"Hearty" Cupcakes

Ok, I know the title is corny, but I couldn't help it. Last night we had our friends the Cha's over for dinner. My mom and I made up a baked Italian Ziti with penne pasta, ground beef, Italian bacon, spinach, cheese and onions in a homemade tomato sauce. We also made homemade French bread and salad. The dinner was great and I am learning so much from my mom about how to create something delicious out of minimal ingredients. For dessert I wanted to use these chocolates we got from our Norwegian relatives, they are thin milk chocolate hearts that I used as garnish. Once I cooked the cupcakes, I thought they were too pretty to frost so I just put a dollop of frosting in the middle to secure the chocolate heart. I did not have muffin cups so I had to put the batter straight in the cupcake pans. Trying to get them out of the pan was difficult, there was a a lot of cupcake stuck at the bottom. So while it was moist I cleaned them out and rolled the excess into a ball and placed it into a plastic bag. Then I put it in the freezer for about 2 hours and ate it later. It was delicious! It tasted like a homemade truffle, so I made about 6 of them. I found the recipe online and it is really simple. This recipe makes about 16 cupcakes.

Ingredients

1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/8 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons butter, softened

1 1/2 cups white sugar

2 eggs

3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup milk

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line a muffin pan with paper or foil liners. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cocoa and salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well with each addition, then stir in the vanilla. Add the flour mixture alternately with the milk; beat well. Fill the muffin cups 3/4 full.

Bake for 15 to 17 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean. Frost with your favorite frosting when cool.

Makeshift Cookie Cutters

Toothbrush/ Carrot Cookies

A few weeks ago my mom had a group of friends from her dental office over for dinner and she had promised them all toothbrush shaped sugar cookies. Years ago, when she graduated from dental hygiene school she got these toothbrush cookie cutters from my aunt Pam. just a few hours before the dinner my mom and I were preparing and she discovered that she no longer had those cookie cutters. She had lent them out and never got them back. She was terribly distressed, knowing that she had told everyone that these cookies would be there. Trying to help, I looked through the rest of the cookie cutters and found a carrot shaped one from an easter package. I looked at and thought it could pass for a toothbrush so I temporarily bent it to look the part. I spent two hours frosting each cookie while my mom and our friend Matthew continued cooking dinner. So what do you think? Can you tell they were carrots?