Tuesday, May 22

Cupcake Frenzy

On a whim, I decided to bake cupcakes and play around with some ingredients. I went straight for the liquor cabinet. Why not? I made several variations using a yellow cake box mix - Pillsbury (my  brand of choice because the cake is fluffy, not too sweet and bakes perfectly moist every time).

I started with a Kalua infused cupcake where I poured a non-specific amount of the coffee liquor into the batter. Then I made the chocolate frosting from the back of the Hershey's unsweetened cocoa powder box and - you guessed it - added some Kalua to it. After generously frosting the cupcakes, I dusted the top with cocoa powder. They looked really pretty but none lasted long enough for me to photograph them.

Then I made PB&J cupcakes and the chocolate frosting from above. Surprisingly, these were pretty good as well. I bake-lifted the idea from the Picky Palate website where she had made these bars that were yummy. These went as well. No photo.

The ones I did manage to stage and shoot were my Amaretto cupcakes. I poured an unspecified amount into the batter, baked per the box recipe, then made a frosting that I concocted. I did a whipped cream frosting folded into whipped butter with a touch of Amaretto. My thinking was that this would make the whipped frosting a bit stiffer. The taste was good but I should have chilled it again before piping it on the cupcakes because the consistency looked a bit funky. I crushed shelled pistachios and sprinkled them on top. These were quite dee-lish. I may try it again with a heartier frosting like cream cheese.

Here is my photo below

Ameretto cupcakes

Friday, May 18

Store bought cake

This year, we ended up celebrating my son's birthday several times. There was the school party (see the Pikachu cupcakes), his real party, and his first sleepover. So we didn't want to overdo another celebration. We had a few of the kids in the neighborhood over for cake and a short, mid-week playdate. I bought a store bought cake and went to the dollar store and got these cute ninjas. Check it out... it really made it look personalized with very little effort. So don't let the fear of baking stop you from doing something fun - and different for your next gathering. The dollar store has lots of ways to spruce up a grocery store confection.


Ninja Cake 2 and here is another view Ninja Cake

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