Valentine Day Cupcakes

I tried to make these cupcakes for Valentine's Day, but the hearts that I made were too big, so when I cut into the cupcakes, there was just a big red blob.  I was pretty disappointed, but still had a ton of french vanilla cake batter and about a million little cake hearts, so I had to figure something out.  This is what I came up with.  They're adorable, right?  Right.  And, they're pretty easy to make!

The cupcakes are french vanilla and I added maraschino cherry frosting in honor of Valentine's Day.  The hearts are just tiny little heart cakes, made out of the same batter as the cupcakes.  

You could easily adapt this for any holiday or occasion  so long as you have a cookie cutter that suits what you're making them for.   

First, make the hearts and cupcakes. 

What you need for the cake:
1 French Vanilla Box Cake Mix
1 Box of Powdered Vanilla Pudding
1 Cup Sour Cream
1 Cup Water
3/4 Cup Oil 
4 Eggs

What you do make the cupcakes and hearts:
1.  Mix all the ingredients together for the cake.  Separate about 1/3 of the batter into a separate bowl. 

2.  Using food coloring, tint the smaller portion of the batter to the color you desire. 

3.  Pour the tinted food coloring onto a sheet cake pan and bake for about 15-20 minutes or until the cake is done. 

4.  Set the sheet cake aside to cool.  Meanwhile, using the remaining batter, make cupcakes, baking according to the directions on the cake mix box. 

5.  Once the sheet cake has cooled, using a small heart shaped cookie cutter, cut out as many hearts as you can from the sheet cake.  Remove the hearts from the pan and discard the scrap sheet cake. (I "discarded" the scrap sheet cake by eating it.  Don't judge.)


Second, make the icing. 

I slightly adapted my icing recipe from Glorious Treats.  

What you need for the icing:
2 Sticks of Butter at room temperature
4 Cups Powdered Sugar
6 Tbsp Maraschino Cherry Juice
1/2 Cup finely chopped Maraschino Cherries
A pinch of salt

What you do to make the icing:
1.  Beat the butter until smooth. 

2.  Add 1 cup of powdered sugar.  Beat until fully incorporated.  Repeat with a second cup of powdered sugar. 

3.  Add 1 Tbsp of maraschino cherry juice.  Beat until fully incorporated.  Repeat until you have added all 6 Tbsps of maraschino cherry juice. 

4.  Add 1 cup of powdered sugar.  Beat until fully incorporated.  Repeat with a second cup of powdered sugar. 

5.  Add the chopped cherries and a pinch of salt.  Beat to fully incorporate. 

6. You may add food coloring to tint your frosting if you would like.  I added a little bit of red to make my frosting a bit more pink that it was naturally.

Third, assemble the cupcakes. 

To assemble the cupcakes, pipe a bit of frosting on top of each cupcake.  Then, insert a toothpick into the bottom (pointed) end of one heart.  Feed the toothpick into the heart until it is about half-way in.  Push the exposed part of the toothpick into the top of the cupcake.  Your heart should now be "sitting" on top of each cupcake (no toothpick should be exposed).  Repeat until all cupcakes are assembled. 

Enjoy!

Hot Fudge Sundae Cupcakes

For Father's Day I made my dad a delicious Carrot Cake that I owed him.  But, since I don't like vegetables with my dessert, I had to make something else, cause I'm not going without dessert.  I saw a recipe for Hot Fudge Sundae Cupcakes and thought they looked adorable, so I decided to give them a try.  I simplified the recipe and they ended up being not only adorable, but delicious too.  I was really surprised at how much they actually tasted like a hot fudge sundae.  And they really are quite easy to make.

Adapted from: Joy the Baker

Here's what I used for the cupcakes:
1 White cake mix and the ingredients needed to make the cake according to the box
3 Tbsp Vanilla Extract

Here's what I did to make the cupcakes:
I prepared the cake mix according to the directions. I also added 3 Tbsp of Vanilla Extract.  I baked the cupcakes according to the box, removing them from the oven when they were golden brown.  I put them on a cooling rack upside down until they were cool.



Here's what I used for the chocolate ganache:
2 1/4 Cups Miniature Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips (a little more than a 12 oz bag)
3/4 Cup Heavy Whipping Cream

Here's what I did to make the chocolate ganache:
I poured the chocolate chips into a bowl.  I put the cream in a pan and simmered it on the stove until it was very warm (but I did not let it boil).  Once the cream was warm, I poured it over the chocolate chips.  I let that sit for about a minute.  Then I stirred the mixture together, letting the cream melt the chocolate, until the mixture was completely smooth. 

     Hint:  If you didn't get the cream warm enough to melt the chocolate chips all the
      way, just put the bowl in the microwave and heat it up for 10 seconds at a time. 
      Stir after you heat it up each time to see if the chocolate chips are melted -- you
      only want to heat it enough to melt the chocolate chips.



Here's what I used to assemble the cupcakes:
Caramel
Whipped Cream
Maraschino Cherries
Chocolate Sprinkles

Here's what I did to assemble the cupcakes:
I wanted to try stuffing the cupcakes, so the first thing I did was use an apple corer to remove the center of each cupcake (Bonus!  I get to eat all the centers!).  Then I filled about half of the center of each cupcake up with whipped cream.  I filled the other half of the center up with caramel.  (The caramel was a last minute idea.  I was at my mom's house and she happened to have those little cups of caramel for dipping apples in, so I used those.  I just heated each one up a bit in the microwave to make the caramel easy to work with.)

Then I iced the cupcakes with the ganache.  I made sure to put a little extra ganache over the center of each cupcake so that the ganache would seep into the center of each cupcake as well.

After I let the ganache cool until it was firm, I put whipped cream, a cherry, and chocolate sprinkles on each cupcake.  

Enjoy! 

Jubilee

My mom and my Aunt Pat both make this dish in Cherry.  I call it Cherry Jubilee.  I’ve also heard that this is called a dump cake?  I love the cherry version of it, but was looking for something a little different, so I decided to try blueberry as well.  The blueberry turned out just as delicious as the cherry normally does. 

It’s a super simple recipe.  Essentially fool-proof.  AND, it requires that you only dirty the pan you bake it in and a couple of pieces of silverware.  How awesome is that!?!  

Here’s what I used:

Either 26 oz Cherry Pie Filling or 21 oz Blueberry Pie Filling (I couldn't find a 26 oz in blueberry)
20 oz Crushed Pineapple                                        
1/3 of a Yellow Cake Mix, Dry

¾ - 1 stick of Butter, cubed

Here’s what I did:

I preheated the oven to 350 degrees.  I opened the pie filling and poured it into an 8 x 8 baking dish. 

I opened the pineapple and drained the juice off of the top (I didn’t drain the whole can).  Then I poured the pineapple on top of the pie filling in the baking dish.

I mixed the pie filling and pineapple together.

I put a layer of the dry cake mix on top of the pie filling/pineapple mixture.

Then I put a layer of the cubed butter on top of the dry cake mix.

            Hint:  The smaller your butter cubes, the more evenly your butter
              will disburse, which will result in a more uniform crust.  To make 
              your butter easier to cut into small cubes, toss the stick into the
              freezer for a while before you cut it up.

I baked the Jubilee for about an hour.  Watch it towards the end to make sure you don’t over cook it.  You want to take it out of the oven when the crust is nice and golden brown.  Here are what mine looked like straight out of the oven:

This is a dish that I think tastes much better completely cool than it does straight out of the oven, so I suggest letting it cool completely before digging in. 

Enjoy!