Birthday cupcakes

Ok, so, I'm a little late on this, but I had to post the cupcakes Care and I made for mom's birthday on Monday. We followed the recipe in The Kind Dietfor Alicia's favorite cupcakes. I am not exaggerating when I say they were probably the best cupcakes I have EVER had. And that's including Sprinkles! Thank you, thank you, thank you, Alicia. My hero.

The frosting came out looking a little funny (we didn't beat it fast enough at first), but mmmmm!!! Part of the success may be due to the fancypants organic madagascar vanilla and organic green's black cocoa powder we used (yah, not the greenest ingredients considering their travel time here, but I feel a few indulgences are alright when they bring such pleasure). One other cool thing about these cupcakes: they use agave nectar rather than sugar! That's always exciting to me. The cake part is plain white cake (we substituted half the vanilla with almond extract, since mom mentioned she'd like almond flavored cake; it worked well!) and the frosting is chocolate. Om nom nom *drool* So moist!