Creamsicle Cupcakes

Recently my friend, Leah, invited me to share a 'booth' with her at a local arts & crafts fair. She would be making a lot of crafty items, which she is so great at and she asked if I would like to make some baked goods to sell. I was pretty excited about having my first bake sale, but was nervous as well. I decided to do a mix of made from scratch items and some box mixes since I was treading on new ground. One of the first items I made (and then froze) were these cupcakes that were started with a box mix. Well, I don't care at all at they were made from a box because these were the best cupcakes ever...maybe my new favorite...really, I'm not kidding. They are worth making...so go get a box of orange cake mix and a vanilla pudding mix and get to work. Enjoy!

Creamsicle Cupcakes

Source: 52 Cupcakes

1 box of Duncan Hines Orange Supreme Cake Mix

1 small box of vanilla pudding (not instant)

Follow directions on the box, adding in the vanilla pudding mix. Bake as directed on box.

I chose to use a pre-made frosting...I believe it was Betty Crocker Whipped Cream which was so perfect on these. When I did my taste-test (yes, of course, I had to), I just put a dollop of cool whip on top....and that was perfect also. I'm not sure you can go wrong. If you check out the blog 52 Cupcakes where I found this recipe, she has a recipe for a frosting using marshmallow fluff...I definitely want to try that out sometime too.

**here is my taste-tester cupcake, just in case you couldn't tell.

More to come: pumpkin cookies and pumpkin muffins. Also, tales from our 1 year anniversary trip to Atlanta, Charleston and Savannah. Did I mention I'm currently doing these updates from the car as we drive home to Tampa from Savannah? Our vacation is almost over...sad, sad!

Cookies & Cream

I decided to fly to VA for the Labor Day weekend. That Saturday was my mom's birthday and Sunday was my stepdad's birthday. So, I thought it would be fun to surprise them. My aunts were in on it, of course. I told Aunt Barb that I would take care of making the cake/cupcakes. I knew right away that I wanted there to be oreos involved as those are my mom's favorite. If you are ever in need of a cupcake recipe, check out the How To Eat A Cupcake blog. She has everything you could imagine. She had made cookies & cream cupcakes both from scratch and from a box mix base. She said using the box mix turned out better so that's what I went for. They turned out great...you should definitely try them out. Since I would be at my aunt's house, I figured it would be easier to just buy icing and add crushed oreos to it, so that's what I did. I used Betty Crocker's Whipped Fluffy Vanilla... good stuff! Here is her recipe:

Cookies & Cream Cupcakes

Makes 22-24 cupcakes

30 Oreo cookies

1 box plain white cake mix

1 cup sour cream

1/2 cup vegetable oil

3 large eggs

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1. Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350°F. Line 24 cupcake cups with paper liners. Set the pans aside.

2. Count out 12 Oreos and separate the top and bottom wafers. Make sure each has some of the icing on it. Place one wafer, icing side up, in the bottom of each paper liner. Set them aside. Place the remaining 18 Oreos between sheets of waxed paper or in a large, closed zipper-lock bag and crush them by rolling over them with a rolling pin. Set these crumbs aside.

3. Place the cake mix, sour cream, oil, eggs, and vanilla in a large mixing bowl. Blend with an electric mixer on low speed for 30 seconds. Stop the machine and scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Increase the mixer speed to medium and beat 1 1/2 minutes more, scraping down the sides again if needed. Measure out 1 1/2 cups of the crushed Oreos and fold these into the batter until well incorporated. Set aside the remaining crushed Oreos for the frosting. Spoon or scoop 1/3 cup batter into each lined cup­cake cup, filling it three quarters of the way full. (You will get between 22 and 24 cupcakes; remove the empty liners, if any.) Place the pans in the oven.

4. Bake the cupcakes until they are lightly golden and spring back when lightly pressed with your finger, 18 to 20 minutes. Remove the pans from the oven and place them on wire racks to cool for 5 minutes. Run a dinner knife around the edges of the cupcake liners, lift the cup­cakes up from the bottoms of the cups using the end of the knife, and pick them out of the cups carefully with your finger­tips. Place them on a wire rack to cool for 15 minutes before frosting. (I left mine in the liners and served like normal)

For Icing, if using store bought, like I did: simply crush the oreos and mix into frosting. Note: if you plan to pipe the icing on you will need to make sure they are crushed very fine. They kept getting stuck in my tip and I finally got annoyed and gave up.

*Store these cupcakes, in a cake saver or under a glass dome, at room temperature for up to 3 days or in the refrigerator for up to 1 week. If you plan to freeze them, don't add the cookie-crumb topping. Wrap them in aluminum foil or in a cake saver and freeze for up to 6 months. Thaw the cup­cakes overnight in the refrigerator and top with cookie crumbs before serving.

Happy Birthday, Mom & Johnny!!

The little man sure did enjoy it, well the icing at least. Dig in, Cole!

1-2-3-4 Cupcakes!

I wonder where the name of this recipe came from. Kind of strange, don't you think? It's probably really obvious and I just am clueless. I saw this recipe on Lovestoeat's Weblog recently and knowing that my cousin Nikki would be in town visiting this past weekend, I decided to whip up a batch of mini cupcakes. On Saturday, we went to tailgate at the Rascall Flatts concert with Lani & Chad too...so really they were for Lani too. She and Nikki both prefer vanilla over chocolate so I thought these would be perfect to try. These turned out great...both taste and texture. This is definitely a great and easy go-to recipe for white/yellow cake. I went with rainbow chip frosting from the can because Nikki suggested it. And you can never go wrong with that one. They were scrumptious little minis.

1-2-3-4 Cake
Ingredients:
1 cup butter
2 cups sugar
3 cups cake flour
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
4 eggs
1 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract

*** I halved this recipe and got 12 regular size cupcakes and 24 minis. So this is a big recipe!

Directions: Preheat oven to 350. Butter and flour three 9 inch cake pans (I used cupcake liners and cupcake pan). In a mixing bowl cream butter and gradually add sugar, creaming until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. In another bowl sift flour with baking powder and salt. Add flour mixture alternately with milk and flavorings, beating after each addition until smooth. Pour batter into prepared pans. Bake for 25-30 mins (I baked mini cupcakes for 10 minutes and regular cupcakes for 15 minutes). Cool in pans 10 mins and remove from pans to finish cooling.

Happy Birthday, Kevo!

Time for another birthday. Our friend, Kevin, would be celebrating his milestone 30th birthday with a pub crawl in the S. Tampa area known as Hyde Park. His girlfriend, Lisa, planned the whole thing and did a great job. She had 4 local bars on the list for us, had koozies made and provided appetizers at the first bar. When something fell through with the cake she was having made, I offered to help. I decided on Katie's chocolate fudge cake recipe which you can find here. For the cupcakes I just used a canned cream cheese frosting and for the cake, I used the Hershey's Perfectly Chocolate recipe which is below.

The cake had a great flavor, however, the bake time was listed as 25-30 minutes. I was skeptical about that and set my timer to 20 minutes. Even that was about 2 minutes too long. So, they weren't nearly as moist as I was hoping for. I had to put extra icing on in hopes of them not being too dry. Just something to keep an eye out for when using this recipe.

"PERFECTLY CHOCOLATE" CHOCOLATE FROSTING

1 stick (1/2 cup) butter or margarine

2/3 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa

3 cups powdered sugar

1/3 cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Melt butter. Stir in cocoa. Alternately add powdered sugar and milk, beating to spreading consistency. Add small amount additional milk, if needed. Stir in vanilla. About 2 cups frosting.

** Kevin and Lisa at the birthday celebration

Happy Birthday, Lani!

This past week was rather busy for me in the kitchen. The first important thing to get ready for was Lani's birthday on July 3rd. We were going out to dinner to Bella's (yum... spaghetti and meatballs!) and then out for some drinks and fun. I offered to bring a surprise dessert for her. Her and I had talked about making them several times, so I knew I wanted to give it a whirl for her. I made Angie's Famous Strawberry Cupcakes from Katie's blog Good Things Catered. As in almost everything else I make, I was so nervous that they wouldn't be good but they got a great response so I was happy about that. On some of them, I used the strawberry cream cheese frosting that the recipe called for and on the other half, I used regular cream cheese frosting (which I preferred).

Angie's Famous Strawberry Cupcakes

Ingredients:

2 1/2 c. cake flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 c. unsalted butter

1 1/2 c. sugar (or a little less)

2 eggs

1/3 c. buttermilk

1/4 c. oil

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 c. chopped strawberries

1/4 c. strawberries

1 Tbsp. strawberry liquor

1/2 tsp lemon juice

8 oz. cream cheese, room temp

1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, room temp

1 3/4 c. powdered sugar

1/2 Tbsp vanilla

Directions:

-Preheat oven to 350 degrees and prepare 2 cupcake pans.

-Sift flour, salt, and baking soda in medium bowl.

-In bowl of mixer, cream butter and sugar until fluffy.

-Add eggs one at a time until combined.

-Add buttermilk, oil and vanilla until combined.

-Add flour mixture and stir until just combined.

-Fold in berries.

-Fill cupcake pans 3/4 way.

-Bake for 20 minutes.

-For frosting, put berries, liquor, and juice in saucepan.

-Bring to a boil over medium heat and then reduce to a simmer for 5 mins.

-Let cool then blend until smooth.

-In bowl of mixer mix cream cheese and butter until creamy.

-Add sugar, then vanilla.

-Add berry puree until smooth.

-Frost cupcakes when they are completely cooled.

What's Nutella?

That is what my co-worker asked when I first mentioned nutella cupcakes, which I've seen a dozen times on the What's Cooking board. Holy moly, I couldn't believe she had never heard of it. She has no idea what she is missing. I first had Nutella in Paris back in the spring of 2000 on a college trip. I have probably only purchased it once since then, but Mike recently went to Mexico for a week for work and what did he bring back for me... yep, a jar of Nutella. Yes, he knows you can get it at the grocery store...but I was just happy to have it. Until last night, I had been putting a little on my frozen yogurt as my nighttime treat...yep, to die for. But, I knew I was going to make Nutella cupcakes, which I've seen on so many blogs lately...here are a couple of them - they have other great stuff in addition to nutella cupcakes so check them out:

Proceed with Caution

Carrie's Sweet Life

Anyways, our friend, Kevin is having his annual beach party this weekend and I know I want to have our cooler stocked with goodies. So, I decided on mini nutella cupcakes... you know, the more, the merrier. These weren't as good as expected, but I think I just needed more nutella. They just seemed to dry. I think I may top them with a little dollop of nutella or chocolate icing before serving (I'll keep you posted on what I decide to do). Here's what I did:

Yep, that was it....ate it just like that. Just kidding, of course. But I could have easily stopped here, swirled in some nutella and went to town on it. Ok, ok...back to the recipe.

Mini-Nutella Cupcakes

1 box of yellow cake mix

1/2 jar of Nutella

1. Mix cake batter as directed on box.

2. Fill muffin pan/tins 3/4 of the way full with batter.

3. Drop 1/4-1/2 tsp of nutella onto the top of each one. Swirl with a toothpick.

4. Bake on 350 for about 9 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Enjoy!

And because these little treats are so precious, I'd like you to have one... a gift from me to you!

Cinco de Bake-o!

Happy Cinco de Mayo!!

Once again, I was feeling overly ambitious in the kitchen this weekend. For Lani & Chad's Cinco de Drinko festivities on Saturday, I had decided to make cupcakes and brownies, both from scratch. I should probably stick to one thing at a time from now on. If it could go wrong, it probably did...but I did manage to come out with two edible desserts so I guess it could have been worse. Right?

I baked the cupcakes on Friday after work so they could cool and then I would ice them on Saturday morning. I found the recipe at Cooking Light.com, which was for a 9x13 cake. So, it said to bake for 45 minutes. Well, I cut that down to 20 minutes for the cupcakes. I probably should have cooked them for about 16-17 minutes though. Oh well, a little dry but totally edible. First up on Saturday was the brownies. Got them mixed up and in the oven ... no mishaps there. Baking time was for 35-45 minutes. I checked in on mine after about 25 mins and the toothpick came out clean so I took them out. Didn't want to burn them. After letting them cool and cutting them, I realized they could have baked a little longer. They weren't runny but they were definitely nice and soft inside. No one complained though! Ok, now comes the cream cheese frosting. Disaster! It was too bitter and too runny. I cut the bitterness down by adding more vanilla extract and more confectioner's sugar. I never did get the flavor or consistency I was after, but once I ran out of confectioner's sugar, I gave up. Because it was thin, I could only do a thin layer on the cupcakes because it was just run right off...needless to say, the piping I had intended on doing was definitely a no-go. Out of time and out of sanity, it was time to put these on pretty platters and at least pretend they were perfect. So, off we went...baking fiascos and all...I have to say that they were both good though.

Chocolate Chipotle Brownies
Source: Emeril/Food Network

1 tsp plus 1 cup butter

1 tbsp plus 1 cup all-purpose flour

4 oz unsweetened chocolate, roughly chopped

1 1/2 cups of sugar

1 tsp of ground cinnamon

3/4 tsp ground chipotle chile pepper (I used about 1 1/2 tsp)

4 eggs

1 cup chopped Mexican chocolate or semi-sweet chocolate morsels (I used morsels)

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Grease and flour an 11x7 inch baking pan or dish with 1 tsp of the butter and 1 tbsp of the flour. Heat the remaining butter and the unsweetened chocolate in a saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly, until melted. In a medium bowl, stir together remaining flour, sugar, cinnamon, and ground chipotle. Add sugar mixture to melted chocolate mixture, stirring to combine. Add eggs, mixing until smooth. Stir in chopped chocolate or chocolate morsels.

Pour mixture into the prepared baking dish. Bake until the center is set, 35-40 minutes (I only baked for 25 mins-should've done 30). Cool completely and then cut into small squares. I sprinkled with powdered sugar!

Next up.... Cinco de Mayo themed cupcakes

Applesauce Spice Cupcakes

Source: Cooking Light

1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar

1/2 cup chilled light butter

1 1/2 cups chunky applesauce (I used non-chunky)

1/4 cup apple butter

2 large egg whites

1 large egg

3 cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup raisins (I omitted)

cream cheese icing (see below)

1/4 cup chopped pecans, toasted (I omitted)

Preheat oven to 350. Beat sugar and butter at medium speed until well-blended (4-5 minutes). Add applesauce, apple butter, egg whites and egg; beat well. Add flour and next 4 ingredients (flour through salt); beat well. Stir in raisins, if using. Pour batter into muffin tins. Bake at 350 for 15-17 minutes. Cool completely on a wire rack. Frost and sprinkle with pecans, if using.

Cream Cheese Frosting

Source: Cooking Light

1 1/2 teaspoons chilled light butter

1/2 (8-ounce) block 1/3-less-fat cream cheese

2 cups sifted powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Beat butter and cheese at high speed of a mixer until fluffy. Add sugar; beat at low speed until well-blended. Add vanilla; beat well. Yield: 1 cup (I doubled it and made enough for 2 cups)

Weekend Goodies

This weekend was packed full of all kinds of goodness. Goodie #1 = kiddies. Last night, we got to babysit 2 of my favorite little ones...5 year old Brianna and 8 month old Andrew. I decided to invite our neighbors' little girl (also 5), Elise, over to play with Brianna. Our friends, Tania and Dave, were nice enough to come hang out with us while we were babysitting. The plan for the night was to order pizza, play and make cupcakes.

We'll start with the cupcakes (goodie #2). I was thinking of testing a 'made from scratch' icing but decided that with two little girls, easier would be better. But, I did want to try making the cake mix with diet soda...something I've read lots about but haven't never done. So, here were our ingredients: one box of yellow cake mix, 12 oz of sprite zero and one can of whipped cream frosting...oh, and some pink sprinkles and a little red food coloring just for fun. Somehow, the pink sprinkles did not make it on the lone cupcake above...poor thing. These were delish and only about 140 calories in each one...not bad, huh?

For goodie(s) #3, we have some craft projects. One is for my friend, Ashley's, shower gift which is on the 26th so I will not be posting that until after the shower (you never know who might see and then the surprise would be ruined). It turned out beautifully and I can't wait to show you. It was my first attempt at this particular project and I was so happy with how it came out. The next is for a baby shower. My cousin and his wife are expecting baby #3 (their second little boy) in June and one of my aunts is throwing a shower for her. She told me that the theme is construction (a.k.a. Tonka) trucks and I found lots of cute stuff online. One trip to Party City and I had everything that I had wanted to order online...well, except for the really cute cupcake picks. So, one pack of stickers later, I was making my own. I just put the stickers on thin pieces of cardboard and cut into small squares and then taped to flat toothpicks...voila!...cupcake picks. I think they turned out so cute and so worth it for 5 minutes of work. The shower is in VA (where all of my family lives) and I won't be able to make it from FL (I will be in Charlotte, NC for my friend Ashley's shower and bachelorette party...woohoo!) so these as well as the other decorations will be my contribution. I hope that she enjoys it!

Too bad I didn't think about sticking one of these cuties into the cupcakes I made on Saturday night...duh! Oh well, you get the idea.

And for weekend goodie #4, see the post above...that was a darn good way to top off a very good weekend.