Peanut Butter Cup Cupcakes

I made these Chocolate cupcakes with PB chips and topped with PB buttercream and a Reese's PB Cup for a library cakewalk tomorrow.

Since I (like most people) have precious little time to bake in the summer I started with a box of Duncan Hines Dark Choc Fudge cake mix made according to directions, but I added a single serving container of unsweetened applesauce to add moistness. This little tip works so well!

Here is the PB Buttercream recipe

2 1/2 sticks butter, softened 2/3 c. Crisco shortening 3 Tbs heavy cream 2 lbs powdered sugar (about 8 cups) About 1/4 cup Reese's PB Ice Cream Topping a little at a time

Cream together butter and shortening until smooth. Slowly add 2 T. topping and 3 tbs. heavy cream. Gradually add the powdered sugar and scrape down the bowl very well once it's all added. Slowly add topping a Tbs at a time until frosting reaches desired consistency.

Chocolate Cream Filled Cupcakes

Back in the winter, I posted my Famous Chocolate Cake. And dang, it sure is good. I have been wanting to make the recipe into cupcakes for awhile. Last week I finally made them for work.

This week, since I had left over ganache, I made them again for some workers who are here tearing out our garage floor and part of the driveway and replacing it. (Quite a job!)
Always good to bribe the workers! They seemed really happy and surprised to get cuppies. Of course I was glad to make them!

You can find the recipe for the cake here. Below is the recipe for the filling.

Cream Filling
2 T shortening
2 T Butter
1 C 10x sugar
3 T Hersheys Dulce LeLeche Dessert topping
Milk- to thin
In a large bowl, beat butter and shortening together until smooth. Blend in confectioners' sugar. Gradually beat in topping. Beat until light and fluffy. Add milk as needed to desired consistency. Fill a pastry sleeve and pipe into cupcake.

Blueberry Banana Pancakes

Some Sundays after church, Mark likes to make pancakes. Now, he is a standard no frills kind of guy, while I like to mix things up a bit. So he has his plain pancakes, and I usually add something to mine.
This morning he actually went wild and added fresh blueberries to his. Of course, I tossed a lil extra in mine- some cornmeal, a little bit of flax seed, a small amount of oats and a mashed banana.
Top with butter and maybe some syrup and dig in!!

Wretched Cakes

Do you need a laugh??! Well - who doesn't? Check out this website Cake Wrecks. Each post just gets funnier. I especially like the girl/boy cake and the babies on carrots. Funny stuff.

DB Danish Redux

I made my second danish braid today and it DID come out better than the first. I wasn't so anxious this time I guess. I took the dough from the freezer last night , and when thawed I formed my braid and filled it with this cream cheese filling -
12 oz cream cheese
1/3 cups sugar
1 egg
plus a little raspberry jelly down the middle. I let it rise in the fridge overnight and baked this morning. Much better the second time around!