KEY LIME GINGER MINI CUPCAKES

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray a 24 cup minimuffin pan with spray or butter lightly. Open the bag of crystallized ginger and pop a few in your mouth for "cooking inspiration".
• Combine the first seven ingredients in a large bowl. Next cream the butter and sugar, next adding eggs one at a time. Eat some more crystallized ginger (mmnnnn). Add the lime juice, peel and vanilla extract and blend. The mix will appear curdled. Better eat just a few more pieces of the ginger to fuel your energy stores for the last steps. Then add the dry ingredients and the buttermilk in alternating batches, starting with the flour mix.
• Spoon batter to the top of the cups of the pan and bake 16-18 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Restrain yourself from "taste testing" half the batch (try to limit to just 4 or 5:), and place them to cool on a rack.
• In the meantime, cream the cream cheese, butter, lime juice and peel, and vanilla until smooth and whisk in the powdered sugar, beating until the frosting is smooth. Lick the whisk clean and use a clean spatula to spread frosting across the tops of the remaining cooled cupcakes. Take the time to dip a clean finger in the frosting every once in awhile, just to make sure it hasn't changed for some unlikely reason. When done frosting, sprinkle what's left of the crystallized ginger on what's left of the cupcakes that actually have frosting and hide until time to serve.
• Makes 72, unless recipe is followed exactly including tasting notes.