Root Beer cupcakes

I set aside my unfounded fears of these cupcakes and jumped right in. I mean, why should I be afraid of a cupcake? It should be afraid of me and I think in the end it was.

I could have done this from scratch and probably should have but I was just too lazy so I started from a yellow cake mix box.

 Added a few eggs.

 Some root beer concentrate.

 Some root beer.

And blended. I should have added sour cream or yogurt to help the cake be a little moister but I just wasn't sure what the root beer would do.

 Made up some vanilla frosting. I wanted these to be more like a root beer float.

Here they are. I didn't take any pictures of the filling I used but you can see it there on top.

Cake:
1 box yellow cake mix
3 eggs
1 Tablespoon root beer concentrate
1 cup root beer
1/2 cup sour cream

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine cake mix, eggs, root beer concentrate, root beer and sour cream. Spoon into muffin pan with liners. Bake for 17-20 minutes.

Filling:
2 cups root beer
2 Tablespoons ultra gel (or any thickener)
1/2 Tablespoon root beer concentrate

Boil root beer on stove for ten minutes, remove from heat and add ultra gel. Add root beer concentrate and pipe into cooled cupcakes. You can use a piping tip or since I don't have one I used the number 2 tip from Wilton. Put tip in cupcake and push a teaspoon (or more) of liquid in.

Frosting:
1 cup crisco
3 1/2 cups powder sugar
8 Tablespoons milk
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

Combine Crisco, powder sugar, vanilla. Add milk slowly until you reach the consistency needed. You may need more or less than 8 tablespoons. A good way to tell is if it sticks to your finger easily.