Congratulations, Lea!

Recipe

Orange Cupcakes with Orange Cream Cheese Frosting

A couple weeks ago, we had a baby shower at work for Lea (you may remember her from my post about Outrageous Oreo Crunch Brownies), one of our teachers who's been at home on doctor-ordered bed rest due to some complications with her pregnancy. She's still on bed rest (though we're expecting she'll have her twins sometime this week!), but she was able to come up to work for a few hours so we could all celebrate with her. We were all very excited to see Lea again, and I was very excited to have an excuse to break out to the newest addition to my kitchen - a cupcake tree! Here it is, adorned with Lea's cupcakes:

Isn't it cute?! Even better than my new cupcake tree, though, were the actual cupcakes...they were FABULOUS. I love citrus desserts, and these orange cupcakes were no exception. Pure orange extract and a bit of orange zest infused what would otherwise be plain white cupcakes with wonderful flavor, and the cream cheese frosting, with more orange zest and extract, was amazing - I could have eaten it by itself with a spoon and been perfectly content. I got this recipe from a book called Sweet Gratitude: Delicious Ways to Bake a Thank You for the Really Important People In Your Life by Judith Sutton (what a great title for a cookbook!), and I can't wait to try more recipes from it. With any luck, the next time I make treats for Lea, she'll be at home cuddling with her two new baby boys. In the meantime, if anyone hosts an event that calls for cupcakes, let me know, because I have a great cupcake tree that I can't wait to use again....