A Little Sweetness

You know those nights when you just need something a little sweet? Nothing crazy like a giant bowl of ice cream, but just one thing. Like a cupcake! I'm the first to admit that I hate making cupcakes not because they are particularly difficult to make, but because there are so many of them. I don't want them in my house and I always seem to "forget" to take them to work for my student workers to finish. This lead me to search for recipes for just two cupcakes. These are remarkably difficult to find, but I did finally find a few. The one really caught my eye (no egg!)...

Chocolate Cupcakes for Two 
(stolen/adapted from here: An Edible Mosaic)

Ingredients

3 tbsp. flour
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder
1/8 tsp. + 1/16 tsp. baking soda
1/16 tsp. salt
1/16 tsp. instant coffee powder (optional)
3 tbsp. milk
1 tbsp. canola oil
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350F; line a muffin tray with 2 paper liners.
2. Whisk together the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, salt, and coffee powder in a medium bowl. Add the milk, oil, and vanilla, and stir just until combined, being careful not to over-mix.
3. Divide the batter between the 2 lined muffin wells and bake until a toothpick inserted inside comes out clean, about 18 to 22 minutes.
4. Cool 5 minutes in the tray, then transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling.
5. Sprinkle a little powdered sugar on top, or frost with your favorite frosting, nut butter, or jam.

Notes
Measurement Tip: Note that 1/16 teaspoon is about 1 pinch.

And here's the frosting:

Irish Cream Buttercream Frosting
(stolen/adapted from Diethood)

Ingredients
1/4 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/2 tsp. Irish cream liqueur

Directions
1. Place all ingredients in electric mixer bowl; mix until smooth and fluffy.
2. Spread on top of cooled cupcakes.

Hope you enjoy this as much as I have!

Cupcakes Galore

Have you ever seen the t.v. show "Cupcake Wars"?  Well, it's evil...in a good way :)  Cupcakes are generally a lovely treat, all tasty and sweet goodness wrapped up in a little paper cup.  Easy to serve, easy to eat, how could you complain?

Today my boyfriend and I were watching this show and decided cupcakes sounded really good.  So the search began.  I tried allrecipes.com, one of my favourite food sites, and didn't come up with anything that sounded really good.  I then tried googling cupcake recipes and success!  I came across this great site called , ironically enough, Cupcake Recipes.  They have a large variety of recipes, but one specific one stuck out: white chocolate mud cupcakes.

So we gathered up the ingredients and began baking.  Except for one problem, I don't have a kitchen scale and everything in the recipe is measured by weight.  Problem?  Possibly, but where there's a will, there's a way!  We managed to convert everything over to regular measurements and began baking.  We melted the chocolate and mixed the batter and found that it was really runny.  I was worried, but went with it anyway.

They baked. And we waited.  And they were amazing!

Then we made the frosting...well I guess you could call it frosting.  Its base was whipped cream, and it really didn't taste that good.

So I guess overall, the cake part was great, but definitely going to have to find a better frosting.  And no pictures.  They didn't turn out very well :(

Muffins!

I hate throwing away food ingredients because I a) forgot I had them or b) bought too much of said ingredient.  Not only is it a waste of money, but it's such a waste of good food.  I found myself in this situation today with some bananas and I thought to myself "What can I do with these?"  And what came to mind but banana bread!  Except I have a problem with breads.  It's not that I don't like them, its just that I never eat them.  I either forget I made them or don't want to take the time to cut off a chunk (I know, silly, but true).  So whenever I want to make bread I make muffins instead.  They're fast, easy, and really tasty.  And I eat them.  Mmmm....they do smell good!

Here's the recipe, just in case you were curious:

Ingredients
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup applesauce or butter
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
3-4 ripe bananas, mashed
2 cups all purpose flower
1tsp baking soda

Directions
1) Preheat oven to 350F.  Prepare muffin tin.
2) Mix white sugar, brown sugar, and applesauce; add vanilla, eggs, and bananas and mix until just combined.
3) Add flour and baking soda and mix until combined (again)
4) Spoon mixture into prepared muffin tin.  (I fill each cup with a 1/4 cup)
5) Bake 20-25 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the muffin comes out clean.

Make about 12 muffins.

Enjoy!