Rainbow Cupcakes

I was inspired by Erica's version of Rainbow Cupcakes over at Sweets and Hearts and on Friday night did some for myself. They turned out so cute and REALLY delicious. I didn't really use a recipe, just a box of Pillsbury Funfetti® Cake mix. It was the only white cake mix in the house, I didn't want to make something from scratch and I thought little blobs of color in rainbow cupcakes would be fun. I mixed the cake mix pretty much like normal; the only difference was that I undermixed it a little bit in the mixer because I would be stirring it more to add the coloring. After that I just divided the cake mix more or less evenly among more or less equally sized bowls and added in the food coloring. I think I'm also going to make the batter a little thinner next time so the layers spread out more evenly.

Red through Purple

The purple didn't turn out great and I think next time I'll just omitt it.

You can see the Funfetti® speckles really well in this picture

Stripey!

Blurry, but a good look at the colors

I frosted them with canned vanilla frosting and added some Rainbow sprinkles on top.

I don't know why but these tasted AMAZING! Maybe it was because I hadn't had white cake in so long.

It's officially declared to be the time of the year for pumpkin pie, so once there's room in the refridgerator, that's what I'll be baking up next; I already found a recipe I like in Better Homes and Gardens' New Cookbook. I also found a recipe for apple dumplings so that's next after pie and after I figure out a way to core apples with out an apple corer. If you've never had an apple dumpling I highly recommend them. I had some at Folk Life and they were amazing! Big apple wrapped up in pastry baked with sugar and served with ice cream? YUM!

Lava Cakes

I made chocolate lava cakes tonight for dinner/dessert, using this recipe. It looked pretty easy and straightforward and I liked that it used semi-sweet chocolate chips (which we still have an abundance of from the days of cookies-from-scratch). The only dry ingredients includes lots a sugar, some flour and a pinch of salt. It took about 30-40 minutes for prep and cooking time. If I knew the recipe better, it probably would have taken less time. I also realized in the process of cooking the cakes that my death-by-fat food of choice would have to be butter rolled in chocolate chips...

Yum!

Unfortunately, I cooked them a little too long (14 minutes total, as opposed to the recommended 10-11) in my paranoid-ness. They had doughy not gooey centers, but still tasted delicious and still looked good. I ate two and beached myself on the couch to watch TV afterward.













The Studio space above the garage is finally in a mostly finished state, so I can get to work! Tomorrow is my day to really get started. I was thinking about making chocolate cupcakes from scratch, but it'll depend on how much I get done in the day. I'll post pictures of the space once I get the new futon in there.