*WHILE THE CUPCAKES ARE IN THE OVEN, prepare the Mountain Dew that you will use to soak the hot cupcakes. Pour one can of Mountain Dew into a small pan and bring to a boil over medium heat. Boil for about 5 minutes, then reduce heat to low and simmer for 5 more. Remove from heat and set aside. I ran out of Mountain Dew and had to use some of Daddy's off-brand Mountain Lightning, which is similar, but with a slightly sweeter taste.*

4. Allow the cupcakes to sit for a few minutes so that they are not too hot to touch, then move them to a cooling rack. Dip the tops of each cupcake into the Mountain Dew. I dipped them twice, but just use your judgement on how many times you want to soak them. Let them cool completely before icing them.

Icing Directions:

Beat together the butter and shortening at medium speed until fluffy. Reduce the speed to low, and gradually add confectioner's sugar until incorporated. Add the remainder of the Mountain Dew soak, or just the amount that gives you the texture that you want. Mix in as much food coloring as you want until you get your desired color. Add frosting to the tops of the cooled cupcakes, and add some sprinkles, if you want :) I added orange sprinkles to the green frosting to coordinate with the Mountain Dew bottle.

These turned out much better than the other ones! You definitely get more of a Mountain Dew flavor with them, mainly due to dipping the tops of the cakes into the reduced soda. I think that Daniel will approve of them! I'm also going to take what's left to the Alabama vs. LSU tailgate tomorrow, thus the football cupcake papers. ROLL TIDE :)

EDIT: This is what happens when you leave cupcakes on the table... if you have a kitty. Needless to say, Bellatrix was bouncing off the walls all night long.

Mountain Dew Cupcakes

Daniel made a request for Mountain Dew cupcakes, and of course I'm always game for trying a new recipe, and I like unusual recipes. He drinks Mountain Dew all of the time, so why not eat it in a cupcake? I found a recipe on How To Eat A Cupcake that I decided to tweak a little bit.

Cake Ingredients:

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature

1 cup sugar

2 large eggs

1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons Mountain Dew soda

1 1/4 cups plus 2 tablespoons self-rising flour

1 (3.4 oz) package of lemon pudding (after I baked the cupcakes, I read somewhere that Mountain Dew is actually an orange-based flavor, but I never knew that! so, if you want to use a simple vanilla, that would probably be okay)

Cake Directions:

1. Preheat your oven at 325 degrees. Place 12 cupcake liners into a muffin tin to be ready when you're done with the batter.

2. Cream together the softened butter and 1 cup of sugar in a standing mixer or in a large bowl with a hand-held mixer. You'll want this to be light and fluffy, so around 3-5 minutes is a good time frame. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing until incorporated after each addition, scraping the sides of the bowl with a spatula when necessary.

3. In a separate, small bowl, mix all of the flour with the package of dry pudding mix. Alternately add in the dry ingredients and the Mountain Dew, starting with the dry and ending with the dry. I divided the dry ingredients into thirds (flour - Mountain Dew - flour - Mountain Dew - flour). The batter will be fairly thick.

After all of that, I took a second to lick the beaters, of course! The batter tastes like the lemon bars that I make, and it was wonderful.

4. Fill the prepared liners about 2/3 full, which for me is about a spoonful of the batter.

5. Bake for about 20-23 minutes, then let cool before topping with frosting.

It took my oven 23 minutes before a toothpick inserted into the center of the largest cupcake came out clean, so next time I will probably up the temperature to 350 degrees and reduce the time to around 18 minutes. You know your oven, though, so just keep an eye on them after around 15 minutes just to be safe. They'll be golden brown and beautiful like this once they are done:

The cupcakes are dense, almost like a pound cake, but they actually were quite yummy. They don't really taste like Mountain Dew, but they are still good. I will be doing some further tweaking next time, though, to try to get the taste closer to that of the Dew.

I was not a fan of the frosting I created to go with these, so I am not going to even bother posting the recipe for it. It was far, far too sweet, even for the sweetest of sweet-tooths. I didn't try the recipe from How To Eat A Cupcake, but I probably will the next time I make these. I advise that if you are going to make these, try that recipe!

I have two cupcake orders that I will begin working on tomorrow, so there will probably be a couple of new posts up by Friday morning at the latest! Make sure to check them out, because they are going to be SUPER cute :)