Scrumptious

This weekend I offered to make some cupcakes for my friend Carlin’s lingerie shower. I am always looking for an excuse to bake. For both of these cupcakes I used chocolate fudge box cake mix. I am 100% not opposed to box cake mixes…I believe that the skill of baking comes from putting it all together and baking it right – time, temperature, texture – I do love making things from scratch, but let’s face it. The on sale dollar box of cake mix is cheaper and makes just as tasty cakes.

I made Ina Garten’s peanut butter frosting, topped it with crushed Reese's and drizzled with chocolate sauce. I used the brown eyed baker’s vanilla buttercream recipe and topped it with some mini chocolate morsels, just for fun. I did actually add heavy cream to the vanilla frosting, because well, I believe heavy cream makes the world taste better. I will post links to all of the recipes below…

I normally do not eat a lot of the things I bake because after licking the mixing bowls and what not I am a little bit over sugared.. but sadly, that was not the case here. I could eat that peanut butter frosting on anything. It would probably be a good substitute for pb&j’s. (just sayin…)

recipe links -

Peanut butter frosting

Vanilla Buttercream (I added the heavy cream)

chocolate sauce for the drizzle

Valentines Funfetti

I decided I wanted to make some valentines cupcakes but since I do not have a lot of ingredients here I decided to go for the “fun” valentines funfetti cake mix. I am no hater of box cake mixes and no lie, funfetti is the bomb.

Since I was using a box mix I made a recipe from The Pioneer Woman’s recipe blog the tasty kitchen. Ree blogged that this was one of the best frosting she had ever tasted…and for the exact recipe click here.

In the picture below you can see the consistency of the frosting of course the dash of confetti in the cake =)

I love being the taste tester…

for the cake mix, I just simply followed the directions of the box but only baked them for 15 minutes and not a bit longer.

“Benchiladas”

 

One of my new favorite food blogs is Annie’s Eats and I have heard many rave reviews on her recipe titled “Benchiladas”, they sounded tasty the first time I saw the actual recipe and then I saw a number of other blogs trying out the recipe and loving it too.

I decided this week to test it out for myself. I apologize for my photography skills they are greatly lacking and my camera – well, it desperately needs an upgrade – but here were my results!

Mine seemed to be a little bit more runny than Annie’s Eats but oh well, nonetheless they were scrumptious and the link to specific recipe is here.