Yesterday morning I woke up at 7:30 am to bake 3 dozen cupcakes for a client’s holiday party.  It was hard to get up and even harder to think about driving with the snow outside.

I made gingerbread cupcakes with orange cream cheese frosting which went really well together. It tasted like holiday with spices that went in the gingbread (nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, ginger etc). The frosting made it even better.  I love orange cream cheese frosting these days. It tastes  refreshingly citrusy with the help of a few teaspoons  of orange extract.

I am more and more  with extracts lately and personally, I think they are better than flavored oils  that are used for making candies.  Extracts are made of ingredients such as herbs, nuts, berries and others that are chopped and soaked containing alochol-soluble compounds in ethyl alcohol or a combination of alcohol and water. Although extracts also contain oil, it is most likely in smaller quantity, thus retaining more the “natural flavors”.

When I was developing my Strawberry buttercream, I was advised to use strawberry flavored oil because it was said to be stronger in flavor. Unfortunately, the strawberry oil did not give me the fresh strawberry flavor I wanted in my Swiss meringue buttercream. Instead, it has a rather strong chemical flavor.