The baking bug strikes again!

Yesterday at work, a vendor brought us a chocolate cake. She had brought one exactly like it a week or so ago, and while the flavor was good, it was a little too moist for my taste. I'm not sure what it was because it was fully baked through ... I don't really know. It was a double layer chocolate cake with a chocolate cool whip frosting. Right between the two layers is where it was really, really moist. Has anybody else had a cake that was like that?

I couldn't eat it, even though I really wanted to since I'd been craving chocolate cake for a couple days ... so I made up my mind that afternoon that I was going to go home and bake some really good chocolate cupcakes :D

Have you had cupcakes from "Hey Cupcake"??

The first time I had my first Hey Cupcake, we were visiting in Austin. I had the Red Velvet and my sister had the Michael Jackson.

She loved hers so much she insisted I make some of my own.

So I researched different chocolate cupcake recipes, until I finally developed my own.

I had to test one! Soooo good!

Here are the "MJ's" - all done! [Chocolate cupcakes with chocolate chips, and cream cheese frosting]

I finally got a pastry bag with tips to decorate the tops of the cupcakes; with all the kitchen tools that I have, I actually didn't have one of these! It's a cheapie one I got at HEB but it worked so well! And as you can see, I still need some practice on the frosting. Practice makes perfect! :)

Red Velvet Cupcakes

Now I generally make it a point not to bake anything from a box or a bag. Not because I believe it's evil, or think it's lazy - but because I like to challenge myself to make it from scratch.

I had this little guy hanging out in my pantry for a few months, good thing it's expiration date was not until later this year :)

***Bad picture lighting warning! I don't know why, but my pictures always come out with a yellow-ish tint in them :(

My Aunt had given it to me for Christmas

I think it was maybe last week that Danny mentioned to me that I should clean out our pantry since I'm weird and I like to do things like that. He saw this package and asked me if I was ever going to bake these. He was ready to go right on and throw it away.

I love cream cheese frosting on almost anything so that was the decision maker for me right there, I was going to bake them!

I finally remembered to buy some cream cheese, it was the only thing I didn't have! Shocker! I know. lol.

So away we went!

Here they are fresh out of the oven :) They smelled amazing!

The package said the yield was 12 cupcakes, but being since I'm me - I only have jumbo cupcake pans, haha. So I only ended up with 9

Here they are in their cream cheese frosting awesomeness:

The verdict?

Delicious!! Now I just have to figure out how to replicate the homemade version!

Catching up

I can't belive I haven't posted anything in a week! It'd be understandable if I was busy, busy, busy ... but I really wasn't :(

I did read everybody's blogs though; however, I wasn't able to post any comments on anybody's blog. That made me kind of frustrated. On almost all comments I tried to post it'd ask for my google id, take me to a sign in page - then I would sign in and it would take me back to the comment post page only to preview it as an anonymous comment o.O

It seems to be a common problem among other bloggers, I just hope it gets resolved soon.

This is gonna be one of those "dump posts".

Nothing excited happened last week, except our brisket BBQ at work which turned out really well! I contributed dessert, which I was really excited to do. I made 4 rum cakes just to make sure that there was plenty for all of our 43+ employees. They turned out fabulous and everybody loved them. One guy even asked if he could buy one from me later this week :) He caught me off guard, so I told him I'd sell him one for $10.00

I took some picutres while I baked:

^^ My baby in action! lol.

^^ 2 down, 2 to go!

^^ Danny was out gigging with the band one night, and I needed to make sure he or anybody else wouldn't eat the 2 that were ready by Thursday! - You know, to ensure their survival for Friday's BBQ

^^ The Smokester, mommy's little helper ;)

Well, no not really but he did keep me company.

The weekend was pretty chill - we didn't do much of anything. We did a BBQ on Sunday with the band, that was pretty fun. But I fail, as I did not take any pictures :( Not a single one.

I had Memorial Day off, which was ok on Sunday but then I felt kinda bad that I wasn't able to work ... that's like 9 hours I'm gonna miss off next weeks paycheck :( I rested up a lot, more than I needed to I think because I feel really tired right now ... lol. I'm sure it'll even itself out later this week.

Cheesecake

So I'm a big believer in that desserts taste better when they're homemade. I don't buy store bought desserts. I'll only buy ice cream because Hubby hasn't gotten me the ice cream maker attachment for my Kitchen Aid Mixer ... but that's another story.

A co-worker brought us ladies in the office a cheescake one Friday. And I'll tell you it looked delicious! He brought it on a Friday, and for some reason we just didn't get around to eating it. So I took it home with me seeing as I was the last one in the office and we hate to leave food in the office over the weekend.

I did not like it! I thought it was way too sweet and it didn't really have that cheesecake taste. At least I didn't think so. Hubby on the other hand, claimed it was delicous and better than any one I'd made.

O.o

?! I could not believe those words that came out of his mouth. But now that I think about it, he probably only said that so that I would make another one ....

We'd only had a piece or two at the time and the rest just stayed in the fridge for a few days.

Then we had a BBQ and our guests finished that store bought ickyness. lol. They also said it was delicious! So right then and there I claimed I could make a better chessecake and that I would .. the next day.

lol. I kept my word! Here is my cheesecake:

The verdict?

AWESOME!

I could've been a bigger badass and made the strawberry topping from scratch - but nah. lol. Those I bought canned.

:-)

Turkey Day [Desserts]

This Thanksgiving I only baked 3 things :( It was a little something to adjust to, since in years past I've made more than a handful of things for dessert. I still slept the same amount of hours the night before Thanksgiving. But alas, I only baked:

A lemon meringue pie

A Pumpkin Pie and a double layered carrot cake.

All were delicious! Even my not-completely thickened cream cheese frosting I used on the cake. It still tasted great! And afterall, isn't that all that matters?? hahaha. ;-)

We had Thanksgiving lunch with Danny's family and boy was it delicious! His dad has these famous biscuits that he makes, melt in your mouth biscuits!! Better than Cracker Barrel biscuits!  True story ;) They always go all out for Turkey Day. Everything was delicious. I was so full! I didn't even bother to leave room for when we would meet up with my family later that day. But then again, my family doesn't do Thanksgiving like Danny's does. 

Overall it was a good day :)

I hope everybody had a great day spent with family and friends!