Salted Caramel Chocolate Cupcake

The combination of those three things: chocolate, caramel and salt just can't be beat! They are delicious - and ever since I tasted the best cupcake from a little cupcake shop in Arkansas called Fat-Bottomed Cupcake Girls, I have been craving this cupcake. So when the kids and I got up on our first day off this week and sat and watched two Cupcake Wars back to back it was inevitable. We had to bake some!

I got so many comments over my cupcake on Facebook that I had to post the recipe and of course I figure if I have to post it why not here on my blog?! So here it is. Now the only thing I will say is I am actually not a huge chocolate fan so I use a homemade chocolate cake recipe for the cake part so if you are a die-hard chocolate fan go ahead and just use the box mix. However, substitute the water with buttermilk and add an extra egg - you will never do it the box way again!

If you do want to try this recipe though here it is:

Chocolate Cupcakes
(Adapted from "Hello Cupcake" by Karen Tack)

1 3/4 Cup all-purpose flour
1/4 Cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 sticks (12 TBLS) unsalted butter, softened (I used regular butter & it worked fine)
1 Cup of brown sugar
3-4 Tbls. sugar
2 large eggs
2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, melted (I actually used mini chocolate chips)
1 Cup buttermilk
1 tsp. vanilla extract

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line the muffin cups with paper liners.

2. Whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl. In another medium bowl, with an electric mixer on high, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffly, about 3 minutes.

3. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the melted chocolate. Reduce the speed to low and add the flour mixture alternately with the buttermilk in batches, beginning and ending with the flour mixture and beating just until belended. Stir in the vanilla.

4. Fill the paper liners 2/3 full with the batter and bake until a toothpick comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Remove the cupcakes from the baking pan, place on a wire rack, and allow to cool compltely.


Frosting

1 package (8 oz) cream cheese, softened
1 stick (8 tbls.) unsalted butter, softened (again I used real butter)
1 box (16 oz, more or less as desired) powdered sugar
2-3 Tbls. Milk
2 tsp. vanilla extract
Heavy Whipping Cream
Pretzels
Caramel Sauce

1. Combine the cream cheese and the butter in a medium bowl. Beat with an electric mixer until luight and fluffy, about 3 minutes.

2. Gradually add the powdered sugar and 2 tbls of the milk and beat until smooth. Add 1 tsp. vanilla extract and the remaining 1 tbls. milk if the mixture is too thick.

3. Pour about a cup or two (I made this part up so sorry I didn't measure) of heavy whipping cream into a seperate medium bowl. (Depending on how your frosting came out decide upon amount of whipped cream you would like to add, mine came out very runny and not stiff like frosting so I added quite a bit of whipped cream. However if yours is already fairly stiff and holding form you may only want to add a little.) Beat cream with an electric mixer until soft peaks form. Add powdered sugar to desired sweetness and beat until stiff peaks form. Add in vanilla extract and beat just until combined. then pour the whipping cream into cream cheese mixture and gently fold it in.

4. Spoon frosting into a ziploc bag and seal. Cut 1/4 hole at corner of bag and begin piping frosting onto cupcakes.

5. Then gently chop pretzels and sprinkle pieces on top of each cupcake. Drizzle caramel sauce over entire cupcake and finish with a dash of sea salt on top - just a little! And indulge!

Cute Easter Ideas: Goodies & a Craft

You know what is alright - a cupcake paper. And a cute one too! If you are looking for a cute Easter treat idea OR a beautiful homemade card you can make for family and friends then look no further!

First select a cute Easter cupcake paper or a bright green color would work good too for this cupcake creation. Here is the ingredients you'll need:

Cake Mix

Eggs

Vegetable Oil

Buttermilk

Robin Eggs Candy

Chocolate Frosting

Vanilla Frosting

Green & Yellow Food coloring

4 Black Jelly Beans (small ones, like Jelly Belly's)

White Circus Peanuts (or just cover the orange ones with white melting chocolate)

24 Chocolate Covered Sunflower Seeds

Oreo Cookies

Small Flower Sprinkles

Mini Marshmallows (4)

Light Corn Syrup

White NonPareils (sprinkles)

Ziploc Bags - a good sturdy kind like freezer bags

Mix up the cake mix using the same amount of vegetable oil, 1 Cup of buttermilk and 4 eggs. Fill cupcake papers 2/3 full and bake for about 25 minutes if using a dark pan like stoneware. If not just follow box directions for cooking. While they are baking spoon 2 TBLS of chocolate frosting into the corner of a Ziploc bag, squeeze out the air and seal and set it aside.

And then if you are like me and can't find white circus peanuts go ahead and cover them with some white chocolate melting wafers!

Next take a handful of Oreo cookies and crush them completely down to crumbs. Call your little boy or girl into the room to pour the bag of crumbs and take the opportunity to use both hands to take a photo! hehe.

When the cupcakes are cooled completely - take four of them and cover with chocolate frosting. Next roll the tops in the crushed cookie crumbs until covered. These are your "holes" for your cute bunnies!

Next split the vanilla frosting in half and color one a dark green color while mixing green and yellow food coloring in the other half to make a brighter green (or cheat and buy the neon pastel food colors like I did).

I have to pause to apologize because at this point I got so into it and was just a truckin' through these that I forgot to keep taking pictures. However I will do you the honors of still walking you through it all! Aren't I nice?

Once you have both colors carefully place one color on one half and the other green on the other side so when you pipe it from the corner of the bag both colors come out at the same time. Once it's ready cut a small tip from the piping corner side of your Ziploc bag and then use a squeeze and pull technique to form grass on the remaining cupcakes. Squeeze and pull technique: simply placing the tip of the bag against the cupcake, giving a slight squeeze and then pulling the bag straight up and away to form a stiff peak with the frosting.

Then add small patches of flower sprinkles and robin's eggs candies around the grass cupcakes.

To make the bunnies feet take your circus peanut and cut them in half lengthwise - you just need the smooth side. For the pads of the feet cut your jelly beans in half also and pipe a small dot of chocolate frosting (from the frosting you earlier set aside) and place one half of your jelly bean on each foot. Then add three more dots at the top end of your feet and place the sunflower seeds with the pointy side pointing inward.

Last step is to roll your 4 mini marshmallows in the light corn syrup and then cover them with the white nonpareils. It worked easily for me to put both into small bowls.

Then you just place your feet together in their pairs on your dirt holes and give them each a fluffy tail! And I know no pictures to go by - but I DID at least take pictures of the finished product so in case you got lost on the last few steps just take a gander at the photos and hopefully you can figure it out!

WARNING: Undertaking this project may result in undesirable kitchen conditions.

HOMEMADE EASTER CARDS

These are super easy and quick! Just start out with some blank cards that you can find at Hobby Lobby. Draw three rounded rectangles on the top half of the paper, off set a bit. Have your kids finger paint dots (using their pointer finger) to fill the rectangles completely, even covering your light pencil lines too!

Next have them paint a straight stem down from each flower using a thin brush. Finally using a thicker brush have them make small leaves at the bottom of the stem by doing a quick short stroke starting at the very bottom and brushing diagonally up in both directions.

And voila! Just like that you have yourself some Texas bluebonnets! My kids are 4 and 5 and they did these ALL by themselves! The above picture is a card we did together (I painted most of this one to show them an example) and I added our initials at the bottom of the one we finger painted. However here is one they did all on their own:

There you go - a fun cupcake creation to do for a class party or perhaps a family Easter Egg Hunt and some pretty Bluebonnet cards to send to family this spring holiday and the day of Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ!

Tinkerbell Birthday Party

My daughter's 4th year birthday is one to remember! And all it took was some creativity and elbow grease on my part. So here is a complete breakdown of the Tinkerbell Birthday Bash:

You start with (of course it IS me you know) CUPCAKES! I chose a very simple yet VERY time consuming decoration idea - flowers. Birthday girl wanted Strawberry Cupcakes so that's what we started with. The next step is cutting mini marshmallows in half diagonally and then, if you so desire, dipping the middle part while it's still gooey into any color of sprinkles you desire. I did white, pink and green for our particular fairy party. Then simply place the "petals" on in three tiers. Each cupcake averages about 17 marshmallows, or 34 pieces. The result is a beautiful "Mum Flower"!

My daughter spotted the cupcake tier stand at Walmart and it comes with the Tinkerbell cupcake wrappers and the toothpick inserts you see in the center of my flowers. for about 9 dollars it looked great!

Next we added all the decorations! I printed out all the Tink Friends from the newest Tinkerbell movies, cut them out in detail and then laminated them. These adorned the edge of the breakfast bar where all the goodies were stashed.

I also printed out a cute picture of the fairies and decided to tape up a quick welcome note for the arriving guests on our front door.

Then when my bestie arrived to help I quickly gave her orders to help me hang up ALL the streamers and banners all over our living room! I had hung paper lanterns the night before. The lanterns and streamers gave it such a festive feel!

Who could forget the best part?! I printed in all the invitations for the girls to come dressed in "fairy attire"! Here is my little fairy - who went as Rosetta (since she just got the costume for Christmas).

Here is a sweet friend of ours daughter dressed as Tink herself. (Most of the wings had been ditched by this time)

May I also suggest for any little girl birthday party that you buy sidewalk chalk. My goodness I found a 52 piece chalk set at the Dollar Store and the kids had a blast! First thing the girls wanted was of course a Hop-Scotch board of which I quickly obliged.

Okay on to the games:

1. Ring Toss - for this game I took 3 paper towel tubes and painted them lime green (excuse me fairy green) and even added some glitter while the paint was still wet to give it that pixie dust look. Then my husband cut a piece of plywood into three rectangles of which we just duck taped the bottom of the tubes onto. They were extremely stable and cute to boot! And guess what I made rings out of? Weed eater wire! Hehe, yes I did. I made 3 rings the same size with our weed eating string, wire...not sure what it's called and even duck taped the ends together as well. Did I mention the wire was lime green in color? I love my ingenuity. I gave bubbles as a prize for making a ring.

2. Can Explosion - this one required painting 15 empty coke cans lime green (and adding pixie dust as well). After that you just stack them up pyramid style, find a cute small ball and mark a line about 8 or 9 feet back (more feet for older child) and let them go! Obviously they must knock the cans over with the ball. Knock them all down and Tinkerbell sticker sheets was your prize! This game was actually their favorite and they wore me OUT wanting me to continually stack cans over and over!

3. Pin the Wand on Tinkerbell - this one is self explanatory however with much trouble over trying to blow up a photo to poster size for this game my mom had to give a last minute ingenuity idea - cut the front out of a Tink gift bag (which I DID have). So that's what we did and it looked cute!

Last tips are never forget party hats, noisy horns and yummy punch! (recipe at bottom)

After the party was over and my bestie helped me tear everything down we had to celebrate with our own photo - for surviving the whole ordeal AND cleaning it all up in one day's time!

That's all folks!

Sherbet Punch Recipe

1 - 2 Liter 7-Up

1 - 2 Liter Hawaiian Punch

2 Tubs of Rainbow Sherbet

Pour in drinks first then scoop sherbet on top of punch. I like to drizzle a little punch over each scoop to give it that foamy look. You can also adjust to taste by adding more 7-Up or Hawaiian Punch - whichever way you like it best. Enjoy!

Box of Chocolates Cupcakes

I promised pictures of my latest Cupcake Creations: Box of Chocolates*... and here they are!! First I have to show you my "Sprinkle Station".

You see first I made a whole batch of mini cupcakes. Then you frost about 2/3 of them and roll the edges in various sprinkles or jimmies. The remaining 1/3 you heat the frosting up until it is liquid and dip the tops of them into it to give it a shiny glazed look!

Do you see the shiny ones?? The ones in the back are the regular frosted ones.

Then to make half of them look like actual chocolates you cut marshmallows in half and dip in the same heated frosting (by the way the heated chocolate I used was DARK chocolate - which gives it the rich dark color) Once they are all dipped you place them in the fridge for about 10-15 minutes to allow the chocolate to set.

Then carefully place the marshmallow piece on a cupcake and to add to the look you pipe the milk chocolate frosting design on top. *Marshmallows cut horizontally you make swirly designs on. Marshmallows cut vertically have drizzle designs.

Here is the finished product - you can see the drizzle vs. swirly. The rest of the cupcakes you decorate with various candies in coordinating colors. These were for an Acts of Grace** Retreat so the theme was PINK! Can you tell? Oh and there is no picture but once you are all done you fill in the in-between space with (again color-coordinating) skittles!

And no I did not put this in crooked on purpose. I reloaded this picture and it shows everything is right and turned the right direction but WILL NOT load the right way! So sorry - you get to turn your head and observe my beautiful cupcakes crooked!

*These cupcake creations were made from "Hello Cupcake" by Karen Tack

**Acts of Grace is a ministry to Post-Abortive and Sexually-Abused Women (and Men) For more info please click on the link above!

Princess Cupcakes

I have a super quick moment to post one of my promised posts and actually have the pictures with me too!! Yippee!! Here are my latest "Hello Cupcake" creations! (I don't have time to inclued a link, so if looking for the Hello cupcake book just see a previous cupcake post!)

Here the kids are helping eat the MANY leftover candies that come from making cupcakes like this, as I work on the prep work of the heads and gumdrop dresses.
Here is a gumdrop dress with decorating sugar galore all rolled out and ready to cut a scalloped edge on the bottom of the dress.

Here is one of the girls in our youth group, Kaitlynn (I needed help with these!!) piping chocolate frosting curly hair on her purple princess

And the reason for all this work...my daughter Gracie pointing out HER princess - the pink one of course!

and here are all of our colorful princesses!

I had planned on more pictures but since I'm on my husbands work computer I didn't have time to figure out how to flip the vertical pictures quickly without opening some program so sorry but at least you got to see them right?!

"Hello Cupcakes" strikes again with Larry the Turkey

Okay so I already made Tyler's preschool class some pumpkin cupcakes for Halloween but I just happened to sign myself up to make desserts for their Thanksgiving Feast as well! It totally wasn't my fault - you see I resisted the sign in sheet for days thinking the blanks will fill in eventually with willing mommies. But it was one week away and the ONLY blank left was desserts and I would feel horrible if poor lil 4 year old's didn't have a ton of sugar to finish off their meal so they could torture poor Ms. Lisa for the nest 3 hours!! So I just ASKED if the desserts was for the kids or adults (because there was a sign-up to bring side dishes for the teachers too) and of course it just so happened to be for the kids.....so I may have...written my name down and mentioned there was yet another cupcake adventure that looked like it may be fun (sheepish grin).

And I must say for anyone who looks at these creations and thinks "I could SO not do that" I highly recommend the book, "Hello Cupcake". It takes what looks like extremely difficult creations of cupcakes and breaks it down in easy steps so even I can understand how to do it! And they are the CUTEST things ever!

So back to the turkeys...I did my own rendition of "Larry the Turkey" although I had to change a couple ingredients or should I say COLOR of ingredient because I just could not find caramel everything! lol...non-the-less here were my results:

My first one:

Just ONE mess that covered my kitchen AND spilled over into my living room believe it or not!

A close-up

Here are all 12 of my turkeys awaiting annihilation the next day by Ms. Lisa's preschool class!

Autumn Festivities have begun...(recipe included)

Even though we live in Texas the weather HAS finally turned cool and it has been rushed in with a LOT of rain! But I am grateful for the rain after such a dry summer. Anyways Autumn is officially here and between reading my Better Home and Garden magazines, wearing sweaters and jackets, watching the trees turn colors, AND looking at my neighbor's cute Fall wreaths all hanging on their doors I have gotten my inspiration back!!

So here are some of the things I have done to welcome the new season:

1. Put out all my Autumn house decorations (my theme is scarecrow)

2. Changed my counter "grab" bowls to Almonds (for me) and Candy Corn (for the kiddos)

3. Went through the kids closets and bagged up all the "summer" clothes that were getting to small or WAS too small and accidentally stood hanging in their closet anyways!

4. Spent all week going store to store to find all the ingredients to make these adorable Pumpkin Patch cupcakes for Tyler's class party today at school! (Recipe and pictures below)

5. Looked through tons of pumpkin carving pics with my kids on the Internet until Tyler saw a "bats" one that he exclaimed "It's BATMAN!" So I cut the pumpkin open and let the kids help me separate out the seeds (to bake later) and we carved a wonderful "Bats in flight" pumpkin for our porch.

6. And oh yea I bought some Pumpkin Spice Coffee Creamer (even though I seriously hardly EVER drink coffee it just seemed right to do, haha)

So what have you done to welcome in the cooler weather? Maybe it already feels like winter where you are but none-the-less share what you have done!

PUMPKIN SPICE CUPCAKES

(makes 12 regular and 24 mini)

1 box French Vanilla Cake Mix

1 cup canned pumpkin

1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

3/4 cup buttermilk (in place of the water called for on the box)

1/3 cup vegetable oil

4 large eggs (in place of the number called for on the box)

After adjusting ingredients, make as directed on box. (Beating the batter is very important - your batter will be very lumpy if you just stir)

Place half the dough in a Ziploc bag (turn inside out and push down on one corner into your palm to scoop batter into the corner specifically then continue to fill) and cut 1/4 in. hole at corner of bag and fill the paper liners 2/3's full.
- Use orange paper liners for regular size cupcakes

- Use white paper liners for mini size cupcakes

DECORATING (to make PUMPKIN PATCH CUPCAKES)

4 green licorice twists (Twizzlers Rainbow Twists)

1 can plus 1 cup vanilla frosting

Orange Food coloring
1 cup orange decorating sugar

Green Licorice Laces (Watermelon Madness Fruit Streamers)

1. Cut the licorice twists into thirty-six 3/4-inch pieces for the pumpkin stems. Tint the vanilla frosting orange with the food coloring. Tint 1/2 cup of the orange frosting a darker shade of orange with more food coloring, and spoon into a Ziploc bag. Press out the excess air, seal the bag, and set aside.

2. Place the orange decorating sugar in a shallow bowl. Spread the lighter orange frosting on top of the cupcakes, mounding it slightly. Starting on the edge, roll the cupcake tops in the sugar to cover completely.

3. Use a wooden skewer to mark ridges in the top of each cupcake. Starting in the center or slightly off center, lightly press the skewer down toward the top of the paper liner to create 5 or 6 indentations. Snip a 1/16-inch corner from the bag with the darker orange frosting and pipe a line in each indentation to make the ribs. Insert a cut green twist for the stem. Arrange the cupcakes on a serving platter or a cutting board and add green licorice laces, trimmed to various lengths, for the tendrils.