Vanilla Chai Cupcakes

So I'm a bit of an obsessive cupcake baker.  It's a problem.  My co-workers used to be happy about my cupcake issue.  Not so much anymore.

When I hosted the baby shower, everyone assumed I would be the official baker of the cupcakes.  The guest of honor (momma!) has a favorite cupcake bakery nearby though, so we ordered cupcakes and cookies.  Huge stress relief for me!

We ordered red velvet cupcakes, chai cupcakes, vanilla buttercream cupcakes, chocolate dipped strawberry cupcakes, aaaaaand I think that was it.  I tried the chai cupcake - it was tasty.  I've never heard of such a thing as a chai cupcake.  I've never had chai.  Period.

I came across a vanilla chai cupcake recipe on Pinterest, so of course I wanted to give my own chai cupcakes a go.

Source: theculinaryenthusiast.net via Amanda on Pinterest

I decided last night at 10 pm that I would be making these babies this morning before a shopping trip to Denver with the girls.  I checked the ingredient list and realized I didn't have any ground cardamom.  I needed that ground cardamom to make the chai spice mix.  Crucial stuff, man.

So I decided to grind my own.

Why do I do things the hard way?  I'm buying ground cardamom tomorrow, fyi.

Shelling cardamom and crushing it up in my handy dandy pharmacy school mortar and pestle: not fun.

Another thing I didn't foresee:  grinding the cardamom by hand meant there would be small bits of cardamom remaining unground...because I'm not a thorough grinder, apparently.  Not a problem...until frosting the cupcakes.

The first few cupcakes turned out fine.

Happy frosting.  Beautiful frosting with chai specks.

If those cupcakes in the back weren't bokeh-tastic, you would see that their frosting is...less than awesome.

The bits of unground cardamom eventually built up in the end of the frosting tip, clogging the slots of the tip.  This results in crazy frosting.  Craaaaaaazy frosting.  Ugly, crazy frosting.

But still tasty.

The entire cupcake turned out tasty.  The cardamom flavor is pretty strong, but everyone seems to be a fan so far.

The girls showed up for our shopping trip.  I asked if they would like a chai cupcake - one of the girls was holding a Starbucks chai when I asked.  She was pretty excited about a chai cupcake to go with her...chai.

On a totally unrelated, yet exactly the same note, I made two different batches of cupcakes Sunday afternoon.  Key lime with lime cream cheese frosting and dark chocolate with peanut butter cream frosting.  I made them for Wilberforce to take to work, until he informed me he didn't work the next day.  I was forced to take them to my workplace and endure the glares and "what the heck are those" looks the dieters gave me.

This is the last remaining dark chocolate peanut butter mini cupcake.  Isn't he cute?

I thought so.