Summer Squash Trail Mix Cupcakes

I haven't posted in quite a while.  When I quit my job to stay home with my baby for some reason I thought I would have a lot more time than I did before, but really I only have a little more time for stuff like blogging and a lot more time with my son.  But, that's fine.  So, while I like blogging I don't guarantee that I will do it regularly, but I imagine that as he gets older and naps become more predictable that I will find more time to do it.  I have found more time for baking than I was in the early months of his life, but it typically isn't anything that requires a lot of work though I have done a couple of fancy cakes and decorated cookies.

So, I do still get a CSA share every other week, and I decided this time I would do a better job about using everything before I get the next share.  Only problem is I found out last night that they had me scheduled to get another share this week even though I shouldn't be getting one until next week.  I think something got messed when I went on vacation and pushed out one of my pick up dates.  Rather than dealing with trying to call them I changed my pick up day of the week to Saturday rather than Wednesday to give me the rest of the week to finish what I had.  I decided I needed to use up some of the squash by baking.

I had made Martha Stewart's Zucchini Spice Cupcakes before using half zucchini and half summer squash so I decided to try all summer squash this time.  My son fell asleep for his morning nap and actually let me lay him down so I got busy getting ingredients out.  I soon realized I would have to improvise quite a bit as I didn't have vegetable oil or walnuts.  I ended up using a mixture of safflower, canola, and olive oil because that's all I had.  I've tried cake with olive oil in it before that I liked so I figured  it was worth a try.  I had a bag of trail mix with walnuts, almonds, raisins, cranberries, and dates.  At first, I thought about pulling out all of the walnuts, but then I decided I would just chop it all up and see how it works.

When they came out of the oven I thought they looked a bit more like muffins than cupcakes, but the inside is soft like cake.  They turned out delicious!  I think I still prefer them with just walnuts, but I would say this was a nice substitute!

These are great without the icing as a little snacking cake, but they're even better with a bit of cream cheese icing.  I mixed up some with half butter, half cream cheese, vanilla splash of milk, and powdered sugar to the consistency I want for piping.  I frost a few for the next couple days and then freeze the rest so they taste fresher.  It doesn't take long for them to defrost in the fridge.

I set one out on the plate to take a picture, but I had to go change my baby's clothes as he has decided that the dog water bowl is a fun place to play.  When I came back I saw my cat licking her lips and part of the icing missing from one side, but you'd never know that by looking at the picture above!