Soda cupcake trio and some very big news!

I know it's been a little bit of radio silence over here this week, but I promise, I have a darn good reason. I've had a busy couple of weeks...covered a Royal Wedding watch party, went to Salina with our photographer, Richard, to cover a Lawrence student going to military school — actually, that one has turned out to be my favorite story I've written at the LJ. But actually, the biggest news has to deal with the LJ: this Friday is my last day there. I've accepted a position at the Kansas City Business Journal, where I will be a reporter and copy editor, dealing with the web primarily. I'm pretty excited, but it's also my first move between jobs. So hopefully it goes well!


Part of my farewell this week will be a fair amount of baking. I'm actually really sad about about leaving my coworkers; they're great people. I think that's the hardest part of leaving, actually. It'd probably be easier if I hated them, but I don't. So because this is my last week working with them, I want to treat them to some Brenna sweets before I go. For today's cupcakes, I went with a soda theme. Option 1: cherry Coke cupcakes. They have a cola-flavored cake with four maraschino cherries baked in, then a cream cheese cola icing. I don't even really like straight cola flavor, but I liked these.


Option 2: Creamsicle cupcakes. Okay, so that's an ice cream treat sort of, but I've had an orange creme soda before too. I used this orange cake recipe, then sort of made my own frosting up. It's my basic vanilla frosting with marshmallow fluff mixed in. On top I made a candy melt topper that tastes like orange.


My last option is root beer cupcakes, which I've made once before. They're made with root beer extract, which is the weirdest thing. I actually found it at Walmart, of all places. I made my basic vanilla frosting and added some of that.

So, starting late next week, I have a new staff to bake for. I'm excited but nervous as well. Guess we'll see how it goes! P.S.: posted these over at Hoosier Homemade's Cupcake Tuesday!