Zucchini Cupcakes

This is my third installment this week in the series I am doing for my self-proclaimed cupcake week.  It's summer time and the living is easy.  So I was looking around the kitchen for some inspiration when my eyes narrowed and zoned in on some zucchini that was left on my porch by the zucchini fairy about 4 days ago.  Have you ever been visited by the zucchini fairy?  It just shows up by the plastic grocery bag full every so often in the summer.  I gave 2 of them away already this week and I fried up one so that leaves 2 I have to get rid of.  And I wanted something relatively easy because making cupcakes night after night is proving to be a very daunting challenge.

I love summer, it is my favorite season.  Every year I do pretty much the same things.  I go to the beach, I go Up North, (that's what we Michiganders do, or Michigoons if you know my friends), I eat a crap load of ice cream, and I go to outdoor concerts....Have I ever mentioned I am a huge Dave Matthews fan?  I've gone to an outdoor show almost every summer since I turned 18.  Even though I've seen Dave a ton of times, I always wanted to go see Jimmy Buffett and several years ago I did.  Super fun time!  My friend and her mom and sister went last weekend  to the concert in Comerica Park and their pictures reminded me of the concert which is exactly the memory that lead me to making these cupcakes. 

There is a company here that charters buses and I took a bus trip to the Jimmy Buffett concert and one of the passengers on the bus made this awesome zucchini cake and even though I was probably three sheets to the wind, I remembered how tasty this cake was.  Its kind of like carrot cake, only zucchinier.

The aroma coming from the oven was positively scrumptious!  I made use of my leftover lemon cream cheese frosting I made earlier in the week and topped it with some zucchini shreds for decoration. The recipe says to bake these for 40-45 minutes,  I baked them just over 30 minutes.  I definitely should have taken these out a little sooner.  Other than that the tops are a little crispier than I would have liked, these taste delicious, warm and comforting, like a trip to grandmas.  As I mentioned in my earlier post, this frosting was a little runny so again, I would definitely use the Better Homes and Gardens cook book recipe, but I will say the lemon and lemon zest in this frosting perfectly complimented this cake. I also liked the simplicity of the recipe.  There are only a few ingredients and you don't need to haul out the kitchen aid mixer for this one. Its exactly like the first cake I ever made, carrot cake only this has zucchini and nuts.  I chose pecans because I just love pecans.  Here is the recipe from Martha Stewart!  Love that lady!

http://www.marthastewart.com/317832/sweet-zucchini-cupcakes