Regardless of how you feel about this holiday, these yummy cupcakes will bring happiness to anyone who eats one!

Here’s what you need:

CUPCAKE INGREDIENTS:
2-1/2 c cake flour
1-1/2 c sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 TBSP cocoa powder
1 tsp salt
2 large eggs
1-1/2 c vegetable oil
1 c buttermilk (how to make buttermilk if you’re out!)
2 TBSP red liquid food coloring
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp distilled white vinegar

For the frosting:

FROSTING INGREDIENTS:
8 oz cream cheese
5 TBSP unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 tsp vanilla extract
2-1/2 c confectioners’ sugar, sifted

Let’s do this!

1. Preheat oven to 350. Line cupcake pans.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk together cake flour, sugar, baking soda, cocoa powder and salt.

3. In a large bowl, combine eggs, vegetable oil, buttermilk, food coloring, vanilla, and vinegar. Beat on medium speed until well blended. Add dry ingredients a cup at a time, blending all the while, about 2 minutes.

4. Pour batter into lined pans.
Hoo boy – that looks weird pouring out of that spoon.

Pop into oven.

5. Bake for about 18 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool in pans for 5-10 minutes.

6. Now make the frosting! Combine the cream cheese and butter with a mixer until smooth, about 2-3 minutes. Mix in vanilla extract. Slowly add confectioners’ sugar and continue mixing until smooth.
Hooooooooooooo boyyyyyy! At this point I realized I accidentally threw in the entire stick of butter. Yes, 3 extra tablespoons. Let’s see if anyone notices…

7. Frost/decorate as desired!
I made these little bugs by hand to match the cupcake liners. It was really easy, I just had to create the design in Illustrator, then print on custom cut labels, and stick to toothpicks.

HAHAHAHAA!!!! ‘Course I didn’t do that! I bought them at Ralph’s for like $1.00 a few weeks ago. I was prolly there buying dishwasher rinse or something sexy like that.

Remember this cupcake thief from last September?

Alright, FINE!!! A cupcake for breakfast…just this once.

From Annie’s Eats.

We’ve cut back on sugar and desserts this year, saving them only for special occasions, treats & bribes. But once in a while you just want to eat some chocolate chip cookies (‘specially while you’re waiting for the Thin Mints to arrive…) I figure homemade must be healthier than store bought so here we go…

Let me tell you right away: leave a couple sticks of butter out a few hours ahead of time. I just leave them out the night before but you could take them out when you get home from work & then make the cookies after dinner too.

Also, there are a couple of oddball ingredients in here. Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em!! But if you don’t have ‘em – don’t worry about it!

Here’s what you need:

Some of that stuff is optional so don’t get stressed out looking at it!

INGREDIENTS:
1 c butter, softened
1 c firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 c white sugar
2 eggs (I used egg replacer which reduced the cholesterol & no chickens were harmed – except knowing my luck, the truck carrying the boxes of egg replacer ran over a truck of chickens)
2 tsp vanilla extract
2-1/4 c all-purpose flour
1 tsp (heaping) instant coffee granules (I accidentally used 2 TBSP and loved the result!)
1 tsp baking soda
1-1/2 tsp salt
2 TBSP ground flax seeds (OPTIONAL)
3/4 c semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 c (heaping) milk chocolate chips (or use just one kind of choc. chip)

Hopefully you are already excited about the amount of chocolate chips in this recipe. Yayy for chocolate chips!

1. Preheat oven to 375.

2. In a LARGE bowl, stir together butter, brown sugar & white sugar until combined.

Add egg replacer & vanilla, stirring to combine thoroughly.

Best thing about using egg replacer instead of eggs is that you can taste the raw dough without that pesky salmonella worry in the back of your mind!

3. In a medium bowl, whisk dry ingredients together.

Don’t ask me why I had instant coffee. I think Tim & Liana picked it up when we were camping last Memorial Day weekend. I’m glad they did!

The whisk is nothing but a blur!

4. Add flax seed if desired. I add this to everything – smoothies, cookies, breads etc. Here’s the Mayo Clinic’s take on flax seed.

It looks so healthy but you really won’t notice it.

5. Add chocolate chips

& stir to combine evenly.

6. Drop balls of dough onto a cookie sheet and bake for 11-13 minutes.

I cooled them on wire racks. I also ate a few to test them.

Slightly adapted from The Pioneer Woman.

Now a lot of people (‘specially on the East Coast) are going to be playing the ol’ air violin for me when they read this but yesterday our pilot light went out on our old gas heater. I am flying solo this weekend as G is back in the blue grass of Kentucky and I count on him to do manly things like light the pilot light when it goes out. The house was cold, cold, cold yesterday & never seemed to heat up! What’s a girl to do when the house is cold, the baby’s asleep and M and I are hostages inside, freezing to death? Bake a hot, buttery, COFFEE CAKE!!!

This heated the house and the bellies up thereby improving sour moods on a gray Saturday. Yay for coffee cake!!

The best part (except for the cake which is THE best part) is you probably have all these ingredients (‘cept maybe the pecans which you can always replace with walnuts or omit entirely!)

INGREDIENTS
For the Cake:
1-1/2 sticks butter, softened
2 c scant sugar
3 c flour, sifted
4 tsp baking powder, sifted
1 tsp salt, sifted
1-1/4 c milk
3 eggs whites, beaten until stiff

For the Crumble:
1-1/2 stick butter, softened
3/4 c flour
1-1/2 c brown sugar
2 TBSP cinnamon
1-1/2 c pecans, chopped

1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder & salt. Set aside.

I used to forge on painfully with my hand sifter until I saw The Pioneer Woman use a strainer. SO much easier! I’m not sure what the great pastry chefs would say but this is my new technique. Thanks Ree!

2. Beat egg whites (Although I’ve been phasing out eggs, I used egg whites in a carton because I had them in my fridge for a longggggg time and they are going to expire end of the month. I am not sure what the substitution is for egg whites but it’s probably just the same egg replacer.)

3. In a LARGE bowl, cream butter & sugar. (A large bowl because this is the bowl all the ingredients will end up in eventually.)

4. Take turns adding flour mixture & milk until just combined.

5. Grease a 9×13″ baking dish. I just save the butter wrapper & use that.

With a rubber spatula, fold in egg whites until just combined. Dump batter into the baking dish.

6. In a medium bowl (I tried this in a small bowl which is why I recommend a bigger bowl!), combine the CRUMBLE ingredients with a pastry cutter or your clean fingers!

Somebody gave me this pastry cutter – I never knew what it was but I’m so glad I have it! (Was it you, Nina?)

Sprinkle crumble mixture on top & pop it in the oven for 40-45 minutes.

Who’s going out the dog door?

Bea, those jeans make your butt look big!

Delicious on a cold Sunday morning! (Or Sat. afternoon…)

Recipe from The Pioneer Woman.

Maddie wanted “flowers & butterflies” at her birthday. I found this idea on Pure & Yummy. It was surprisingly easy. Between these & the store-bought Breakstone’s French Onion Dip

it was my most asked about recipe at the party. Really people? Store bought onion dip? (But honestly, I love it too!)

Here’s what you need for the strawberry lemonade cupcakes (filthy toaster not included):

CUPCAKE INGREDIENTS:
2 1/4 c flour
1.5 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
2 tsp lemon zest
12 tbsp unsalted butter, room temp
1.5 c sugar
2 eggs
3/4 c milk
2 c fresh strawberries, chopped

For syrup:
1 c lemonade concentrate, thawed
3/4 c confectioner’s sugar

Get started!
1. While you are preheating the oven to 325, look at the clock.
What? Only 10:37PM? PERFECT time to start making these for tomorrow!

2. Combine flour, baking soda, salt & lemon zest

Zesty!

in a bowl.

3. In a separate bowl, beat the butter until it is fluffy.

4. Add sugar and eggs (one at a time).

5. Add half of the flour mixture & mix on a low speed.
(Someone forgot to take pictures of the next few steps. I was “in the zone” i.e. tired.)
6. Add milk and mix until smooth.
7. Finally, add the remaining flour mixture & mix on low until JUST blended.
8. Fold in strawberries.

Now spoon mixture into the paper liners

Bottom

Side

about 3/4 of the way to the top.

You should have 24 cupcakes.

Bake for 20-25 minutes. I did the toothpick test- it should come out clean. Allow cupcakes to cool.

Now you’re ready to make the syrup! Get out your “ingredientses” (as Teresa Giudice calls them):

This is really easy: just whisk together the confectioner sugar & lemonade concentrate in a small bowl. With a toothpick, make holes in each cupcake (deep holes as you are going to saturate each cupcake by drizzling the icing over the tops and into those deep holes (that’s what he said.) How many holes? I dunno – 6-8? 4-10? Whatever you’re up for! In the original recipe she made mini cupcakes but I made standard sized so you decide! WARNING: this is likely to make a sticky mess so put something under the cupcakes to catch that stuff unless you really love cleaning & re-cleaning your counters.

I made a plain vanilla buttercream for the frosting because I wanted something firm and less sweet (HAHA!! – RIGHT!) that could hold up those butterflies. This is SO easy and I completely forgot to take pix. I added fuschia food coloring to it and voila! I had pink frosting upon which a butterfly could light. (Light?)

Anyway, here’s a link to the recipe!

Vanilla Buttercream Frosting

Make sure your frosting is firm enough to hold the butterflies. Just add powdered sugar until it’ll work!

How did I make those dad-blamed butterflies, you ask?
First, all you need is:

1. Wilton’s Candy Melts (whichever color(s) you like) for the WINGS. (From Michael’s or Party City or you can even order online.) I had green & brown.

2. Store-bought frosting for the BODIES.

3. White or colored non-pareils (which I totally forgot to add)

4. A couple of Ziploc bags.

Here’s what you do:

1. Cut up pieces of wax paper. A piece for each set of wings and another little piece for each antenna. Put them on whatever surface you plan to use to cool them.
2. Add about 1/2 cup brown (or whatever will be your OUTLINE) candy melts to a Ziploc bag. Follow the directions on the Wilton’s bag. It will tell you how long to microwave, then massage/mix, microwave some more. When it is all melted and gooey, close the Ziploc and cut a corner off of it.
3. Put your drawing or printout of the wings/antenna under each wax paper so that you can trace it with the melted candy. Apparently I did not take pix of this but I will attach a PDF of my drawing in case you want it. Trace the outline of the wings and antennae (they should not be connected).

Antennae

4. Now melt whatever colored candy melts you got in another Zip-lock. This will be what you use to “color” the wings. Just fill in between the lines. Don’t worry about being too perfect. Thank garsh I got a pic of this!

You’ll get the hang of it quickly!

Buttload of wings!

5. Let them cool. I actually made these the night before and left them out. Out of reach, that is, of tiny hands.
6. Frost your cupcakes. I used Wilton’s cheapest disposable bags with tips that didn’t even fit! I just forced the tips in and hoped for the best! After frosting the cupcakes (making sure my frosting was on the “stiff” side) I stuck the wings in and using a small round tip and another frosting bag I connected the wings with the brown bodies. What did I make the brown bodies with, you ask? Good question! I used that Duncan Hines store-bought chocolate frosting. It’s very firm and since you barely need any of it, who gives a fig if it’s not homemade? Who’s gonna notice? Then stick the antennae in however you like them!

Thank garsh only my hands are in the picture at that hour!

I wish I had more photos of the decorating steps. That part was done in the morning up against the clock so I had no time for fanciful pix. But I’m sure to do it again and will leave myself more time. Or not!

Don’t worry too much about these – they’ll look cute – you don’t have to be a perfectionist about them. I saw other versions of these that were VERY cute with different colored butterflies, each matching its own cupcake. That was way too ambitious for me, not to mention both Michael’s & Party City were out of pink candy melts.

The butterfly idea came originally from a book called Hello, Cupcake! via Pure & Yummy.

Here’s where I got stuff:
- cupcake tray – TJMaxx
- Wilton’s Candy Melts & napkins, plates, etc.(Party City)
- Frosting bags & tips (Michael’s)

REFLECTION:
Next time I will cut out 1/2 cup of the sugar in the cupcake recipe. It is just too sweet though I got TONS of compliments on them. I don’t think anyone would notice if it were gone.

I think that covers it! Please comment below if you have any questions, if I forgot anything. I probably did!

Hi Y’all!

What do you do when the bananas start going brown?

Apparently, not wipe the table. But that’s another story… what I do is whip up the BEST BANANA BREAD ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH. Aka Fatty’s Banana Bread (Fatty referring to the banana bread only of course). This is a recipe my dear friend Nina Viswanathan gave me over a decade ago. And believe me, Nina KNOWS her banana bread. It’s very easy to make!

Want to try it?

OK!

Gather these ingredients:

But wait, something’s missing! The most important ingredient.

I keep a bag of chocolate chips in my baking drawer but they sure weren’t here today when I looked. I need to find a better hiding spot. Luckily Trader Joe’s is 3 blocks from me so I threw Bea under my arm and strode down there.

INGREDIENTS:
3 over-ripe bananas
1 egg
1 stick butter (D’OH!)
1 c sugar
1.5 c flour
1 t salt
1 t baking soda
1/2 to 1 c chocolate chips

First: preheat oven to 350

(I can’t believe I took a picture of that!)

& lightly grease a loaf pan.

Melt butter.

Mash bananas in a medium to large bowl.

Don’t use a fork for this. Trust me.

Ahhh, that’s better.

Add melted butter & egg and combine well. I actually used a hand mixer but was unable to photograph it as my free hand was holding the bowl while batter splattered across my shirt.

Sift together flour, salt & baking soda, then slowly combine with wet ingredients. Full disclosure: I never sift together the dry ingredients – I just start adding things to the wet. I know it’s not the “right” way to do it but have you seen my sifter? Talk about a hand cramp.

Now add the chocolate chips. People: go for the full cup. You won’t regret it!

Oooooooooo just look at them…

Combine. And not with a spatula.

Pour batter into greased loaf pan.

Bake at 350 for 55-60 minutes.

Here it is from another angle in case you can’t get enough!

Thanks, Nina. This “bread” has brought so much joy to so many!