Life, Liberty & the Pursuit of Cupcakes

My latest cupcake creation is a chocolate chip cupcake with Milky Way frosting. This is a really quick, relatively simple recipe and it’s very chocolatey! It tastes almost like a chocolate chip cookie. Here’s how I made them:

Ingredients:

Yellow cake mix

3 eggs

Vegetable oil

1 bag semi-sweet chocolate chips

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4 regular sized Milky Way bars

1 stick (1/2 cup) melted butter

1 tablespoon milk

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 1/4 cups unsifted confectioner’s sugar

Directions:

**Cupcakes**

* Follow instructions on cake mix box- preheat at 325.

* Once the cake batter is finished, pour 3/4 of the bag (it’s really up to you) of chocolate chips in the batter.

* Spray cupcake liners with Pam cooking spray and fill per usual, about 1/2 way full.

* Bake for around 15 minutes- they should be turning golden brown on the top.

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**Frosting**

* Melt butter on low heat on the stove and cut up the candy bars into four pieces (they melt quicker when they’re in smaller pieces)

* Stir continuously and keep on low heat- burnt chocolate tastes awful, so you have to make sure it’s always moving. As you’re stirring, add the vanilla and milk.

* Once the mixture is completely melted and relatively smooth (it’ll look sort of like melted Crunch bars) turn off heat. While it’s warm, add to a bowl of the confectioner’s sugar.

* Stir until mostly smooth. It’ll seem a little oily, probably from the candy bar, but don’t worry about that. It’s not like traditional frosting.. it’s more a light covering than a fluffy frosting.

* Don’t worry if it doesn’t look like enough for all of your cupcakes- it’s really thick and you don’t need a lot on each one. It’s a really sweet cupcake as it is, so don’t use too much.

* While cupcakes and mixture are both warm, spoon small amounts on the cupcakes and spread. As it got cooler, it started to pull the cake apart when I spread it on top. To prevent this, I used my finger (WASH YOUR HANDS!!) and pushed around the topping until it was smooth.

**BAKES & TOPS 22 CUPCAKES**

As promised from last night’s trip to Provincetown :)

Today I made a little over a dozen Boston cream pie cupcakes, and let me tell you something. They were YUMMY! And so incredibly simple! I think anyone can do this, if they have the patience and a steady hand. Here’s how I made my heavenly little cuppycakes this time:

Ingredients:

- 1 box yellow cake

- 1 container dark chocolate frosting

- 1 box jello instant pudding (vanilla)

- 3 cups milk

- 3 eggs

- 1/3 cup veggie oil

Directions:

* First, I’d recommend doing the pudding. Especially if it’s not instant… it’s gonna be a while if it’s not. I made mine first, and it seriously took about 30 seconds to make. You put it in the fridge right after for about 5 minutes and then it’s ready to be used.

* Follow the directions on the box. These cupcakes are so easy because you aren’t doing anything pre-bake. You just mix up the ingredients and pop em in the oven. Like I’ve mentioned before, if you have cooking spray (I used Pam), spray it in the cupcake liners after you put it in the tin so you don’t lose any cupcake if it sticks to the paper.

* I baked them for 18 minutes each. This oven cooks really hot, so, as usual, start out on the low end.. you can always cook them more. Nobody likes burnt cupcakes :’(

* Let them cool once they’re done for as long as you can. I waited about 20 minutes. Once they’re cooled, put them one at a time on a plate (so you have lots of room to move around) and use a really sharp knife (like one with the teeth on it) to cut a cone shape in the top center of the cupcake. Don’t go too far into the cupcake because you don’t want the pudding to spill out the bottom of the cupcake. That would be awful. I think the cupcake experience in general could be at risk.

** Don’t worry about the extra cake, you are completely within your baking rights to eat the little cone-shaped cake pieces. This is the way I chose. However, since it’s not chocolate, you can feed it to your poochy friend (I don’t promote animal obesity, though) or throw it away (it’s a sin)…….. just eat it. I don’t think I’m gonna need to force you. **

* Putting the pudding (he he he) in the cupcake- I used an icing gun. It’s a pretty great one, but you can also use a piping bag, or even just a plastic sandwich bag if you don’t want to spend the extra money. Whichever way you prefer, it’ll work just fine. I think it’s just a little bit neater with a device specifically for that purpose. If you use a sandwich bag, just fill it up with pudding and then cut the corner off a little.

* After you’ve filled the holes to the top, you can start getting the frosting ready. In the past, with filled cupcakes, I’ve experimented with different ways of covering up the little hole of awesomeness in the middle. I have cut the very bottom off the cupcake pre-fill and put it on the top before I frosted it, but I guess it depends on how thick your frosting is. In this case, it was very thick, so I just covered it up with frosting and it worked out great.

Happy baking!

-xoxo K