You bake me crazy!

This week is "MID-WINTER BREAK" for my kids. What does that even mean? Do the school systems seriously think, you know what, we just did Christmas and Easter is coming up soon but let's just randomly give these kids a few days off. They deserve it?!?! It's not even mid-winter. It's late winter. The only thing that happens this week is my kids screaming because they are off schedule and I have to entertain them more than I already do. Not gonna lie, I'm stumped. So... I arranged Charlie to have a playdate with his friend from school yesterday and my thought was, let's give Marisa the cupcakes she deserves for commenting on the blog. I also realized that being in the kitchen is a great way to be around but not in my kids faces-I'm already learning these things for when they date. Everyone will be embarassed, yet full of cupcakes from MOM!

So I took Marisa's suggestions and added my own twist. She sent me the link to her favorite chocolate cake by one of my personal heroes, Ina Garten. I used to watch the Barefoot Contessa while Charlie napped on me for hours when he was a baby. I have no idea how he doesn't know how to perfectly roast a chicken after all of that. It should have sunk in but nope! But I do-and it's in the crockpot.

I made the recipe as described because my queen, Ina, would never give me a recipe that wasn't perfection. Needless to say, it was one of the most moist chocolate cakes ever. It's not too sweet so it will support oodles of frosting. In case you read the recipe and are confused on why she adds coffee, don't fret. Coffee enhances the chocolate flavor and as a wet ingredient, it ensures your cake will be soft and spongy. Also, I think that means that since I drink coffee at breakfast, this cake can be counted as breakfast. Win-Win!! I ended up with 24 cupcakes-which baked for 13 minutes and 2-6 inch round cakes that took 17 minutes. I wrapped the cake and put it in the freezer for a later project.

In stead of pairing this cake with the frosting Marisa suggested (mainly because my grocery store was out of mascarpone), I used one that I've been waiting to try out for it's simplicity. It's pin drew me in with "THE BEST WHIPPED CREAM FROSTING." This frosting has a total of THREE ingredients. Most of mine contain around 7-8 so this was a new one for me. I followed the recipe and used vanilla instant pudding mix. Eric gave this frosting a 7/10 instead of my normal 9-10/10. It's good and easy but nothing to write home about. I do have Godiva Caramel and Fudge pudding mix that I might try next time instead. The frosting itself was a lovely shade of pale yellow though and did pipe on the cupcakes beautifully. For piping: My go to cupcake tip is 1G. It makes frosting cupcakes so fast. I use mostly disposable Wilton piping bags. You can get these at Michaels, Joann's, Meijer or Amazon! My favorite place for most baking utensils is actually Ebay. I recently bought a Russian piping set and I will be trying it out soon so look for how that goes!

Now I thought I would try to spring these cupcakes up a bit. I made some stiff buttercream frosting which is great for this because it maintains it's shape. I took cake decorating classes at Michaels when I was 16 years old and haven't really busted out these flowers in a while. I watched a few youtube videos to get back into the sway of things. Turns out, I can still do this! I colored my frosting into a few colors. I don't mix the color all the way through because I like the different variations for flowers. If you want to start doing flowers like this, there are so many classes available. You can do the Michaels route or sites like craftsy.com or just watch a bunch of youtube videos. I'm working on learning how to film a video for the site so hopefully that will be up soon!

Once I completed the flowers, I put them in the fridge to chill for easy moving over to the cupcakes. They make these little plastic scissors to use for moving but I just use a butter knife and some care. The best part is if you mess up, eating these screw-ups is totally encouraged or you could just put the frosting back into the piping bag and start over.

Now that they are complete, I packaged some up for Eric to take to work. Packaged some up to take to Marisa and her family. And saved a couple for my children who I do love even though mid-winter break is still happening. Marisa-I'll be over later!!!! The reviews from Eric's co-workers are in! 2 of them emailed Eric with these super sweet things to say: "I have a love hate relationship with your wife- whom I’ve never met. Those cupcakes are incredible!"-Amy "Hi Eric, your wife makes such beautiful cup cake, OMG, I love the presentation with all different elegant/pretty pattern of flowers... she is so beautiful and talented.... lucky you!!!"-Jenny

^Well now, Jenny is my new best friend :) Thank you all so much for reading. I've gotten a lot more orders for cakes and cupcakes recently and it's given me a confidence boost. Sometimes as a mom, you start to loose your identity and this has given me a piece of myself back so I truly do appreciate all of your support. I hope to keep entertaining you with my stories and making you crave some yummyness. Big fat kisses to all of you!!!!