Mint Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

In honor of National Chocolate Mint Day, I thought it would be appropriate to share these Mint Chocolate Chip Cupcakes. While making these won't be quite as easy as plowing through a sleeve of Thin Mints, I promise they are equally (if not more) satisfying and way prettier.



When I made these I was in a bit of a time crunch so I started with a box of Pillsbury Moist Supreme Chocolate cake mix, and just added a teaspoon of mint extract to give them a little extra pizazz. Did the word pizazz make anyone else thing of pizza? I typed that, and then immediately started thinking about how much I wanted to have pizza for dinner tonight. I'm such a fat kid at heart. Anyways, let's get back on topic. Bake as instructed on the cake box in a lined cupcake pan. Set aside, and let cool completely.


Now it's time for the fun part - the mint chocolate buttercream frosting. Here is what you'll need:

Mint Buttercream Frosting

• 3 cups powdered sugar, sifted
• 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon mint extract
• 6-8 drops green food coloring
• 1 cup semisweet chocolate chunks

In a mixing bowl, beat together the sifted powdered sugar, butter, and salt until smooth. This should only take about 2-3 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add the mint extract and food coloring. Mix for another 2-3 minutes until light and fluffy. Stir in the chocolate chunks by hand to avoid breaking them in the mixer.

Using a large ice cream scoop, scoop some frosting onto the top of each cupcake. It's that simple! Now it's time to enjoy! Happy National Chocolate Mint Day y'all!

Halloween Kitty Cat Cupcakes

If you follow me on Pinterest then you've probably seen the hundreds of Halloween things I've been pinning the last few weeks. I finally had some free time yesterday morning (and we happened to be celebrating my sister's birthday today) so I got to try out some new treats!

In case you aren't aware (which I'm not sure how you couldn't be), I'm a self proclaimed cat lady, as is my mother...and my middle sister...and my younger sister. I guess you could say it runs in the family. Of course when I saw these Black Cat Cupcakes from Better Homes and Gardens I knew I had to recreate them. Side note - if you don't get the daily emails from BHG sign up now. Seriously. What are you waiting for?! They're great.

I did a lot of baking on Thursday night so I took the easy route and opted for boxed chocolate cake mix and store bought chocolate frosting for these cupcakes. After all, the pizazz is in the decorating. Here is what you'll need if you want to make these cute cats:

• Chocolate Jimmies
• Milk chocolate candy melts (I got mine at Hobby Lobby)
• Dots
• Peanut butter chips
• Black Pull n' Peel Licorice or black frosting

After you've frosted your cupcake, start by applying a generous amount of chocolate sprinkles to the top of the cupcake (enough so that it resembles fur). I found the best method was to pour the sprinkles in a bowl and gently dip/roll the cupcake

Next it's time to give this little kitty cat some ears. Cut milk chocolate candy melts into triangles so they resemble ears, and gently press into cupcake.

Bonus! Look at all these chocolate scraps you can munch on :)

For the eyes I used yellow and green Dots, but any gumdrop will do. Unfortunately the box of Dots I happened to pick up was severely lacking in the yellow and green department so I had to make each Dot into three individual eyes which made some of them a little smaller and rounder than others, but I think that gave the cats character. For the pupils, I alternated between using chocolate sprinkles and piping round pupils with black frosting. I think the cats with sprinkles for eyes looked a little evil so the piped eyes were much friendlier looking. Make sure to put a dab of chocolate frosting on the back of the eye so that it actually sticks to the cupcake.

For the little kitty nose I used peanut butter chips. If PB isn't your thing, butterscotch chips would also work. Again, attach to cupcake with a little dab of chocolate frosting. Next pipe on whiskers with black frosting or attach black licorice. Good luck with the licorice. I went to three different stores and couldn't find it anywhere. Oh well. Frosting tastes better anyways. :)

And there you have it - cute black cat cupcakes. Easy enough right? Enjoy!

Creepy Crawly Halloween Cupcakes

I really, really love holidays. I've probably said it before, but Halloween to New Year's is my most favorite time of the year. There are so many fun things to look forward to during this time period, and more importantly - so many excuses to bake!

With Halloween just around the corner, today I'm going to show you how to make some fun, creepy, crawly cupcakes. You don't have to be a baking expert to whip these up, and they definitely have a wow factor. Whenever I make chocolate cake I always use the recipe I've listed below, but if you are rushed for time (or baking just isn't your thing) I would suggest using Pillsbury Moist Supreme Devil's Food cake mix. It's the next best thing and basically fool proof.

Best Chocolate Cake Ever

2 cups of flour
2 cups of sugar
3/4 cup of cocoa
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 large eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. Place all of the dry ingredients (except cocoa) into a large bowl and combine. Add the eggs, buttermilk, and vegetable oil to the dry ingredients. Add the cocoa and vanilla extract to the boiling water. Slowly combine with other mixture at medium speed until everything is combined. Line a cupcake tin with silver baking cups and fill 2/3 of the way full. Bake until toothpick inserted into cupcake comes out clean (approx. 15-20 min).

While your cupcakes are cooling, it's time to make the frosting. Here is where I'll tell you not to skimp out and buy store bought frosting. It just isn't the same. Trust me. Whip up some buttercream frosting (it's easy I promise), and tint to your desired shade of orange. I'm partial to Hobby Lobby's AmeriColor gel food coloring, but any brand will work.. In order to get a pretty swirl effect with your frosting, attach a Wilton 1M decorating tip to your decorating bag, and fill with orange buttercream. Frost in a circular motion (step by step instructions are in the previous link), and sprinkle with orange sanding sugar. Place plastic spiders sporadically on the cupcakes. I probably went a little bit overboard with mine so they are extra festive. Lastly, in order to jazz up these cupcakes a little bit, I made the silver baking cups look more like spider webs by using these cupcake wraps. And that's it! These are cute Halloween cupcakes that anyone can master! :)

soirees & sweaters & sweets, oh deer!

I love dressing up, and I love Christmas so it is only natural that I love tacky sweater parties. Lucky for me, I have a couple already planned this season. The first of which is tomorrow afternoon at work. Over the top sweaters. An awkward family photo booth with props. Oh, and did I mention that everyone has to bring their favorite holiday treat?!? I. Can't. Wait.

By now everyone at work is pretty familiar with my baking obsession. I dare say I've set the bar pretty high with some of my past creations for our various treat days so the pressure was really on for me to find something fantastic to make for tomorrow. 

Pumpkin cupcakes for my manager's birthday. Oreo football truffles for a co-worker's
birthday. Watermelon cake balls for our summer barbecue. Oreo cupcakes for Boss's Day.

I'd been perusing Pinterest trying to keep my eye out for cute holiday themed treats, but I just couldn't get over the adorable reindeer cupcakes that I made for a cookie exchange last year. Never one to rest on my laurels, I decided to change them up a bit for the party tomorrow. I didn't have an abundance of time on my hands this evening so I used a boxed chocolate cake mix and store-bought chocolate frosting. Oh the horror! However, if you are feeling like Little Miss Martha Stewart and want to try making these cupcakes from scratch here is my favorite chocolate cake recipe of all time. So good! Seriously people will be knocking down your door for this recipe!

Ready to rock!

After the cupcakes had cooled I started by applying a thin layer of chocolate frosting.

The frosting doesn't have to be perfect since a majority of the cupcake will be covered by a vanilla wafer.

Next add a vanilla wafer and the reindeer's eyes. Last year when I made these cupcakes I used white m&ms as eyes and then added a dot of black frosting for the pupil. This was a little tricky to say the least. Luckily this October when I was killing some time in the seasonal section of Target (my fave!) I came across an amazing invention. Seriously life altering people.

Don't fret! It seems these babies are sold year-round. I saw them at Wal-mart earlier
tonight, and I imagine you can also find them at Hobby Lobby or Michael's as well.

I seriously think these candy eyeballs take the difficulty level of these
cupcakes from a 5-7 down to a 3. Ahhh-mazing!

Now it was time to give the little guy a nose and some ears. I used both brown and red m&ms for the nose (obviously you need some Rudolph's thrown into the mix duh) and Milk Duds for the ears. To get the nose to stick, add a dab of frosting to the side of the m&m with the 'm' on it and press lightly to the vanilla wafer. The Milk Duds were a wee bit trickier. When I started to decorate the first cupcake I just stuck the Milk Duds into the frosting as is, but my reindeer totally looked more like a bear than a deer. FAIL.

Definitely not seeing a deer here. 

Since this approach was clearly not going to work, I decided to try squishing the Milk Duds a little bit at the top to make them more pointed. I definitely think the next cupcake turned out more deer-like. Just make sure you don't mold the Milk Duds for too long, or they will start to melt. 

These might be a little too pointy, but certainly an improvement over the bear!

By far the hardest part of these cupcakes was getting the pretzels to break in appropriate "antler-like" fashion. I wasted a lot of pretzels tonight, but I can assure you my dogs are going to bed with full bellies! ;) 

Yikes!

I guess the beauty in making antlers is they are all different so there really isn't a right way to make them.

Option 1

Option 2

Option 3, 4, 5....you get the point.

If you don't want to go to war with the pretzels then I would suggest using the smaller sized pretzels like I used last year. 

Easy peasy lemon squeezy!

I think these cupcakes turn out adorable either way! Hopefully they are a hit at the party tomorrow!