10/14/2008

Cupcakes-a-go-go & Giveaway

It's National Cupcake Week! October 18th is the official National Cupcake Day, but we're celebrating all week around here! Here are the ones I made for dinner tonight:
In honor of that perfect little culinary confection, we're having a giveaway! Just leave a comment and you're entered to win a new copy of my very favorite cupcake idea book: Hello, Cupcake!
Our Favorite Cake Mix Fixes (for fast and fabulous cupcakes!)

Fresh, Fruity, & Fun (this is our very favorite and the one I made today)
Ingredients:
1 pkg. Duncan Heinz cake mix---chocolate or yellow works best but you can use whatever.
¼ c. flour (for high altitudes only)
1 can mandarin oranges (about 11 oz.)
3 eggs
1/3 c. oil

Instructions:
Put oranges (juice and all) in blender and mix. Combine blended oranges and all other ingredients in a bowl and mix well. Put in cupcake pans with liners (or sprayed) and bake as directed on box.

Red Velvet Cupcakes from The Cake Mix Doctor

Ingredients:
1 package (18.25 ounces) plain German chocolate cake mix
1 package (3.4 ounces) vanilla instant pudding mix
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 bottle (1 ounce) red food coloring--yep, the whole bottle!
3 large eggs
1 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350. Place the cake mix, pudding mix, sour cream, water, oil, food coloring, and eggs in a large mixing bowl. Blend with an electric mixer on low speed for 30 seconds, scrape sides and continue to mix until well-blen ded. Fold in the chocolate chips. Spoon into lined cupcake cups, filling it three quarters of the way full.
Bake the cupcakes until they spring back when lightly pressed with your finger, 18 to 20 minutes.

Holiday Playlist

My grandmother hasn't been doing well...to cheer her up, I rounded up a few of my musical friends and made an album of Holiday songs fo...