Tropical Storms Mean Tropical Cupcakes

 Well, in an act that is just so 2020, the Gulf of Mexico has not one, but two tropical storms brewing right now. I've lived in Florida long enough to know we're fine in tropical storms or Category 1 hurricanes as long as we have plenty of water, toilet paper, and alcohol. In my case though, I need the alcohol to be combined with dessert since I don't drink much. I took this as the perfect opportunity to try a very festively summer boozy cupcake concoction because tropical storms mean tropical cupcakes.

It's a flamboyance of cupcakes!

Did you know the official cocktail in the country of Mexico is the Paloma and not the margarita? Margaritas were actually invented in Texas, like all of the best food and drink concoctions (see also: Bluebell Ice Cream, Shiner Beer, and Julio's Chips y Salsa to verify this fact). I happen to be absolutely wild about both drinks, but in my old age, less sweet drinks equals less terrible next morning, so I've been leaning toward the Paloma as my favorite tequila-infused adult beverage. I knew I wanted to create a cupcake that was citrus-y, light, and had a zip of smooth booze infusion, so the Paloma cupcake came to be. I've also been dying to make a fun-themed cupcake because it's been ages since I did some whimsical decorating, so flamingos seemed a natural fit. Anything that flocks together in a group called a "flamboyance" is clearly winning in life, and so do these cupcakes. At only 196 calories a flamingo (130 calories if you find the chocolate flamingo heads and wings too cute to eat), these are also as guilt-free as they are festive and fun. They're also deceptively easy to create, so let's flock on down to the recipe...

Cupcakes of a feather stick together after all.

I hadn't baked from scratch in like ten years either, and I really wanted to get a base gluten-free, sugar-free cupcake recipe figured out. You could very easily use a box mix and replace the liquid called for with grapefruit juice, tequila, and milk, but these are so simple to throw together and excellent for people in your life that can't have real flour and avoid sugar because their digestive track is shot from eating nothing but McDonald's in their youth (oh, hi!). I also didn't need 65 cupcakes, only 12, so making from scratch seemed a better idea. To make a dozen flamingo cupcakes, you need:

• 1/2 cup low fat butter at room temperature (I use Land O Lakes light butter)
  
• 1 cup of granular Swerve
• 1 TBS fresh grated grapefruit zest
• 1/2 TBS fresh grated lime zest (takes about the whole lime)
• 2 large eggs at room temp
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
  
• 1 1/2 cups of Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free 1:1 Baking Flour (can find at Amazon or Target) or regular All Purpose Flour if you're not gluten intolerant
  
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup really delicious, smooth tequila (recommend Cazadores)
• 1/4 cup skim milk
• 1/3 cup fresh squeezed grapefruit juice (1 grapefruit will yield enough for the cupcakes AND two actual Palomas, so, thanks, grapefruit for being comically large)
  
• 2-6 tsp fresh squeezed lime juice (see note below)
  
• A note on gluten free baking: gluten free flours suck up moisture like a cactus in the dead of summer. To keep your cupcakes from getting too dry, you'll need to add a few extra teaspoons of the liquid of your choice (milk, tequila, grapefruit or lime juice) to get the batter thinned out to a regular cake/cupcake consistency. The batter should not be so thick that it doesn't easily fall off the scoop when you're putting it into the cupcake liners.
  

The most difficult part of this recipe is zesting the fruits. Seriously. Preheat your oven to 350 and line a muffin tin with cupcake papers. In a stand mixer, whip the butter, Swerve, and zests on medium-high until very fluffy, about 3 minutes. While this is mixing, in a medium bowl, stir the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together. In a glass, mix the tequila, milk, and fruit juices together (don't drink this, it will ruin your life). Let this curdle for 5 minutes. Don't worry, it'll come back together later.

Once your sugary butter is whipped, add the vanilla and one egg at a time, mixing the egg in completely before adding the next. Then, take a third of the flour mix and a third of the world's worst mixed drink, and pour into the mixing bowl. Blend on low until totally incorporated; repeat this until you've mixed everything together. Stop, scrape the bowl, and mix on medium-high for 1-2 minutes. I find the gluten free flour is extra grainy, and this will help break that down a bit.

Oh yes, so dangerously full to the brim.

These don't rise a ton, so take a cookie scoop and plop two scoops of batter into each paper. Bake at 350 for 20-22 minutes, until a toothpick comes cleanly out of the center. When the actual alcohol bakes out of these, it will leave this amazing sticky, crunchy crust on the top of the cupcake--don't worry, the insides are still completely soft and not over-baked, but the top part of the cupcake is almost like a streusel texture and it is absolutely divine with the Paloma cream cheese frosting.

Plus, they obviously don't look burnt, so you're good to go.

Let these rest in the pan on a cooling rack for 5 minutes. Then turn out to completely cool while you make your flamingos and frosting.

I also think my cupcake wrappers take these to the next level of flamboyant dessert-ery.

Templates make life better. Ahhh, organized creativity.

Wilton actually has a pink flamingo template and super detailed step-by-step instruction, but I did things a little bit differently from their tutorial to help prevent major disaster. Definitely download the template, but follow along back over here from a normal person who's actually done this. Print out as many templates as you need. I only made 12 cupcakes and didn't care if the "back" of the flamingo's head was blank since no one was going to see it, so I only needed one template. If you're showing these off at 360 degrees, you'll need two heads glued together with a little melted chocolate, so double the amount of templates needed. Put the template down on a cookie sheet and place Parchment paper on top.

Picture bottom right: a nosy kitchen helper with four legs.

You need white, black, and hot pink candy melts as well as hot pink gel dye (this is only for the frosting). You need three piping bags and three #2 or #3 open round decorating tips for piping the chocolate. I melted 30 grams of white chocolate and 30 grams of black chocolate in separate small Tupperware bowls for 1 minute at 50% power in my microwave. Give each a good stir until totally melted, then load each into their own piping bag. You will have a lot of leftover melted chocolate if you're only making 12 heads, just FYI.

Start by piping the black tips of their noses. You'll want to use a toothpick to help smooth out the chocolate and move it around until you get the shape just right. Stick your pan in the fridge for literally 2 minutes to harden the chocolate.

Once firm, come back in with the white chocolate and pipe the bands of the beak. Use a new toothpick and manipulate the shapes as needed. It helps to push down the chocolate gently so everything will be uniform and flat when you flip these over later. Put back into the fridge for 2-3 minutes to firm up.

While the white chocolate sets, melt about 30-60 grams of the pink chocolate melts for 1 minute at 50% power. Stir until totally melted (I had to add a little Crisco to my pink melts, they had just arrived the day prior and were messed up from melting/rehardening after shipping). Grab your tray and finish piping the flamingo outlines. Definitely use a new toothpick to swirl around the melted chocolate and get the shapes of the heads correct.

Adorable even without eyes. At this point, Wilton added 9,000 pink sprinkles to the flamingos, but I skipped that part and put everything into the fridge to firm up for 15 minutes. Then I took a tiny bit of melted black chocolate and using a toothpick, put a dot for each flamingo's eye before putting back into the fridge while I made wings.

Grab the bag of pink candy melts, if it's gotten too firm, remove the tip and reheat in the microwave for 30 seconds at 50% power. Lay out a large sheet of Parchment paper and then pipe about 1-2" dollop on the sheet. Take an angled spatula or palette knife, and swipe the blob in one direction, then feather out these swipes in the same direction but up 45 degrees and another swipe down 45 degrees to make wings:

This is the difference between the shapes an angled spatula and smaller palette knives will give. I went with the palette knife on the bottom for the rest.

Now, pipe out 24 wings. You'll want to swipe 12 going left and 12 going right so they sit on each side of the flamingo and don't look too funky. Let these harden for 20 minutes before manipulating. Everything will get flipped over, so you'll have the smooth sides out on the cupcakes and the messy sides will be inside. Same goes with the flamingo heads.

So that is why you want to use the toothpick to smooth out the chocolate...when you flip these over, everything will look nice and uniform, and so cute you want to die a little.

Now, back to that tequila!

While your cupcakes are cooling and flamingo body parts are setting, it's time to bust back into the booze and make some frosting! For the Paloma cream cheese frosting, you need:

• 1/2 cup light butter at room temp
• 8 ounces 1/3 less fat cream cheese at room temp
• 3 cups Lakanto powdered monkfruit
• 2 tsp fresh grapefruit juice
• 1 tsp tequila
• 1 tsp fresh lime juice
• 1/2 tsp grapefruit zest
• 1/2 tsp lime zest
• Hot pink and pink gel dyes
  

Whip the butter and cream cheese together on medium-high in a stand mixing bowl for 3 minutes. Add in the 3 cups of powdered sweetener, zest, tequila, and juices. Blend on low until things start coming together, then beat on high to get everything mixed. Now, you want to add enough hot pink and pink gel dye so that your flamingo head and wings match their body.

Patience is required.

I used about 6-7 drops hot pink, and 4-5 drops of regular pink to achieve this. This will also make enough frosting for 24 cupcakes and not 12, so you can freeze the leftovers or eat the frosting straight out of the bowl. It is divine, so don't share if you don't have to...

Flamingo butts!

Load up a piping bag with a large round tip (I used Wilton 1A), start by piping a mound of frosting in the middle of the cupcake. Don't move the tip, just let the frosting form a nice round blob. Once you've covered most of the surface of the cupcake, take the tip and pull up and away in one direction. This will form the tail feather.

Then gently slide a flamingo head on the opposite end. It might be a little wobbly at first since this cream cheese frosting isn't super firm, but you can straighten them out later after sitting in the fridge for a half hour.

Then take a left wing and right wing (refrain from political jokes), and gently place on the sides of the mound of frosting.

Repeat for all cupcakes, and your tequila flock is complete!

It absolutely does not get any pinker than this.

Or cuter, for that matter. I was giggling like an idiot while I put these together, and I swear, I had zero ounces of tequila in me while I was assembling them. They turned out even better than I had hoped. They most definitely resemble flamingos, so, point made. You could also do these in white to make swans, which I will try at a later date with what I assume has to be a recipe with classier booze considering swans strike me as the type that would only drink a cocktail with Vermouth or angel tears in them.

Flamingos are always down to party though, so tequila was a great choice.

These taste even better than they look, so that's saying something. They aren't too dense, and they have that nice tart pack of grapefruit that blends perfect with the sweetness of the cream cheese frosting. Everything is totally complimented by that tequila, though, so Mexico definitely knows what's up with it's drink of choice. You could say they're flocking fabulous. This is an adult cupcake flavor trapped in a child cupcake decoration, and it was exactly what I needed to lift my spirits (both the boozy and metaphorical ones) after a year that seems to be a never-ending car crash of epic proportions.

More like fun-mingo, amiright?

These would be excellent additions to backyard barbecues or pool parties if we could ever do those things again, so definitely save this one for a time when you're allowed to be within six feet of people again to fla-mingle. Or don't. Make them now, eat all 12, and conquer the world while you're drunk off delicious cupcakes. Absolutely nothing you can do this year will surprise anyone at this point, so reap the benefits of Corona crazies and go for broke. I'm wondering if I ate all 12 at once, could I become the next Florida (Wo)Man? Perhaps, but I'll leave it to the professionals (a.k.a., native Floridians). 'Til next time, my fellow eaters!

These cupcakes are best enjoyed, of course, with a Paloma cocktail to wash them down. Flamin-go for it. Okay, I am done with flamingo puns. Seriously.