Lemon Filled Yumminess!

Lemon filled-lemon butter cream icing

It has been a crazy busy week at my house. I guess, by my saying crazy busy, I just really mean. . . well, yes, crazy busy. It has been filled with things that are not quite typical of my Monday thru Wednesday. I am a substitute teacher at my kids' school, and since it is the flu season, I get the call :) Monday, I was exhausted, so I didn't get to make any cupcakes when I came home from school with the kids. Tuesday night I had Bunko (which was on a different night), so I didn't really have a chance to work on cupcakes after I got home with the kids from school. Wednesday is the day I really need to make them since I take them to church with me. The kids are a part of an after school art program that totally rocks for a variety of reasons (1 it's awesome, with a great teacher and 2 I get an extra hour, very handy on days I sub)!!! So in this hour, I decided I would try a new cupcake recipe. Oh, I forgot to mention, I was going to fill my cupcakes with one of my most favorite ingredients, Lemon Curd, and I was out. . . So I guess that is 45 minutes I have to make my cupcakes before I have to pick up the kids. Not normally an issue, but as I mentioned earlier, I wanted to try out a new recipe I had found online. I made this recipe exactly how it was written. It says it makes 12 cupcakes. I got 12 beautifully shaped cupcakes, plus I made 12 mini-cupcakes with this batter. What I loved about the idea of this batter is how much I think I can play with the recipe, making banana or peanut butter or orange or anything else I use a cake mix for!

If you don't want to go to the link above, I will type out exactly what I did.

Ingredients:

Lemon Curd! It is so yummy!

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups flour
1 3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup milk

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350. Cream sugar and butter. Add eggs 1 at a time. Mix well. Add vanilla. Mix flour and baking powder together then slowly add to mixture. Finally add the milk. I baked these in my cupcake tin with liners (my favorite Reynolds brand, Wilton has some similar that I will be trying out soon) for 20 minutes.

I use this cute little tool.

This was the perfect cupcake for what I needed. I pulled them out right before I had to leave to pick up the kids. While I was gone, the cupcakes were cooling. I used my trusty little tool to get the centers out of the cupcake so I could fill it with lemon curd. YUMMINESS!!!

Filling the cupcakes with Lemon Curd

I picked the kids up at 3:40. My daughter is trying to do her homework when she realizes, she has left a paper at school. We get back to the school by 4:00 (I am leaving at 5 to pick her friend up to go to dinner and church with us). On my way home, I realized that I used my last stick of butter in the cake. . . I was going to make lemon butter cream icing (recipe at the bottom of this post)!!! I am about to run to the store once again when my daughter asks, Can we please go home first so I can finish my homework? Seriously, how can I say no to that? Thankfully the store is close and she finished her homework quite quickly. We went to the store to get butter. I buy 3 pounds of butter. I don't want that happening again :). I am home by 4:30. I whip out my lemon butter cream icing, but it in a piping bag with a 4E tip and frost my cupcakes. I am done by 4:53. I have minutes to spare! I put them in the car, pick up my daughter's bestie, meet my parents for Chinese food before church, and have the Yummy Lemon Filled cupcakes for the fellowship after the church service. Ahhhhhh, now I can breathe.

It is Thursday morning, the kids are at school, and I have the rest of the day to myself. Of course that means laundry, shopping for new soccer shorts for my daughter, helping my mom pick out material for a quilt she is wanting to make (I am hoping I can purchase a little extra so she will make me one too) and maybe making another cupcake! Of course, none of these things are a hardship, (with the exception of laundry) so I will enjoy my day immensely!

I piped the icing directly on top of this.

*******Lemon Butter Cream Icing**********
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup butter flavored Crisco
4 cups powdered sugar
3 TBSP Lemon juice

Cream butter and Crisco. Slowly add powdered sugar. Add lemon juice. Add a little more sugar if you need to get the right consistency.

Banana Cupcakes

I know my titles aren't that exciting, but the cupcakes sure can be. My inspiration for this cupcake was my mom. She reminded me of a treat (I think it might have been Hostess) that we would have on occasion called the banana flip. It was this spongy type cake (think Twinkie) wrapped kind of like a taco with this yummy banana flavored filling. So I thought I would attempt to duplicate my way. I was pretty far off the mark on this childhood treat but it was oh so tasty!

Banana Cupcakes

I thought I would start with a yellow cake mix (if I would have left it at that, it probably would have been similar in taste and texture), but I wanted to jazz it up a bit. I had been researching substitutes for eggs and oil for the cake mixes; I have already been changing the water to something different. In my research, I saw that you could exchange 1 banana for every egg in the recipe. Since my cake mix called for 3 eggs, I used 3 bananas. It also called for 1 cup of water, I chose to use milk. I left the oil the same, not wanting to change it all so I would know what worked and what might not. I used a square cupcake pan and a flower shaped silicone cupcake pan to put my cupcakes in. My results were a moist, delicious, amazing cupcake exploding with a fresh banana taste. Can we say, YUMMINESS!!!

I wanted to play around with the toppings/frosting a bit too. I made a delicious banana butter cream frosting (that tasted a whole lot like the filling from the childhood treat). I used chocolate flavored Almond Bark as a topping and also some yellow vanilla flavored Candy Melts. I even spread peanut butter on top of some before dipping it in the chocolate almond bark.

The "flower" in the foreground was covered in yellow candy melts. This was almost my favorite!

I played with the banana butter cream icing on the tops of these.

While it might have missed the mark on the treat we had as kids (and honestly who am I kidding, I had them as an adult, too), it was a BIG bonus on the new yummy treat. I loved the fact that it didn't use eggs which totally means I can eat the batter! Okay, maybe not eating the batter necessarily, but I am always running out of eggs and I always have overripe bananas (I make tons of banana bread because of this) so this was a nice alternative. I don't know that I would use the banana unless I wanted the banana flavor. For example I make some two ingredient brownies that I use a brownie mix (that is just one ingredient for me) and some pureed black beans and you don't taste the black beans at all. It might be nice though to see what the bananas would tasted like in a chocolate cake, too. For my family, this was a great recipe and one I will do again.

This square one has peanut butter spread on top before dipping it in chocolate and decorating it with yellow candy melts.

*********I forgot to put my recipe for my banana butter cream frosting recipe on here. How silly!! It is a simple recipe. 1 cup butter, 1 cup butter flavored Crisco, 1 package instant banana pudding mix, approximately 8 cups powdered sugar, approximately 2 TBSP milk.**********

Cherry Limeade, in a Cupcake

It is a cold and dreary day today. I have soup in the crock pot and bread rising. Honestly, I really like wintery days. I decided though, that since I had a little icing leftover from a previous cupcake recipe, I needed to bring a little summertime sunshine to the table. In my family, we LOVE cherry limeades, especially from Sonic. Since I am currently CONSUMED WITH CUPCAKES, maybe I should turn that lovely flavor into a cupcake.

Cherry Limeade, in a cupcake

For this cupcake, I followed my standard method: I started with a cake mix. This time I used a Betty Crocker Cherry Chip cake mix. I had a jar of cherries that I drained so I could use them as a decoration on top of the cupcake. The drained syrupy cherry juice is what I used for the water in the cake mix. I decided to do something fun with my cupcakes too. My mom had bought me some silicone heart shaped baking cups. I thought it might be cute to do a cupcake in that too. There is a little fill line in them and that helps too.

After cooling my cupcakes, I need to frost them. I used my Wilton #1M tip and my leftover lime icing that I made in a previous blog here.

Heart Shaped cupcake

After putting the frosting on, I then put the cherry on top. I would suggest either letting the cherries dry on paper towels a bit, or waiting until the last minute to put the cherries on top. Some of the liquid might eek out onto the frosting. It might be pretty, but I would rather be safe :)

My overall thoughts on this cupcake: It looked very nice. It was easy to do. I would love to have MORE cherry flavor in the cupcake. It is a very delicate cherry flavor that is almost overpowered by the lime icing. I am sure I will make this one again, but if anyone has any ideas for upping the cherry flavor, please let me know. I am not certain if there is a "cherry extract" I actually looked, but did not see one in my local grocery store. I might do a cherry puree that might make it a bit stronger. I would love to know if someone tries this and what they think of it. I still like this cupcake, even without a strong cherry flavor.

Summertime on a Wintry Day :)

*****I talked to my mom after I posted this and she gave me some great ideas. She said the McCormick does make a cherry extract, that is a bonus. In our discussing, we came to the conclusion that I could do a Cherry Limeade, Part 2 by taking the cupcake and filling from my Key Lime cupcakes (I linked it earlier in this post) and making a cherry icing. I will try that one, too. Thanks, Mom!!!*********

Key Lime Cupcakes

My son loves anything green. He also loves the lime taste. These are his FAVORITE cupcakes. I could probably call them triple lime cupcakes. The cake is lime, the filling is lime, the icing is lime! My inspiration for these, other than my son, was this Betty Crocker recipe. I took the filling recipe straight from their page. I used a white cake mix (with lime juice in place of water) and my own icing recipe.

Key Lime Cupcakes (and my favorite lime juice)

Ingredients:

Cake:

This is what I used
Vanilla Cake Mix
Lime Juice
Eggs
Oil

Filling:

1 box (4 serving size) Vanilla pudding mix (you might use Lemon for more citrusy flavor)
1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream
1/4 cup Key Lime Juice
4 drops green food coloring
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

Frosting:

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup shortening (I use Butter Flavor Crisco)
4 cups powdered sugar (more if you need it)
2 TBSP Key Lime Juice
(I doubled my recipe for frosting because I like a lot on my cupcakes and any I have left over I will use on another recipe)



Step 1: Find your favorite cake mix (you might even start with a lemon mix for an even bigger citrus flavor).

Step 2: Prepare it according to your package directions (I used 1 cup of lime juice in place of the water. I will be honest, the batter looked just a bit different. I don't know if the acid in the lime juice made the consistency different, but it still baked up nicely).

Step 3: Bake according to package directions ( I used my favorite Reynolds cupcake liners and I got 18 cupcakes out of my mix).

Step 4: While letting the cupcakes cool (or while they are baking), prepare the filling. (The first time I made this recipe, I just threw everything into the bowl and beat it with the mixer. The mixture was quite yummy. I followed the directions exactly this time. There is a slight difference to the texture, but I wouldn't stress about getting it exactly right.)

1. Whisk pudding mix and heavy cream
2. Add Lime Juice and food coloring, blend well
3. Stir in powdered sugar
4. Refrigerate until you are ready to fill your cupcakes

Yummy filling!

Step 5: Cut a hole in the cupcakes. I have a handy little tool that I like to use. You can also use a knife or any other very small cookie cutter. If you don't want to cut a hole, you can use a bismark tip (Wilton tip #230) and place the tip inside the cupcake and fill.

My cute little cutting tool

This is what it looks like after

Step 6: Fill your cupcakes.

This is the Bismark tip but you could use any tip

Step 7:Make your icing

1. Blend butter and shortening.
2. Add powdered sugar, slowly
3. Add in the lime juice
4. Add a few drops of green food coloring, if desired

Step 8: Decorate those cupcakes. (I used a Wilton tip # 4B today)

My son's favorite cupcake!!!!

I had quite a bit of the filling leftover. I am trying to find a way I can use it. It might be nice sandwiched between some graham crackers for a key lime pie cookie. The icing that I have leftover will go nicely with a cupcake idea I have coming up. Depending on the citrus level you are wanting, you can start with a lemon cake mix and lemon pudding (for the filling), or you could remove any of the lime taste if all you wanted was a hint of lime.

Carrot Cupcakes

I think I make a pretty decent carrot cake. Honestly, why make something like this that no one likes. I make it a lot for family get-togethers or church functions. One of my brothers really likes it, at least he claims to. It might just be that he is being nice and eating half the cake. :) I decided that if I can make it as a cake, let's see what it would be like for a cupcake. I found the original recipe several years ago in one of those cookbooks that you find at the end of a register. I have adapted it for how I like it.

Cake Ingredients:
2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1 Tbsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
4 eggs
1 1/2 c oil (I use canola)
3 cups shredded carrots

Cream Cheese Frosting Ingredients:
1 package cream cheese (8 oz)
1/2 cup butter
8 cups powdered sugar
2 Tbsp milk (this is an approximation based on how thick you want your icing)
1 tsp vanilla


Directions:
Put flour, sugar, baking powder and cinnamon in a large bowl and stir the ingredients together. (I use a whisk to do this, it just gets it well blended). In another bowl, whisk together the oil and eggs. Combine the two bowls. This will be a pretty thick mixture. Add the carrots and stir well. Pour into your prepared pan and bake at 350 {cupcake (about 25-30 minutes), 9x13 (40-45 minutes), jelly roll (25-30 minutes), 2 rounds (35-40 minutes)--these are all ways I have made this recipe}. When this is cooled, use your favorite cream cheese icing (or use mine above) and enjoy.

Helpful Hints:
My grocery store has, in the past, carried shredded carrots that were perfect. It was the right amount and the right size. They don't appear to carry those anymore, but the julienne carrots work nicely in the cake. They are a little big for the cupcakes. I got 24 cupcakes out of this, but I think I filled my first cupcake pan too full, so you might be able to get a few more than that. You probably only need to fill the pan about half full, because these will rise, a lot. Since this was something I had not done before, I only made one pan in the beginning (knowing I could put it in a cake pan and bake the other half of the batter). After I saw how it would work, I finished filling my other cupcake pan. I think a nice add on, if you like it, would be to add raisins to these cupcakes. Walnuts, either to the icing or the cake itself, would be lovely as well.

All but about 3 were filled too full

The pan on the left I filled to half

Overall, I think it turned out nicely as a cupcake. I hope you try it sometime and let me know what you think. A few other things I have done with this recipe is put all the dry ingredients in a quart size bag (it doesn't seem to fit in a mason jar though) and given it as a gift with a tag saying to add eggs, oil and carrots and the baking directions. Additionally, I have replaced the sugar with Splenda and it tastes yummy.

Carrot Cupcake with cream cheese frosting

****************I made these again and this is what I did **************

M & Ms in the shape of a carrot

I'm dreaming of an orange cupcake

Tonight was experiment night in my cupcake kitchen. One of my friends mentioned how much she liked my orange cupcakes. I made them one time, from scratch, and I cannot remember where I got the recipe. So I went back to my old standby, Pinterest. As I was looking at cupcake recipes, specifically orange flavored cakes and frostings, I came across another absolutely adorable cupcake decoration.  Then when I finally focused on the orange cupcake, I found a really neat technique here that I have used before, but had forgotten about. Because of all of these ideas running around in my head, tonight became experiment night.

Orange Cream Cupcake with butterfly candy decoration

 This was my final product. As you can see, it isn't perfect. Sometimes I think perfect looking cupcakes, don't always taste the best. That's my story and I am sticking to it!

Since I couldn't find an orange cake recipe that I wanted to do, I went to plan B. It is always my plan B! I used a cake mix and doctored it up. I made the cake according to package directions, adding OJ (Sunny D because that is what I had) in place of the water. A great way to personalize a boring cake mix is to add a flavor in place of the water, like orange juice, lime juice, peach nectar, coffee (to a chocolate cake).

My cake ingredients

 The package directions always say you can get 24 cupcakes out of the mix. I like mine a little fuller, so I just get 18 out of them. Make sure you plan ahead. I have come across some excellent cupcake papers too. Reynolds StayBrite Baking Cups are my favorite (see the pictures of them here). I don't have to add Pam, I don't even need a cupcake tin when I use these. I guess that is some free advertising for them, but I figure if I am going to tell you how I make my cupcakes, I have to tell you what products I use and why I use them.

Swirled Orange Cream Icing

My picture may not be the best, but the icing has a swirl to them. It comes from two different flavors: orange butter cream and cream cheese icing. I used two basic recipes and put them side by side in my piping back. I have seen a few different techniques on how to do this, but what I did is I put the orange in first, then I put the cream cheese in. I used a 1M Wilton tip. If you start in the center and work outwards toward the outer edge of the cupcake, you make a little rosette. If you start on the outside and work your way to the center, you make the cute little swirl. I think it looks similar to a soft serve ice cream cone. I have both examples in the picture above.

My set up

If you have something to hold your piping bag in (like my container), I think it makes life a little easier.

Orange Butter Cream Icing Recipe:
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup butter flavor Crisco
Orange Juice (I used Sunny D)
About 4 cups powdered sugar (depending on how stiff you like your icing)

Cream Cheese Frosting
8 oz Cream Cheese
1 Stick butter
2 tsp Vanilla--I really like the vanilla flavor
2 TBSP Milk--Or whatever you need for the right consistency
About 8 cups powdered sugar--This is more than I what I normally use because I wanted to pipe it on instead of spread it

My daughter's cupcake :)

For the cute little decorations, I used a piping bag, Wilton Candy melts, parchment paper and my freezer.

My butterfly wings.

We were looking for a way to make the butterfly wings, my way. I tried to free hand it (unfortunately I didn't take a picture, you probably would have gotten a chuckle). I decided if I needed to, I could print off a picture from the internet and place it underneath the parchment paper to use as a template. Then my daughter (who is 9) told me that when she draws butterflies, she draws two of the letter "B"--forwards and backwards. I thought that I would give it a try. I gotta be honest, I liked that idea best. Yea for her! This is proof I listen to my kids!!! I melted the candy melts in the piping bag, cut the tip off, then piped my decoration. I left them out hoping they would set. Once I put them in the freezer for maybe 15 minutes, the set perfectly and just popped off the parchment paper.

When it was all said and done, I really like the cupcake. It was tasty. I liked the two tone icing. It wasn't necessary, but the look was cute. I thought it looked like the yumminess from one of our local frozen yogurt places. It didn't need the candy decoration either, but was a cute add on. You don't need to do a butterfly, I did my kids' initials, too. You could do any thing you wanted. That is what I really liked about this particular idea. From the cake mix to the frosting to the candy decorations, personalize it to your tastes.

Finished products, with a few decorating differences

Pineapple Upside Down Cupcakes

Having pineapple upside down cake is like a little slice of heaven to me. Whenever I make one, I just have to share it. I can't run enough miles to compensate for that! I can walk into Panera Bread having my heart set on my favorite cinnamon crunch bagel with honey almond cream cheese, but if they have their little pineapple upside down "mini cake" all bets are off. I MUST have that delectable dish. At over 3 bucks apiece, I must not have one all the time, not to mention the additional calories eating that would include. I decided to hit my favorite inspiration spot, Pinterest, and see if I could make them myself. In my searchings, I found just what I was looking for. If you go here you can see my inspiration. And in my true fashion, I checked out their directions and modified it to what I wanted to do.

Pineapple Upside Down Cupcakes

There are some great cakes mixes out available. They can be so fun to play with. You can use a plain yellow or white and doctor it up. I used Pillsbury's Pineapple cake mix.

My ingredients list:

Pillsbury Pineapple cake mix
3 eggs
1/3 cup of oil
1 cup pineapple juice
1 cup brown sugar
1 stick butter
24 maraschino cherries
Crushed Pineapple (in juice)

Directions:
 
In a small sauce pot melt the stick of butter and the brown sugar. Mix until blended well. Drain the pineapple juice from the crushed pineapples. This is what I used for my pineapple juice. Make the cake according to the package directions, replacing the pineapple juice for the water. Since I began with a pineapple cake mix, this will just make it more flavorful. You could definitely use the white or yellow mix and use pineapple juice just as effectively, or a combination of water and pineapple juice. Spray a cooking spray on the cupcake tins. I use Pam. When the butter and sugar are well mixed, drop about a tablespoon of this mixture into each cupcake tin. Place a spoonful of crushed pineapple on top of that. You can use ring pineapple, but it didn't quite fit into my cupcake pan. You can either cut it to size, or use a jumbo cupcake pan. I just used the regular size of cupcake pan. Add a spoonful of the cake mix. I can JUST get 24 out of one cake mix. It appears to be a small portion of batter. The order in the cupcake pan should be first the butter and brown sugar mixture, then pineapple, followed by the batter. Bake it according to your package directions. I baked mine for about 20 minutes at 350. Let them rest for about 10 minutes. Run the a butter knife around the edge of the cupcake. Turn your cupcakes upside down. I generally place a platter on top of my cupcake pan and then turn both pieces over. I get about 10 of them out this way and I only need to "encourage" the others out. I even put whatever pineapple didn't come out, onto the cupcake. Place the cherry on top. I push it down just a bit into that pineapple/butter/brown sugary goodness on top.

When making these the first time, I honestly didn't think they tasted that good. I ate one as soon as it cooled. They were fine, but not WOW! I took them with me the next day to school (I was subbing at my kids' school that day and thought the teachers might like a treat). During my lunch break, there was a couple left. I decided that I needed a sweet treat, too. I gotta tell you. It was like eating a different cupcake. It was so full of flavor my mouth (and belly) exploded in yumminess!!!! I have made them again for church tonight. We do this little fellowship thing after the services on Wednesday night and I like to share my goodies that way too. My recommendation would be to make them a day ahead, cover and refrigerate, then serve. I am hoping if I just refrigerate these for a little while, it will still have the same impact. I would love to know if anyone else makes these and what modifications you might use. I just love getting ideas from other people.

MINECRAFT Cupcakes

A couple of days ago, a friend on mine posted on Facebook about how she was wanting to know if anyone could make some "minecraft" cupcakes for her son's birthday party this weekend. I love an attainable cupcake challenge. I thought, "If I have a picture, I just might be able to do that." I started looking on one of my favorite sites for ideas: Pinterest, and I found them. Click Minecraft Cupcakes to see where I got my motivation. This person did an amazing job and gave great step by step details. Check this one out too.

Minecraft Cupcake

This is a photo of what mine looked like.

I just used a basic chocolate cake mix (made according to the package directions), a basic buttercream icing recipe, a little green dye, some Wilton "color mist" in green, some "fruit leather" strips and a really neat cake pan that I borrowed from my mom. That is all I did in a nutshell.

First things first. I made the cake mix. Pretty simple so far right. The next step is where it might be a little trickier if you don't have this really cool pan. If you don't have this pan, you might want to follow the steps to the blog I posted earlier. They did it without this pan. I wanted to use this one though. I try put my own little touches on things.

After I made 48 of these with two mixes, I made a basic buttercream icing. Wilton has a really good one. It is pretty much my guideline. I don't always deal in exact measurements. I find recipes are really just great guidelines to follow. I like to improvise a little. Anyway, what I did for my icing that was enough for all 48 cupcakes was the following:

2 sticks margarine
1 stick butter flavored Crisco
8 cups powdered sugar (also known as confectioner's sugar)
3 teaspoons (REALLY GOOD) vanilla
2 Tablespoons milk
Green decorator dye

Cream the margarine and Crisco together. Slowly add the powdered sugar. Add the milk (you might need a little more than what was called for, depending on how thick you like or need your icing) and add vanilla. Add dye until it reaches the desired color.

After I frosted each cupcake, I cut out a square out of parchment paper. I made different square shaped cuts in this paper. It was going to be my template. I would lay this over my cupcake and use the Wilton Color Mist. I would sometimes rotate it and give it a little more dimension.

Wilton Color Mist

My final step (or so I thought in the beginning anyway) for these cupcakes, was to cut out shapes for the face. I used a pizza cutter for the eyes. It made quick work of those little squares. For the mouth, I used kitchen scissors. Once I got into a rhythm, it didn't take as long as I feared it might.

I got these at Wal-Mart, but Target also has a very tasty alternative that would work equally as well.

I boxed them up, and took them to the party. Once I got to the party, the birthday boy began to tell me how cool they were. Then he said, "But did you know that creepers explode?" I said that yes I did know that creepers explode, but not to worry, these will not explode. Then his little brother mentioned how neat it would be if they actually did. It got me to thinking about something I had seen (again, on Pinterest): putting pop rocks in with your sprinkles. Thankfully we got to the party a little early, so off I sent my husband in search of green pop rocks. I told him red would be fine if he could find green. The boys said the red would make us think they were about to explode.

Cupcakes with Pop Rocks

It had a nice little explosion, but I think the green ones would have been better. I do think you need to add them at a later time. Maybe not exactly last minute, but I don't think it would work to mix them in your icing. The moisture content of the icing might make the pop rocks lose their "potency."

This is one of those cupcakes that I think looked cooler than they tasted, but that is my opinion since I am not the biggest chocolate cake fan. I am a really tough critic on myself when it comes to taste. I think you could also make brownies instead of a cake mix and it would be just as cool.

If anyone ever did want to post this to Pinterest, that is fine with me. I haven't figured out where to but the button on to do that yet. I think I read somewhere that I have to give permission. I hope I have given proper credit to the correct people. If not, I am sure that someone will correct me. I hope you have fun making these. I might have rambled a little in this blog, but I am still trying to get the hang of it. :)

Consumed with Cupcakes

Hi, my name is Kimberly and I am a cupcake-aholic. At least, lately I have been. I can't seem to quit making cupcakes. I really don't do the cutesy cupcakes; I like the tasty ones. In the past 72 hours alone I have made two rounds of Chocolate Surprise Cupcakes, Key West cupcakes, Pineapple Upside Down Cupcakes and I am currently working on some cupcakes for a birthday party for a friend. If I had a bakery, it might be understandable that I am consumed with cupcakes, but I am just an average stay-at-home-mom-who-is-never-home type of a girl. I shuttle my kids to soccer, I volunteer and substitute teach at their school, the cupcakes are really just a hobby. Several people have asked for some recipes, or where I get my cupcake ideas. One precious lady told me it was quick and easy to just blog about my cupcake adventures. So here I am sharing with whomever cares to look, my love of cupcakes.

Chocolate Surprise Cupcakes

Once I get a little more accustomed to this way of communication, I will post my recipes. For now, I will post a picture of my husband's favorite. This is my Chocolate Surprise cupcake. Basically, it is a chocolate cake mix with a chocolate ganache whipped frosting and a lovely little cream filling.

I will be totally honest about my recipes, a lot of what I do, is start with a cake mix and then put it together my way. When you can buy a cake mix for $1 and it has your flour, sugar and other ingredients measured out for you, I say take the help when you can get it. I find some ideas on Pinterest, and then I run with it and make it my own. Sometimes, I will get a "hankering" for something and I will Google a recipe which generally takes me to allrecipes.com--an excellent source of information.

Since I don't really know how long these blog posts are supposed to be, I will just stop here. Thanks for reading my post. If someone has a cupcake idea they would like me experiment with, or wants a specific recipe that they know I have made, let me know and I will try to get those on first.