Feb 26

Devil’s Food Cupcakes with Nutella filling and Nutella Buttercream Frosting

Guys. I don’t want to toot my own horn… but TOOT-freaking-TOOT. These cupcakes are AMAZING. Easily the best I’ve yet to make.

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I used a Devil’s Food recipe I found on Your Cup of Cake, piped each cupcake with straight Nutella, and then made a Nutella Buttercream Frosting I found on Pinterest.

Chocolate Cake (found on Your Cup of Cake)
1 cup sour cream
½ cup oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 eggs
¼ cup water
½ cup buttermilk
Devil’s Food Cake Mix
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line two cupcake pans with paper liners.
2. Using a whisk, mix sour cream, oil and vanilla extract together. Add eggs one at a time, stirring well in between each addition.
3. Alternate adding the cake mix and liquids (buttermilk and water), starting and ending with the cake mix.
4. Fill liners 2/3 full and bake for 14-18 minutes, or until and inserted knife come out clean.
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Then I filled a piping bag with an entire jar of Nutella and, using a long filling tip, piped some Nutella into each cupcake.
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Then Kelly and I split one, unfrosted, because they are THAT good.
Nutella Buttercream Frosting (found on My Baking Addiction via Pinterest)
2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
1 13-ounce jar of Nutella
pinch of fine grain sea salt
1 tbsp clear vanilla extract
1.5 lbs confectioners’ sugar, sifted
6-8 tbsp heavy cream or milk
1. In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and Nutella until well combined, thick and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Slowly add in confectioner’s sugar, and continue mixing until well blended.

2. Add salt, vanilla, and 3 tablespoons of heavy cream or milk. Blend on low speed until moistened. Add an additional 3-5 tablespoons of heavy cream or milk until you reach the desired consistency. Beat at high speed until frosting is smooth and fluffy, about 3 minutes.

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These cupcakes are SUPER rich, so you WILL need a glass of milk. And, if you’re lucky, a little nosey cat to share it with.

Jan 18

Could I BE Any More Obvious??

99% of the time, Kelly and I can read each other’s minds. We have just come to expect this from each other, so when one of us is having an off day and CANNOT telepathically sync up to the other, it’s a surprise (and an annoyance). This morning was one of those times.

Today is Friday. It is the first full week I’ve worked since the week of Christmas. It has felt endless. So, this morning I got up and I was all tired and out of it and like crazy-haired. And I came stomping into the kitchen where Kelly was making her breakfast (and even had a bowl and some cereal set out for me on the counter; how cute is that?!).

“I FEEL LIKE AHAB,” I declared. I absolutely assumed that she would know what that I meant, so that is all I said.

…

And she stared at me really blankly.

…

So I said, “And the weekend is my Moby Dick…?” like she was a total f’ing idiot.

And maybe she laughed or maybe she didn’t, I’m not sure. But I didn’t think about it again until about 2pm this afternoon. And then I laughed so hard, by myself.

I am such a loser.

Jan 17

Funfetti Cupcakes with Marshmallow Cream Cheese Frosting

As you know, my last batch of cupcakes were lovely little morsels – not too sweet, great texture, good flavor combinations. So, as I began making cupcakes last night, I admit that I was feeling a little bit cocky. 

I made the cupcakes (Funfetti, from a box) and was so impressed with the amount of mess I made (none) and the texture of the batter. I filled my little plaid liners and popped them into the oven, feeling good. I even did a load of dishes and updated my blog while they were baking. They came out good (not great – I have issues with getting the size of the two separate batches to be the same… but I’m working on it), so I set them aside to cool while I started the frosting.

This is where things started to go wrong. I was making a Marshmallow Cream Cheese frosting (found on Pinterest, here).  In my abundant confidence, I hadn’t made any preparations that morning, so my cream cheese wasn’t softened. No problem, I thought, I know how to soften this right up! I filled a glass bowl with hot water and tossed the still-wrapped cream cheese in, letting it soak in the hot water for about 20 seconds. As I was cutting it up to put into the mixer, I noticed that it wasn’t as soft as I would’ve liked (aka as soft as it would’ve been if I’d let it sit on the counter all day, as intended) but, still aglow in the success of my last batch of cupcakes, I told myself it was fine.

Next I tossed in the vanilla extract. No problems there.

Then came the marshmallow fluff. Now, we all know that I am a beginner baker, so I hadn’t worked with marshmallow fluff before. Did you know that it is the devil inside of a cute, harmless-looking glass jar?? Well, you do now. It is sticky and thick and somehow it creeps to places that it shouldn’t (ie. hair, eyelids, finger cleavage, the cabinets, etc). I used a spatula to scoop it out of the jar. After one scoop, it just stuck to the spatula and no amount of flinging, banging, or smushing would get it off.  I used another spatula to scrape it off the first spatula… and shortly thereafter I had two sticky spatulas. I finally managed to scrape enough into the bowl to have (vaguely) seven ounces. (Sidenote: a co-worker said to me today, “Why didn’t you spray some cooking spray on the spatula first?”. The only way I can describe my reaction is with this emoticon: :-|

I turned the mixer on and let it mix for quite some time, reasonably sure that nothing man-made could force this marshmallow fluff to mix with anything. After a couple of minutes, though, it actually resembled a nice textured frosting, free of grit since it had no sugar.

I was out of piping bags so I used a tip that Kelly gave me – a Ziploc bag with the corner cut off. I smushed my piping tip down in there and everything was just fine for 5 cupcakes. And then something happened. The tip suddenly came ROCKETING out of the Ziploc bag, taking about 4 cupcakes’ worth of frosting with it. This all landed on my table with a sick, wet clatter. This was the last straw. I squirted a hunk of frosting on each cupcake, smushed it around with a spatula, stored them, and opened a beer. (Well, a Coke but it was opened with the mentality of opening a beer.)

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I brought the demon cakes to work and they are a big hit. People love the frosting. So, there you have it. An incredibly long blog post for a very short, [theoretically] easy recipe.

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And, one last picture of one of the cute cupcakes:

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Jan 13

Day 13 - Circle

This was a little bit lazy, I admit. Circles on my Sunday morning coffee mug (with an appearance by Indy, lap lounging in the background).

Jan 12

Day 12 - Surprise

Before we left for Minnesota, I checked the weather report and it said it was going to be 41* on Saturday.

Surprise! When I took the picture it was 18*. When we left (about 6:30pm) it was 15*. On the drive home, it got down to 13*.

No one said it had to be a good surprise.

Jan 11

Day 11 - Water

Today we drove to Minnesota to visit Sara and her family! It was (literally) the foggiest day I have ever seen.

I was so excited when I saw that the challenge was water because I knew we would drive over the Mississippi today… but when we did, the fog was so thick I could barely even see the water.

It’s a fairly short ride (just under 4 hours with no stops) and it’s quite lovely, even in the dreary melty winter. The fog made it surreal; I felt like I was in a video game.

No matter, though – whatever it takes to get to Sara!

Jan 10

Day 10 - One O'Clock

I took the day off today, theoretically to pack for Minnesota and clean the house a bit so it was beautiful and clean when we got BACK from Minnesota. Theoretically. Instead I mooched around and watched a couple of episodes of Survivors, read a little bit, but mostly took a big long nap, right over the 1:00 hour. My phone alarm woke me and this is the only picture I could muster before going back to sleep.