Chocolate or Vanilla?

Of course I've been making cupcakes. But I also have some other desserts I've been making and playing with that I look forward to sharing with you soon. For now here is a glimpse at what I've been up to:

My sons bubble themed three year old birthday party

They were double vanilla bubblegum cupcakes

Baby shower cupcakes. Sorry for the horrible pics, the lighting was impossible

These were coconut cream (with pink tinted coconut) and raspberry almond with chocolate frosting

More baby shower goodness, and a new flavor. The ones with chocolate frosting and pink dots are the raspberry almond (one of the most popular flavor in case you haven't noticed), the yellow dotted ones are double lemon and the ones in the cute little cups with black stuff sprinkled on top are....earl grey cupcakes with honey buttercream.

Mind you I'm a tea person. Not just that, I'm an earl grey person. A cup about every morning, even in the summer. So I do have a bit of partiality, but seriously...these were so. stinking. good. Like I would eat them for breakfast without shame.

So I recently put up a post on my facebook site (become a fan if you aren't...I do giveaways, more pictures and interaction there) asking if anyone would be interested in my recipes for making their own CupKates. There were quite a few interested and with my lightening up on orders (although I'm itching for a few more for fall...I will have two boys in school and will need a distraction!) and many fans in other parts of the country (mainly STL, woot woot!) I thought I would aid in your own cupcake creations.

Almost all of my cupcakes are either vanilla based or chocolate based. Meaning if you have a strong basic recipe for either of those all you have to do is get creative to come up with new cupcakes. So for example my Guinness and Bailey's cupcake (chocolate cupcake made with Guinness topped with Bailey's buttercream) is a chocolate cupcake with the Guinness beer substituted for the water it typically calls for. To make my snickerdoodle cupcake all I do is add cinnamon to my vanilla cupcake recipe. Make sense?

Great. So I'm going to get together the recipe basics and their deviations. Now the only question is which to start with, chocolate or vanilla?