Chocolate Chiffon Cupcakes with Rosewater Frosting

This chocolate cake is divine.  Like completely amazing.

It's rich and chocolaty - but also very light and airy.

Don't be afraid of the meringue.  That's what makes it so light, and really the mixer does all the work anyway.

When you fold it together you get this beautiful, fluffy batter.

Oh! My!

I saw this recipe on Rosie's blog as a cake and decided to make it into a cupcake.  I had to change it a bit (mostly just cook time).  It is luscious.....

The frosting is heavenly.  Not too sweet; the light familiar scent of roses adding just a hint of flavor whipped until fluffy and tinted with pink food coloring to create a beautiful contrast next to the dark cupcake.

You should really make these today. (and tomorrow, too).

You may be wondering why I crammed this lovely cupcake into a jar.  Well, if your name is Morgan, and you just moved to the land of Far Far Away. . . you have a surprise headed to you! 

Chocolate Chiffon Cupcakes
Rosewater Frosting

Maw Maw Annie's Fudge

My Maw Maw Annie was a special lady.  She loved her family with everything in her.  Growing up we spent a lot of time with Maw Maw Annie and Paw Paw Joe.

Every time we would go to their house (and we're talking 3, 4, 5 days a week) the island in the kitchen would be lined with Rubbermaid containers, each one holding someone's favorite snack.  Everyone's favorites were there.  I could go on and on about her forever, but today I want to tell you about her fudge.

Every year at Christmas, and only at Christmas (save for a few special requests), she would make fudge.  It was always eagerly anticipated.  Maw Maw Annie would make the fudge, and Paw Paw Joe would stir the pot for her.  Every. Time.  They were amazing.  This highly regarded, once a year process ended when Paw Paw Joe passed away.  Because there was no one to stir the pot.

I always thought fudge-making was a super difficult and long process.  So when Bug asked me to make some, I kind of put her off about it for a while.  When I finally called my mom to get the recipe I was pretty surprised - it only took about 30 minutes to make it!  Mom scanned the page from Maw Maw's reciped book and emailed it to me so I would have it in my grandmother's handwriting. . . it's actually the one on the back of the Marshmellow Creme jar.

I set out to making a batch of fudge, laid it out to cool and ended up off in another corner of the house doing something else.  Which is about the time Tank climbed up onto the counter and helped himself to the pan.

Before I was able to cut it into nice, neat squares and take beautiful pictures of fudge to make your mouth water . . . well, life interviened.  The pan ended up looking like this:

*yes, he was using that very sharp knife to dig in the pan.  And since he was not bleeding when I found him, yes I was more worried about the fudge at that particular time.

You can print the recipe and make some for your family. . . maybe ask someone special to stir the pot???  And for heaven's sake - guard the pan while it's cooling!

Lemon Blueberry Goodness - Works For Me Wednesday

Gooooooooooood morning!

Or at least it is when you've got these guys around to feed your crew.

Breakfast time is a struggle at our house.  Really, almost everything about the morning can cause a struggle at our house.  There's a reason for that; I'll admit it - I'm not a morning person - neither is Bug.  Must be a girl thing, the guys are always ready to face the day...and they want breakfast shortly after (or directly as) their feet hit the floor.  For us, the best thing is to plan and prepare ahead of time.

In my constant search for prepare-ahead breakfast foods - I found these at Smitten Kitchen.  They are SUPER. YUM.  The lemon flavor is so fun and bright.  It really shines through.  And the blueberries - well - WOW!  They're way easy to make, and they come out looking really fancy.Throw them together at night (like TOnight)...have a few after the kids are in bed...AND go to sleep knowing breakfast is already taken care of. Total. Win. (!)

Grab all of this

Lemon Bar & Crumb Top

1 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup cold unsalted butter (2 sticks)
1 egg
1/4 teaspoon salt
Zest of 1 large lemon

1 Tbsp lemon juice (FRESH!)

Blueberry Layer

3 cups fresh blueberries
1/2 cup white sugar
3 teaspoons cornstarch

1 Tbsp lemon juice (FRESH!)

Oven = 375 degrees

Go ahead and butter a 9x13 pan so it's ready when you need it.

Put the dough blade in your food processor and mix all the Lemon Bar & Crumb Top ingredients.  I like to layer the butter in there.  (You can do this by hand, in a bowl, with a fork if you don't have a food processor).

Pulse it until it's nice and crumbly.  You'll probably have to stop a couple of times and run a rubber spatula around the edges of the bowl.

Reserve 1 1/2 cups of this mixture for the top.  Gently press the rest into the bottom of your buttered pan.

Check blueberries for stems.  Rinse them and pat dry.  In medium bowl mix blueberries, white sugar, cornstarch and lemon juice.  Stir.

Spread evenly over lemon bar mixture in pan.

Sprinkle the 1 1/2 cups reserved lemon bar mixture over the blueberries.

Bake for about 45 minutes, or until the crumbly top starts to get all browned and irresistible looking.

Let them cool.  If you can restrain yourself, that is.  They'll be smelling pretty good by now.

Once they're cooled they can be cut into squares and served, or refrigerated until morning (they'll be okay for a few days...if you don't eat them all first).

Here's the printable!

Making breakfast ahead of time Works For Me!

See what's working for everyone else...

Also linking up at Mingle Monday

Avocado Buttercream Frosting on Banana Cupcakes

I know, I know...this doesn't sound good.  But it looks good, doesn't it!?!

And it smells like a big ol' hunk of heaven!  Oh - you don't have a scratch-n-sniff monitor?  Then you should bake some.  Tonight - or today, if you bake during daylight hours.  Crazy as it sounds, you will thank me.  Or actually, you should thank Jessica over at How Sweet Eats.  She's the brains behind this cupcake/frosting combination that brought a SWAT Team to its knees. 

You remember these, don't you?  I talked about them for Bug's birthday.  Yea, right there on that tray with the fruit.

I really can't say enough about them.  The combination of the cupcake flavor with the avocado butter cream is perfect.  That's really the only way to describe it.  Have you ever had butter cream icing and though it just needed a little something to take the edge off of the sugar?  It turns out, avocado is just that thing.  It's the little something special that rounds out the flavor and balances everything.  It's pure bliss!

So without further ado, let's bake!

Pre-heat the oven to 350.  Drop some cupcake liners in a muffin pan.  Go ahead and sit 2 tablespoons of butter out on the counter.  It needs to be soft for the frosting, so just let it sit out.

 Gather the ingredients.

1 1/3 cups flour
1 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
pinch of nutmeg
1 egg
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 large ripe bananas, mashed
1/4 cup sour cream
1/2 cup butter, melted

Sift the dry stuff into a bowl (flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg).

Mash your bananas (it's okay if you start singing Gwen Stefani's Banana song while you do this, I do it all the time!)

Mix the eggs and brown sugar in the bowl of your stand mixer.

Add vanilla, sour cream and melted butter *YUM*.  Mix until it's all together.

Add the sifted dry stuff....mix.  It should look like peanut butter(!)

Now add the mashed bananas and mix until they're evenly dispersed.
Put the batter into a gallon sized zip top bag, snip off the end

and squeeze into your prepared muffin cups.

Bake for 13-15 minutes.  Yea, that's the smell I'm talking about.  OH! MY!

!!!WAIT!!!

You have to make the frosting.  No, like, you must.  Trust me!  It's fast and painless.  And it'll change your world forever.  I'm serious.

Grab this:

2 ripe avocados
2 tablespoons butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 cups powdered sugar
pinch of salt

Peel the avocados and put them in the bowl of your mixer with the softened butter.  Beat them pretty good until they're creamy (I'm pretty sure it's not possible to get out ALL of the clumps that avocados have, but you can get it pretty creamy).

Now add the sugar and blend.

Drop in the vanilla and salt and blend again.

Taste it!  Don't be scared - it's fantabulous!  Aren't you glad you made it!?!  Okay, now put the spoon down and frost your cupcakes.  I like to pipe them with a round tip so there's plenty icing!

Store these guys in the fridge.  They'll hold up for about 3 days . . . . but they NEVER make it that long at my house.  They usually don't make it past breakfast.  What?!?!?  They've bananas in there - it's totally okay for the kids to have these for breakfast.  Never mind the powdered sugar, really, it's breakfast food all the way!
 

***Click on over to How Sweet Eats for the recipe***

Carrot Cake, Anyone?

I'll admit it, there were days when this would not have even tempted me.

I mean, it's dessert, but there's no chocolate. . . . what's the point in that?  Humpf...but it's John's favorite, and it was his birthday, so I trudged off to make an un-chocolate dessert.

I was pleasantly surprised to see how easy it was to make.  And then something strange happened....I liked the smell coming from the oven.  Could it be?  Might I actually like this vegetable cake?  I doubted it.  The cake cooled and I made some cream cheese frosting to go with it.  Then, being the good sport that I am, I ate some cake . . . you know, for the birthday boy.  But not because I wanted to.  This was a big sacrifice! 

OH WOW!  This cake is delicious!  It's moist and sweet and just a little bit spicy.

I think you should make one too.  Trust me, you'll like it!!! 

Start by measuring out your ingredients:

Then grate your carrots... be careful not to get your nails or knuckles...it happens

and chop the walnuts...

Now that all of your ingredients are ready, preheat the oven and prepare the pans.  {If you're not certain how to best prepare pans, they've been buttered, lined with paper, re-buttered and floured.  I will do a whole post on that one day....I just don't know when :) }



Only one more step in preparing everything... sift the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt

Now - everythings ready to go....just mix it all up!  Start with the eggs and butter.

Whip them on medium high (I use 4 or 5 on my Kitchen Aid) for about 2 minutes.  Turn your mixer down to low and pour in the vanilla

And then the oil (the original recipe I used called for a whole cup of canola oil.  I only had about 3/4 cup of canola so I topped off the cup with olive oil - it turned out a nicer consistency, so I decided to keep it).

Once that's all mixed up (It only takes a minute.  Literally.  One.), add in your sifted flour, cinnamon, baking soda and salt.

Stir until there are no more white powder streaks.  You should have a beautiful smooth batter, like this

then add in the good stuff:  carrots, walnuts and pineapple.

Blend that until there are no little clumps, then divide evenly between your pans.

Bake for about half an hour and it'll look like this.

Transfer to a wire wrack to cool.

Then frost it with cream cheese frosting (I am so sorry the pictures are dark. It was late at night when I was baking. Please imagine beautiful sunny backgrounds. Unless of course you're nocturnal like me, then these look great to you)

and top with a few chopped walnuts.

You're done!  Enjoy!
 

Get the printable recipe here.

And the printable for the icing here...
Or see the blog post about here.