Snickerdoodle Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

Last night, the moment finally came that I’ve been waiting for for weeks: the season premier of The Hills, where Heidi Montag revealed her new face to her mom. I want you to know that I realize that some of you are judging me right now. And all I have to say is this: if enjoying riveting television is wrong, then I don’t wanna be right.

If you are unfamiliar with Heidi or the whole new face thing, I’ll tell you that she basically got like a hundred plastic surgeries done in one day. Her nose, cheeks, chin, lips, eyebrows…I don’t think she has a single facial feature that wasn’t reconstructed somehow. And the results….are scary. Horrifying, really.

The sad thing is how inexpensive and common plastic surgery is becoming…and how even teenagers get plastic surgery nowadays. Teenagers…I mean, REALLY?! Aren’t all of us born with some feature that we wish we could change? Isn’t insecurity and learning to deal with the childish taunting part of what builds our character? 

When I was a child, the dimple in the middle of my chin was the bane of my existence.  If I could have had that sucker filled in…oh how I would have jumped at the chance. And of course, having such an unordinary feature, I was eventually picked on by the other kids about it. I’d go to my mom in tears, telling her how I wished I’d been born with a different chin and then my mom would tell me how I got my dimple from her grandma, and what a nice thing that was. 

Ummmm….yeah…that’s nice and all…but I don’t think that telling all the kids on the playground that my mommy said that my dimple was nice because it looked like my great grandma’s would help me out any.

Then there was my Grandma Rosemary, who I thought I could always count on as an ally. So, when I gave her my whole chin sob story I was really thinking she could come up with something to fix the problem. And good ol’ Grandma told me that my dimple was really great because Kirk Douglas had a dimple in his chin too. 

Kirk Douglas??? For reals?? The only Kirk that the kids my age cared about was Cameron, and the only dimples he had were in his cheeks when he smiled….which, I might add, were extremely cute. Unlike the crater in the center of my chin.

As an adult, I now realize that my chin is not that big of a deal. Part of being young is being insecure, and part of being insecure is picking on other peoples differences….and wanting to change your own.  I’ve actually learned to embrace my chin and I wouldn’t change a thing. Just ask my son…who believes that it isn’t a dimple, but in fact, a scar I got from stopping a bullet—with my chin.

Just a little white lie.

If you are wondering how all this plastic surgery nonsense leads up to a cupcake recipe, it doesn’t. But The Hills was just so exciting last night that I had to share. So now…on to cupcakes. 

I’ve been wanting to try this recipe from Martha Stewart Cupcakes for some time, and it has gotten good reviews on both Bakerella and Cookies and Cups. I decided to top the cupcakes with my favorite cinnamon cream cheese frosting from Cupcakes: From the Cake Mix Doctor. They turned out super yummy, and really do taste like a cupcakey snickerdoodle…with awesome frosting. 

INGREDIENTS

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 cups cake flour (not self rising)
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 3/4 cups sugar
4 large eggs, at room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups milk

Frosting
1 package cream cheese, at room temperature
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter, at room temperature 
3 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350. Line muffin tins with paper liners. Sift together both flours, baking powder, salt, and 1 tablespoon cinnamon.

With an electric mixer on medium high speed, cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until each is incorporated, scraping down the sides of the bowl when needed. Beat in vanilla. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture in three batches, alternating with two additions of milk, and beating until combined after each.

Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each three quarters full. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until a tester inserted in centers comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Transfer to wire racks to cool completely before removing cupcakes.

TO MAKE FROSTING: Place the cream cheese and butter in a large mixing bowl. Blend with an electric mixer on low speed until combined, 30 seconds. Stop the machine. Add the powdered sugar, a little at a time, blending with the mixer on low speed until the sugar is well incorporated, 1 minute. Add the cinnamon, then increase the mixer speed to medium and blend the frosting until fluffy, 1 minute more.

The moral of this story is….embrace your differences…and eat tons of cupcakes.

Happy Wednesday!!