Chocolate Cupcake Dress with Vanilla Butter Frosting

BEST OF THE TASTY CHEAPSKATE

So I'm more of a cake person than a cupcake person. I like the layers of a cake. I like that all the frosting isn't just piled/glopped/mountained up on top with all that delicate cake being crushed below it. I like the look of a cake, the promise when yo cut into one.

But then, I'm not eight years old.

And I must admit that my layer cakes aren't, um, well, incredibly beautiful. And to make them beautiful would require something called artistic skill, which is a wee tiny bit lacking in my brain.

Enter cupcakes. My daughters really love them. And you can make them absolutely gorgeous without a whole heck of a lot of effort. My own, personal thirteen-year-old designed this one following (loosely) this tutorial.

So, fine, if it's going to be cupcakes, then you should make a really, truly delicious cupcake. And for this part, I've got your back. Have a hop over HERE to see my two favorite chocolate cake recipes gone all cupcake. They are not hugely domed, but for decorating things like these cupcake pull apart cakes, I've found flat to be ideal. I hope yo do too.

And they are just the very best chocolate cake recipes you will find. The end.

For frosting, we used my favorite vanilla butter frosting. You may need to add a bit extra powdered sugar if you are going to make a decorative cake like this cupcake. You can't have the frosting too loose or it won't hold the pretty swirly patterns.

And the best part of this beautiful dress cake (besides the cake, which is amazing beyond amazing; did I mention that)? The cost.
Cupcakes: $1.75
Frosting: $1.90
Candy Pearls: $1.00/color-->$2.00 for us (Yes, you could get your true cheapskate on and skip these, but I didn't because I had an 8-year-old who desperately wanted them)
Total: $5.65
For 24 cupcakes, that means that you're spending about $.23/cupcake. Without the pearls, it only costs $.15/cupcake. *happiness* *diet-wrecking-ness*

[Note: These numbers are for 24 cupcakes. If you follow the recipes (cake and frosting) linked to above, you'll wind up with 36 cupcakes, so you can do math to reduce the recipes. Or do what we did and have 12 extra cupcakes sitting around for you to eat. The cost per cupcake is the same, but you're overall cost comes up to $5.50 for 36 cupcakes, or $7.50 for cupcakes with pearls.]