Winter Wonderland

"When it snows, you have two choices: shovel or make snow angels." Unknown

Confession: I LOVE the snow... even when everyone else is tired of it, I secretly pray for more!!

Well, it's a winter wonderland out there...

It's coming down pretty hard again, and I'm in my pj's, which means I'm not goin' anywhere today!

And so I figured, why not fill the house with the scent of cupcakes in the oven!

I've struggled with chocolate cupcakes -- they're always too dry or too goopey, too sweet or too plain. But today, I used a bit of every recipe I've ever used and came up with these...

A very viable option...

Banana Dreams

"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana." Groucho Marx

Confession: I hated... like gag reflex inducing kind-of hate... bananas until last year.

My mother makes the best banana bread. I mean really. I'm not a huge banana fan, but I could eat a loaf of her bread in a single sitting. And in an evil attempt to keep the banana bread comin' my way, I would purchase wholesale-huge amounts of bananas at a time, "accidentally" allow several to over-rippen, and conveniently hand them over to my mom to "do whatever" with. And it worked for a while... until there was a banana backup and her freezer began to overflow with frozen, awkward bananas.

She has since forbidden me to bring her more bananas.

And so I'm left to fend off banana bread dreams, and make them my own reality. And this is what I came up with today...
















Mom... do you remember the Girl Scout staple? The Banana Bop? Frozen bananas dipped in chocolate? Well here you have it, in it's cupcake glory!

The trick was to make sure that it had the texture of a cupcake (i.e. light, fluffy) and not the heavyness of banana bread. I topped it with melted chocolate chips (mixed with just a tablespoon of butter to make it pliable) -- when the chocolate hardened, it had that "crunch" of a frozen Banana Bop! Delightful!


What I used for the cupcake:

1 and 1/2 c. sugar
1/2 c. butter
2 eggs
1 and a dash tsp. baking soda
5 tbsp. sour cream
3 mashed bananas
1 and 1/2 c. flour
1 and a dash tsp. vanilla

One bite gone... an entire pan to go... Banana Dreams do come true!

Just Call Me Betty Crocker!

"Your good friend has just taken a piece of cake out of the garbage and eaten it. You will probably need this information when you check me into the Betty Crocker Clinic." Miranda on Sex in the City

Confession: I'm afraid my hobby is making me pudgy.


I'm stranded again; see post below. And so, I'm baking. For Christmas, my husband gave me a filler tip, and I'm bound and determined to use it today. Since I've gotta use what's in the house, this is what came out of the oven...






The picture quality is beyond poor, but you get the point.


They kind of taste like a creamsicle! Light and fluffy orange cake, flavored with orange juice -- I used juice that was high in pulp and every now and then, you get a bite with a pulp piece in it! They're filled and topped with a cream cheese frosting, heavy on the vanilla to give it an extra punch. YUMMY! If I had some actual orange in the house, I would have garnished the cupcakes with sugared orange rind to make them look pretty. But as they stand... not too bad!

And the filler tips? Perfect!

So What Do Ya Do When You're Stranded?

I'm stranded today. It's a long, Husband-in-the-Doghouse kind of story, that I won't get into here... but I will note in this public-type forum, that my husband is not the Doghouse Type. He's a good and faithful man, that messed up and decided that one particular Missouri state law, didn't apply to him!

That said, he's got my car and I'm stuck at home today. So, I made cupcakes.

Anyone from Missouri, has probably heard of Ooey-Gooey from Saint Looey Cake (guessing that's not it's REAL name and might be something along the lines of Buttercream Cake... but the gooey part is so descriptive!); it's a delightful mixture of sugar and butter and all things Godly, baked on an equally sugary crust. I had a piece on Sunday night and decided that I could easily turn it into a cupcake!

This is the final result!



YUM!!!

I had to use what was close, so I didn't use the traditional Saint Louis recipe... and instead used the cheaters version. Just in case you were wondering...

Traditional Gooey Butterness

2 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 cup butter, softened
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 large egg
1/4 cup light corn syrup
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup water
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Cheeters Gooey Butterness

2 eggs
2 1/2 cups powered sugar
1 8oz. cream cheese

As the base, prepare your favorite yellow cake recipe. I made mine just a bit drier than normal so it almost balled up, rather than settled -- more like a pound cake batter consistency. Next time I make these though, I think I'll try using a different base -- chocolate or carmel -- to keep things interesting and fancy.

And don't overbake. By all means, take 'em out when there's still a little jiggle to them! I over-did the first batch (hence, the clever raspberry disguise) and though it's still tasty, it doesn't have the consistency of a Butter Cream that you'd find on a sidestreet in downtown St. Lou.

Now I'm left with a quandry... do I eat them all before Brett gets home, clearing out the evidence, and act as if they never were... or do I eat them in front of him and...

Oh, who am I kidding. I'm not THAT mean!