Cinnamon Roll Cupcakes and increasing my baking repertoire

I keep talking about opening a cupcake bakery someday.  Its a pipe dream, at most, and yet something about it -- I just can't let go of the idea.  Steven, as you might imagine, tires of my never-ending enthusiasm for new pursuits sometimes.  So the other day, after hearing about my cupcake bakery for the umpteenth time, he says to me, "You know, I've never even seen you bake a cupcake."

Obviously that was because he didn't come with me to the cupcake workshop.  And yet, he had a point.  If I'm going to open my cupcakery someday (perhaps in my retirement years, at this rate), I will need to have established a repertoire of recipes.

Enter Pinterest, a seemingly neverending resource for beautiful cupcake recipes.  I have pinned approximately seven billion of them.  I picked my first one to try out this weekend: Cinnamon Roll Cupcakes with Coffee Icing and Cream Cheese Frosting!

And as a bonus, I got to use my stand mixer for the first time since we moved into the new house!



I find it funny and endearing that my kitchen countertop is now never without a sippy cup in plain view.  I apparently didn't even notice it before I took this picture. Mom life. Word.



The assembly was really the most time-consuming part of these cupcakes.



You had to fill them halfway with batter, then swirl in a cinnamon/brown sugar mix....



Then feed your toddler an animal cracker while she watches you bake,



Then more filling and swirling.



They looked pretty good after all of that assemblage, though.



Unfortunately, Sophie has very little patience for Mommy's cupcake endeavors.



Fast forward 20 minutes for cooking time and another 30 minutes to cool completely (and to pacify the toddler)...


Enough with the standing in the kitchen already, Mommy!

... and then I made the coffee icing.



And by the time I got to the cream cheese frosting step, it was Sophie's bedtime.



(These cupcakes would not take a normal person 6 hours to complete.  I am obviously just incredibly bad at time-management-plus-small-kid-management.)



End result though? Totally worth it.



Messy, but incredibly delicious.



I took the rest of them to work as bribes for my coworkers.  I find that plying people with sweet baked goods is helpful for office morale.