Dirt Cupcakes

These are probably the messiest, yummiest cupcakes I have made to date. I am not usually a big fan of chocolate cupcakes, but these were tasty! I think it was the combination of frosting, Oreos, and chocolate chips. My kids loved them too! I'm pretty sure these are their new favorite cupcake. I will warn you that these are messy to make and eat, but that's part of the fun, right? This particular cupcake is also a fun one for kids to make. There is nothing pretty or fancy about it. Nothing needs to look perfect or neat. Kids can basically decorate the entire cupcake by themselves. Okay, maybe a little help from you, but not much. And what kid doesn't like to play in dirt, especially dirt they can eat?

Dirt Cupcakes (Adapted from Cupcakes, Cookies and Cakes by Tracy Maurer)

Box of Triple Chocolate Fudge Cake Mix (or any type of chocolate cake mix)

Bake cupcakes per directions on box (refer back to this post on baking the perfect cupcake)

While cupcakes are baking you can start working on the "dirt" and "worms."

Here's what you need:

2 cups of crushed Oreo crumbs

1 cup of mini chocolate chips

Chewy worm candy

To make crumbs, put a few Oreos in a plastic zipper freeze bag. Use a rolling pin to break the cookies into small bits. Mix cookie crumbs and chocolate chips in a small bowl. Set aside for later. For the worms, you can cut them to desired length. Set aside and prepare frosting.

"Perfectly Chocolate" Chocolate Frosting

Recipe from the back of the Hershey's Unsweetened Cocoa box...ridiculously yummy and easy!

1 stick butter

2/3 cup Hershey's Unsweetened Cocoa

3 cups powdered sugar

1/3 cup milk

1 tsp vanilla

Melt butter. Stir in cocoa. Alternately add powdered sugar and milk, beating on medium speed to spreading consistency. Add more milk, if needed. Stir in vanilla.

To assemble your dirt cupcakes:

Spread frosting on the top of each cupcake. Sprinkle the cookie crumb mixutre on the frosting and pat into place. Place worms on the cupcake as desired. Eat and enjoy!

Lemonade Cupcakes

My kids had been wanting to do a lemonade stand for the past couple of weeks and finally the weather was nice enough. We made yummy raspberry lemonade and these fun summer cupcakes and set up the stand right outside our house. It was the perfect day for it! They looked so cute sitting out there! Business was actually pretty good. Not sure if it was the lemonade and cupcakes or just the cuties selling the goods, but they made about 10 euros...not too bad for their first lemonade stand!

Lemonade Cupcakes (recipe from Baby Cakes)
1 6 oz can frozen lemonade concentrate, thawed
1 box white cake mix
1 8 oz carton sour cream
1 3 oz pkg cream cheese, softened
3 large eggs

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare cupcake pan. Remove 2 tablespoons of lemonade concentrate from can and reserve for frosting or another use. In a large mixing bowl, combine remaining concentrate, cake mix, sour cream, cream cheese and eggs; beat at low speed until moistened. Beat on med speed for 5 -7 minutes. Spoon batter evenly into pan. Bake the cupcakes for 22 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let the pans cool on a rack for 10 minutes before removing cupackes from pans to cool completely.

Pink Lemonade Buttercream Frosting
1/2 cup vegetable shortening
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 to 3 tablespoons lemon juice or remaining lemonade concentrate
1 tsp grated lemon zest
4 cups powdered sugar
Additional lemon juice
Pink food coloring
Candied lemon slices or drops, optional

Cream together shortening and butter. Beat in 2 tablespoons lemon juice and zest. Add powdered sugar gradually and beat until light and fluffy, adding food coloring and additional lemon juice if needed. Frost cupcakes and garnish with candied lemon slices or drops.

got milk?

Being that this is a blog about all the things that make me happy, it seemed only appropriate for me to blog about breastfeeding. Especially since it also happens to be National Breastfeeding Awareness Month. I am a big advocate of breastfeeding and am so thankful that I was able to breastfeed all three of my children. I knew from the moment I found out that I was pregnant with my first child, that I would breastfeed. I never even considered anything else. It really is a special bonding experience...one that I will always treasure. I loved knowing that I was giving my baby the absolute perfect milk! I also loved that I could always comfort my little one immediatly. Even though breastfeeding was right for me, I do realize that breastfeeding is not for everyone. But, I do hope more women consider it and seek out help if they are experiencing difficulties and thinking about quitting. My question to you is got milk?

photo from The Inspiration Room

Visit kellymom.com for more info/questions on breastfeeding

Banana Cupcakes

One of the things I enjoy most about the blog world is reading all the incredible blogs out there. There really are some talented people. I recently started reading this food blog and I absolutely love it! She posts the most amazing recipes. Whenever I get in a recipe rut, I turn to her blog for help. Last week, she posted a cupcake recipe, so of course, I had to try it. The recipe was for Banana cupcakes with peanut butter frosting...you just can't go wrong with that combination! I made them and they were delicious! It's basically like banana bread, but in a cupcake version, and topped with a very yummy peanut butter frosting. I thought the cupcake was so good by itself that I didn't frost them all. I even gave my baby girl her first cupcake (without the frosting) and she ate every last crumb.

This is a good recipe for little ones to help with. I gave my son the job of mashing the bananas (perfect job for him) and my older daughter measured and mixed all the dry ingredients. It was a fun way to get everyone involved. And the result...another divine cupcake to enjoy!
(Recipe courtesy of Bon Appetit via Framed)

Banana Cupcakes
1 1/4 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 very ripe large bananas, peeled
1/2 cup sour cream
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk

Heat oven to 350 degrees and prepare cupcake pan. Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in medium bowl. In another medium sized bowl, mash bananas with fork until smooth. Mix sour cream and vanilla into bananas.

Using an electric mixer, beat sugar and butter until light and fluffy (about 3 minutes). Add egg and egg yolk and beat until well blended. Add flour mixture in 3 additions, alternating with banana-sour cream mixture in 2 additions, beginning and ending with flour mixture beating just until blended after each addition. Divide batter evenly into cupcake pan (generous 1/4 cup for each). Bake cupcakes about 20 minutes, or until tester inserted into center comes out clean. Transfer cupcakes to a cooling rack and cool completely before frosting.

Peanut Butter Frosting
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 8 ounce package cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup smooth peanut butter (do not use old fashioned or freshly ground)
Chopped lightly salted roasted peanuts (optional)

Sift powdered sugar into large bowl. Add cream cheese, butter, and peanut butter. Using electric mixer, beat mixture until smooth. Frost cupcakes as desired.

Coconut Lime Cupcakes

These are fabulous and my new summer cupcake love! I ran across this recipe in a Betty Crocker cooking magazine and put my own twist on it. They were so yummy and really perfect for summer! I will definitely be making more of these before the summer is over. If you are not a fan of coconut, you can simply omit it. I actually made half without coconut and half with. I just added the coconut after I baked the first dozen. Both ways turned out great! If you decide to make half and half like I did, I suggest you decrease the coconut to 1/2 cup...unless, of course, you are crazy for coconut.

Coconut Lime Cupcakes

1 box Lemon cake mix

1 small box lime-flavored jello

1 1/4 cup water

1/3 cup vegetable oil

3 eggs

1 cup shredded coconut

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare cupcake pan(s). In large bowl, beat cake mix and gelatin with mixer on low speed for 30 seconds. Add remaining cupcake ingredients (except coconut) and mix on low/med for 5-7 minutes. Stir in the shredded coconut. Fill cupcake pan with batter and bake 17 to 22 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan 10 minutes. Remove from pan to cooling rack. With toothpick, pierce tops of cupcakes in several places.

Glaze

1 cup powdered sugar

2 to 2 1/2 tablespoons lime juice

In small bowl, mix 1 cup powdered sugar and enough of the 2 to 2 1/2 tablespoons lime juice until glaze is smooth and thin enough to drizzle. Drizzle and spread glaze over cupcakes. Cool completely, about 30 minutes.

**You can stop right now if you are not a frosting person. The cupcakes will taste wonderful with only the glaze on top. They just looked so good I had to try one! However, being that I LOVE frosting (especially cream cheese frosting) I proceeded with the next step.

Frosting

1 8 oz package cream cheese, softened

1/4 cup butter or margarine, softened

1 teaspoon vanilla

3 1/2 cups powdered sugar

In a large bowl, beat cream cheese and butter on medium speed until light and fluffy. On low speed, beat in vanilla and 3 1/2 cups powdered sugar until mixed; beat on medium speed until fluffy. Frost cupcakes as desired. Store covered in refrigerator.

I almost always use tip 1M from Wilton when frosting my cupcakes. It's so quick and easy to use and the end result is a nicely frosted cupcake. If you have kids and bake a lot of cupcakes (like myself), but don't own any tips and/or decorating bags, I highly suggest you purchase these items. They will make your life so much easier when it comes to frosting cupcakes. Not only will your cupcakes look beautiful, but people will think you spent hours frosting them.

Two of the cupcakes are frosted with the cream cheese frosting and the other two have only the glaze.

Baby's First Cake

My baby girl just celebrated her first birthday! I absolutely love first birthdays!! They are just so much fun. Of course, I had to make my baby's first cake. I had been thinking about this for a very long time and wanted it to be perfect. I went back and forth on what kind of cake to make and finally decided on something very simple and sweet. I wanted her to enjoy her first experience with cake, but I also wanted to feel good about what she was eating. So, I compromised. I made her a white cake layered and frosted with vanilla buttercream and then piped strawberry buttercream rosettes on the top and bottom. Both were made without shortening. I just couldn't give her something made with shortening...not for her first birthday. She seemed to really enjoy the frosting part of the cake, but she never really got to the cake part. I did sample it once she was finished and it was very good! The buttercreams that I made were different than the one I usually make in that they contained no shortening, only unsalted butter. I wasn't sure how they would taste, but they were great! In fact, I will be using these recipes more often than the other one. The only problem with butter only buttercream is that it can melt. It has been ridiculously hot here in Germany, and so it was a little difficult trying to decorate with the buttercream. I had to keep putting it in the refrigerator. The cake still turned out as I hoped it would, but by the time my daughter was finished with it she was a buttery mess!

Vanilla Buttercream

2 1/4 sticks unsalted butter, softened

1 1/4 cups powdered sugar, sifted (I used slightly more than this to reach the consistency I wanted)

pinch of salt

Seeds of one vanilla bean

Place the butter, sugar, salt, and vanilla bean seeds in a bowl and mix with electric mixer on low speed. Increase to medium speed and beat until light and fluffy. If you are not using it immediately, store in a sealed container in the refrigerator. Bring it back to room temperature before use. It has a shelf life of up to 2 weeks if refrigerated.

Strawberry Buttercream

Same as the above recipe, except substitute 2 tablespoons good strawberry jam and a tiny drop of pink food coloring for the vanilla bean.

I Love Giveaways

I won my first giveaway a few weeks ago. Actually, my baby girl was the big winner. It was a cute handmade bib from Comfy Bummy and I won it through Facebook. I was so excited! I just love the idea of all these giveaways that businesses are doing now. I already loved Comfy Bummy for all of my cloth diapering needs, but now I love them even more! Thanks Comfy Bummy!