Happy Easter!

Cadbury Creme Eggs. Need I say more?

Ok. I guess I can say more! This months' cupcake flavor was 'Cadbury Creme Egg, in honor of Easter, and the adorable Cadbury bunny.... I mean come on... who doesn't love these commercials?

This particular cupcake was an adventure. I followed a recipe I found online, but not really. The cupcakes themselves are just a plain devils food cupcake. Nice and simple. You can make them from scratch, but I went the easy route and trusted Betty Crocker. I decided that since I was adding a crazy icing and some ganache, it would make up for using a mix.

The icing was a buttercream icing with the creme part of 20, (that's right, 20) Cadbury Creme Eggs. I cut open 20 eggs and scooped out the insides. It was not the easiest process. Very sticky. And the bowl of filling looked kind of gross after. I wish I had taken a picture. The filling was kind of stiff when I scooped it out, but as it sat in a bowl it became gooey and melted. Bizarre. The icing recipe that I was adapting also called for 8 cups of icing sugar. I used 4, and the icing was still incredibly sweet. I don't know if I could have handled the 8 cups. I may have given myself diabetes just from smelling it!

Once the cupcakes were cooled, I enlisted my sister to put a small hole in the center of each cupcake. This was accomplish using a 'slurpee' straw. Worked like a charm. Then ganache was poured into the cupcake. The ganache was made from the chocolate shells. It was quite thin, so it was absorbed into the cupcake. Yum. These babies are going to be nice and gooey! After piping some of the crazy sweet icing on top, I used some of the left over shells as toppers. I also had purchased the Cadbury Creme Egg Minis (personally I like these more than the big ones), and cut some open to put them on top. I think it ended up looking rather cute.

These cupcakes were incredibly sweet. After eating one, I decided I needed to find people to give them to. Thankfully I was in Edmonton visiting my sister when I made these, so she and her room mate were lovingly left a few. Now I just need to find some takers for the rest. Don't get me wrong, they are delicious, but again, the smell alone may bring on diabetes, so I really shouldn't eat more than one... well, maybe two.

Any takers? 

I'll even deliver! : )

Happy Easter!

Hot Chocolate

I love hot chocolate. It makes me happy. It's a great drink on a cold day, when you just want to curl up with a book or watch a movie. It also compliments toast and peanut butter wonderfully. There are so many varieties of hot chocolate out there as well; the classic milk chocolate, milk chocolate with mini marshmallows, dark chocolate, white chocolate, mint chocolate, rolo, hazelnut, irish creme.... I could go on and on..... But this kind of hot chocolate is not one you drink. It may just make an already classic and fabulous treat even more fabulous. In fact, I'm not sure if I can go back to the original after this.

Hot 

Chocolate 

Rice 

Krispie 

Squares

That's right. You read that correctly. I wish I could take credit for this idea, but I can't. I found the recipe online one day when randomly searching. Someday I'll come up with something this amazing all on my own!

All you do is add 6 Tbsp. of hot chocolate to your melted butter and marshmallows. Just follow the regular rice krispie recipe. Another tip: Use cocoa rice krispies instead of the original. Once you add the rice krispies to your melted marshmallow mixture, mix in some more marshmallows, and once it's all smoothed out in the pan, gently press more marshmallow on top of your krispies.  

Now you can enjoy hot chocolate even on a hot day! 

Banana Split Cupcakes

Yum. That's all I can say about these. They weren't too sweet, and I actually felt kind of healthy eating them, and not like I was gorging myself on sugar. The recipe I used can be found here. A cupcake full of strawberries, pineapple, banana, chocolate chips, and wal-nuts? How can you go wrong. I think my favorite part is just adding the chocolate syrup after to make them look like little ice cream delights!

The only thing that I would change, is that I had used bananas that had been frozen. So my icing was a little runny, just because the banana was kind of watery. Next time, no frozen bananas! Then I'll be able to make the icing pile much higher like in the picture I posted previously! Enjoy!

Wow.

After posting so often for a short period of time, it seems weird that I haven't posted anything, but not to worry! The end of this month is full of more baking! I have my 4th Wedding cake, due for delivery on Good Friday, then Cadbury Creme Egg Cupcakes for Easter, and Cadbury mini-egg cookies, and hot chocolate rice krispie treats in the works! So more yumminess and drooling on the keyboard to come!

Oh, and I did get my banana split cupcakes made before the end of March! I am just awaiting pictures from my lovely photographer (she has 3 kids, so she's a tad busy!) As soon as I get them, I'll let you see and share the recipe! They were delicious! (I ate 2! Which is a big thing for me, since I rarely eat what I make. I enjoy giving it away more!)