"Sweet Tooth Fairy" Cupcake Copy Cat

We are LUCKY to have an awesome local cupcakery here called "The Sweet Tooth Fairy". Megan, the owner, has some serious talent and flair. She's even been on the Rachel Ray Show with her Cake Bites. I've already done my own version of a Cake Bites tutorial last year. I was thrilled to see they are now making macarons too! See? She and I LOVE the same things! I'd love to meet her as we clearly share a love of all things sugar.


The "Sweet Tooth Fairy" cupcakes are good, very good. However, once they add the frosting, they go from good to absolutely diet- shattering yummy! If you get the chance, you MUST go there and try out the many incredible flavors. I treated myself to a Chocolate Raspberry one last week. Heaven!


The frosting recipe is a jealously guarded secret- and with GOOD reason. She says she will never reveal her secret ingredient and I agree that she shouldn't. The thing that makes her frosting so good is that it rich and creamy but not sickeningly sweet nor does it taste of Crisco. How? I wondered? How might one accomplish this? They are not refrigerated either so it's not a whipped cream frosting. I'm sure as a professional she has access to all kinds of specialty ingredients not available to me. My recipe has to use everyday, grocery store stuff.


And so I thought, and carefully googled and last night I finally experimented with my OWN version of "Sweet Tooth Fairy" frosting. Please note, this is NOT her recipe. It may not even be close but it DOES have the same body, is less 'sweet' than regular frostings and holds up beautifully. As knock-offs go- it's a winner.


I needed to start with a good cupcake recipe so I chose the Filled Cupcakes recipe from allrecipes- my favorite recipe site. I made them as per recipe directions but used mini-chocolate chips as recommended by others.


Baking Secret: spray the cupcake liners with Cooking Spray and it will keep the cake from sticking to the liner. No more ugly 'disrobed' cupcakes!

Cupcake batter with the cream cheese/chocolate chip filling. This recipe made really moist, tasty cakes.

The 'secret ingredient' in MY frosting is Dream Whip. Remember that stuff? My Mama used it all the time in the 70's and 80's. I didn't know they still made it! It's like powdered whipping cream and you get it in the same area of the grocery store where you'll find puddings and mousses.

After playing around with a couple different versions, I settled on the recipe below that I cobbled together using the best parts of several different recipes.

NOTE**I have now made the recipe a number of different ways. The recipe below has been revised to reflect the 'winning' method.

Cindy's Secret Frosting- REVISED!

1-8 oz. package cream cheese
2 Tbls. Butter- softened

1/2 tsp. salt

1 pkg. Dream Whip

1/2 tsp. almond extract

1 tsp. vanilla

1/2 tsp. clear butter flavor
About 3 cups of Confectioner's Sugar

Beat softened cream cheese and butter until smooth and blended. Add extracts to a small bowl, mix in the salt to dissolve then add mixture to cream cheese. Add Dream Whip and mix well. Finally, add the Confectioner's Sugar until frosting is desired thickness- remember that it will stiffen up once you refrigerate that so take that into account. My goal is always to add the LEAST amount of Confectioner's Sugar I can get away with so the frosting won't be too sweet.

Chill cupcakes and frosting for at least an hour before piping frosting on top- even better if you wait overnight so the frosting won't be grainy.

The finished cupcake. And yes, I know I won't win any prizes for food photography but my poor camera is sort messed up and lets in too much light on the auto settings and I'm clueless how to fix it.

I will say that the recipe is excellent and very CLOSE to the one used at this awesome bakery. However, I'd still recommend you try out the real thing at Sweet Tooth Bakery! I'm pretty sure heaven tastes just like her frosting.