Pistachio Cupcakes

My guy and I went to the opening of an art gallery in a little town in the foothills not too long ago. We hadn't seen our friends Dave and Michelle for a while so when Michelle suggested we check out her Aunt's opening and have dinner we were game. Why not? Something different, something fun. A nice little Saturday night. At the gallery opening they had an hors dourves table with lots of yummy little bites, our favorite being these tiny pistachio cupcakes. A portion of our dinner conversation then, of course, included Michelle and I trying to figure out how one would go about making these little morsels. Enter the internet. I found a recipe here that turned out pretty good. I made up my own version of a cream cheese frosting to go on top, though, because that's what those tiny little bites of happiness had on them. 

Just to be clear. I consider myself to be a pretty good cook. I can find my way around the kitchen with usually quite tasty results, no problem. However, I have never, nor will I ever profess to be an accomplished baker. Nope. So, yeah. This recipe called for a cake mix. It's not completely "from scratch". Whatever. It was easy and tasted good. I'm guessing it was the club soda that made these babies so incredibly light and fluffy?  

The recipe has you use the cake mix, 3 eggs, 1 cup canola oil, a package of pistachio pudding, and a cup of club soda. I used my KitchenAid stand mixer (which I LOVE) to mix everything up. Slow speed for 30 seconds and then on full/fast for 2 minutes. When it's done mixing, the batter is all fluffy and airy.

I am a big fan of cream cheese frosting. Our wedding cakes (yes, there were 2. I'm from Texas. That's how we do it.) both had cream cheese frosting. The wedding cake was layers of Italian Cream and Carrot Cakes with cream cheese yumminess and the Groom's Cake was German Chocolate with chocolate cream cheese frosting. Ahhhhh-mazing! But enough about that. The cream cheese frosting recipe I have in my trusty book is my mom's and it's incredible. But it also calls for a crazy amount of butter and I just wasn't feeling it. So, I stayed pretty true but just left out the butter. I used the whole package of cream cheese, 2 tbs orange juice, 2 tsp of vanilla and then I just added the powdered sugar until it tasted right. Again, I just set the KitchenAid loose with it. Then, I poured it into a ziplock bag and stuck it in the freezer to cool while the cupcakes finished baking and cooled.

Once everything was cool, I snipped off a corner of my frosting bag and did a pretty simple decorating job.

Since I'm a detail girl I figured I'd make the cupcakes pretty by sprinkling some pistachios on top. I don't know if you can get already shelled pistachios. You probably can, but I had unshelled in the pantry so there ya go. I shelled them, peeled off the skins, crushed them up a bit and dusted them on top of each frosted cake. I think they were a nice touch!