Chocolate Cupcakes with Orange Cream Cheese Frosting

 

Heaven. 

   

No, seriously. I've made cupcakes with an orange buttercream before. And they were awesome. But these? Oh. My. God. 

Orange infused cream cheese frosting may be the most delicious frosting ever created. It's smooth and creamy. It has this delicious orange-y sweetness and it's (I'm channeling Paula Deen here) out of this world, y'all =)

I'm only posting the recipe for the frosting. I've posted my go to recipe for chocolate cupcakes before (Martha Stewart's recipe for chocolate cupcakes technically), so I'm just going to post this insanely good frosting recipe.

Orange Cream Cheese Frosting 

Adapted from My Baking Addiction

Ingredients 

• 2 lbs. of powdered sugar
• 2 8 oz. packages of  softened cream cheese
• 4 T. of unsalted, room temperature butter
• 3 T. of shortening
• Zest of one orange
• 1/2 t. of orange extract
• Orange food coloring to your specifications

Directions

1. Cream together the cream cheese, butter, shortening, and orange zest together (I just grated the orange over the bowl of the stand mixer once the other ingredients were already in it).
2. Slowly add the powdered sugar. Turn the stand mixer on low before adding sugar so you (and your kitchen) not covered in a cloud of the stuff. 
3. Add the food coloring (I added just two very small drops of the gel stuff) and the orange extract and mix well.
4. Attempt not to eat all of it with a spoon out of the bowl, because it's so good on cupcakes.