Cherry Cola Cupcakes

These Cupcakes are linked to Simply Sweet Home and This Weeks Craving.

We have a great new cupcake bakery in town.  They had a write up in the paper a few Sundays ago with lots of pictures of their cupcakes.  They looked mouthwatering.  This week my husband is supervising the guys we work with in that part of town, so I got a nice surprise when I saw him !!  He brought me a Southern Comfort Cupcake.  Oh my...it was great.  I loved the cupcake, it had pecans in it and you could taste the Southern Comfort ! I never even heard of a cupcake with whisky in it before.  Soooooo that got me thinking about other beverages I could put in a cupcake.  Coke. Cherry Coke.  I scoured the Internet and found a few cherry coke cupcake recipes. I made Annie's Eats recipe, shes my go to girl !!I made them as soon as I got home from work, even before I made dinner.  Taylor asked me if we were having cupcakes for dinner.  I said yes.  He shrugged his shoulders and said OK.  I love that kid.  He just goes with the flow !! Well, they turned out pretty good.  They taste like cherry with a hint of coke.  Once the frosting is on them the coke flavor isn't as apparent, but they are still great. Kind of like a Cherry Coke Float.  Who doesn't like that???

Cherry Coke Cupcakes

Yield: 10-12 cupcakes

Ingredients:

For the cupcakes:

1� cups all-purpose flour

3 tbsp. cocoa powder

� tsp. baking soda

� tsp. salt

� cup sugar

8 tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 large egg

� cup buttermilk

� cup Coca-Cola

� tsp. maraschino cherry juice

2 tsp. vanilla extract

Maraschino cherries, stemless



For the glaze (optional):

1 cup confectioners� sugar

2 tbsp. Coca-Cola



For topping:

2/3 cup heavy cream

3-4 tbsp. powdered sugar

Maraschino cherries



Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350� F. Line a muffin pan with foil or paper liners. In a medium bowl combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt. Stir together and set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the sugar and butter. Mix on medium-high speed until light and fluffy. Mix in the egg until incorporated. In a bowl or large measuring cup, combine the buttermilk, Coke, maraschino cherry juice, and vanilla extract; stir to combine. (This mixture may look disgusting and/or curdled � it�s okay!)

Mix the dry ingredients into the butter-sugar mixture on low speed, alternately with the liquid ingredients, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients and mixing just until incorporated. Divide the batter evenly between the cupcake liners. Drop 4 or 5 stemless maraschino cherries into each cupcake well and push them down into the batter. Bake for about 18 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow to cool in the pan 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

To make the optional glaze, combine the confectioners� sugar and Coke in a small bowl and whisk until smooth. Spoon or drizzle a small amount of the top of each cupcake. Allow to set.

To make the whipped cream topping, add the heavy cream to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Begin whipping on medium speed, slowly adding the confectioners� sugar and gradually increasing the speed to high as the cream holds soft peaks. Whip until the cream holds stiff peaks, being careful not to overbeat. Spoon or pipe the whipped cream on top of the cupcakes and top each with a maraschino cherry.