Margarita Pinata Cupcakes

A couple Christmases ago my mom got me a cupcake corer (it was on one of my Amazon Wish Lists that I'd given her for inspiration so she didn't buy me more shirts to stuff into my closet). And then I never had a chance to use it. Until Auntie Lisa gave me inspiration. She, my uncle, and my cousins were coming up for an event with my uncle's family and they decided to have a Cinco de Mayo party with our family. My original plan was to make the Sopapilla Cheesecake; however, Auntie Lisa sent me a recipe for pinata cupcakes with the suggestion that I make them for our party. I didn't want to use that specific recipe since it required ingredients that I rarely use so I started looking elsewhere. None of the recipes I found were what I wanted though. Which is when I had an epiphany: I could use any cupcake recipe and just core them and fill them with sprinkles (The Kitchen on Food Network had a segment on how to do this last year). So I started searching for lime cupcakes (it felt like an appropriate flavor for Cinco de Mayo) and found Margarita Cupcakes in one of the Betty Crocker recipe magazines on my bookshelf.

Margarita Cupcakes (Betty Crocker SuperMoist Cake Mix Magic, on shelves until July 18, 2014, pg. 41)

Ingredients

Cupcakes

• 1 box Betty Crocker SuperMoist lemon cake mix
  
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup gold tequila or water (since I don't like alcohol and there were going to be minors/people who can't drink at this party, I obviously opted for water)
• 1 tsp grated orange peel (or extract)
• 3 eggs
• 1 box (4-serving size/3 oz.) lime-flavored gelatin

Frosting

• 2 containers Betty Crocker Whipped fluffy white frosting
• 1 teaspoon electrick green gel food coloring

Decoration

• Since I went in a different direction for decorating, I'm not gonna list the magazine's decoration ingredients.
• Instead, for the piñata effect, I found a tub of rainbow sprinkles. I ended up not using the M&Ms in the picture as the sprinkles took up enough room.

Directions

1. Heat oven to 350℉. Place paper baking cup in each of 24 regular-size muffin cups
2. In large bowl, beat all cupcake ingredients with electric mixer on low speed 30 seconds. Beat on medium speed 2 minutes, scraping bowl occasionally. Divide batter evenly among muffin cups.
3. Bake 18 to 20 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to cooling rack. Cool completely.
4. Use cupcake corer to remove middle of cupcakes (use spoon as an alternative), being careful not to go all the way through the cupcake. Fill with sprinkles and replace with top half of center.
5. In medium bowl, mix frosting and food color until blended. Frost cupcakes.

I heard a lot of "So cute!" compliments, which is something I rarely hear (might've been festive instead of cute; can't remember). But also the usual "Delicious!" comments. My only regret is that I didn't add some sprinkles to the top of the cupcakes.