Panettone Cupcakes with Sweet Honey Vanilla Bean Buttercream

Yes!  She lives!  I had an order this week for Pumpkin Cupcakes which I will post here in a second but asked the lady if she would like to try any of the "seasonal" flavors I had.  She selected the Panettone.

Panettone, pronounced pon-a-tony, is an Italian sweet bread with dried fruit.  Sorta like the American fruit cake but better.  And these did come out just like the original panettone bread.

I've seen bloggers make the panettone without the buttercream topping, as normal panettone is served.  But I'm not normal and I needed my buttercream.  So what kind to make?  For some reason I kept tasting honey.  I still don't know why, however I made a honey vanilla bean buttercream and then drizzled honey on top.  I must say the honey works VERY WELL!

The only big issues I have with this is 1) it's very time consuming and 2) it's more like a bread than a cupcake.  However, I hear panettone "cupcakes" are popular....so who knows :)  Maybe when I have more time I'll try to make a more cupcake version of this.  I think I know how just have to experiment a bit :)

New Year's Cupcake - 2011 Almond Anise

Ok so I couldn't wait until January 1, 2011 to make this cupcake. Mostly because I would like to relax for at least one holiday this year! :)

I wanted to do a cupcake with a light blue icing and a snowflake.
My sister said no. I say NYAH NYAH!!

This is a white cake infused with almond and anise. "what the heck is anise" you ask? Do you know what black licorice is? That's the flavor of anise. However I tend to think black licorice is a bit more bitter than anise itself. If you are a coffee drinker, try Sambuca. Yummo.

I digress. I was truly afraid of the anise. I didn't want it to be too licorice. But it actually came out really good! The buttercream is a vanilla bean buttercream (hence the black specks) and I just added blue food coloring. The 2011 and snowflake (made by freehand, thank you very much) are made of white chocolate (forgive my squiggly 1 in the year...it's my first time). Here is a picture of the cupcake with just the snowflake: