Happy Love Day!

I had uploaded a post last night that I thought would cover me for today but I just have so much I want to talk about. LOL That and I've had several requests to share the cupcake recipes from last night.
I made Guinness & Baileys cupcakes & Strawberry Pop Tart cupcakes. Yummmmmm - sneak peak.

I should start by saying thanks for the interest in my cupcake sweatshirts! How cool is that. I'm so excited that people will be wearing them all over the country. :) I always type sweetshirts and then the little red squigly line shows up to correct my spelling. Well you know what?! I like sweetshirts better. Deal with it.

I'm glad you guys don't have to read these in real time. I just took a 3 minute break so I could sing along with Jack Johnson. Ok, maybe more than 3 minutes. So why don't we get together, so we could waste everything....lalalalalala. My desk dancing is really something in itself. I basically just bounce up and down to the music. I bet that's what I do most of the time when I dance anyways : /
And now Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah is playing. Have you ever heard them? They are strange but really catchy. Here - check this out and tell me it didn't gee stuck in your head......

Just clap your hands.....in the milk and honey.......

Ack. Sorry, I'm back. :) Easily distracted. Back to the blog. 

Justin really nailed it this Valentines Day. I am never quite sure what to expect from him on holidays. Last year he basically forgot my birthday (which I will never ever ever let him live down) and then when he did get me a gift he got me a flash drive and a bumper sticker. I know all you girls out there have audibly gasped out loud at this point. It's ok tho - he made up for it. On Christmas.... LOL. Anyways we decided to open gifts last night because Justin had to be to work at 9 this morning and I certainly didn't want to get up that early. We did cards and coffee this morning. This is what he got me - 

A cool little portable speaker so I can listen to my jams at work. 

This adorable sign. Lately I've been obsessed with teal. And owls. And always, the moon. It's perfect. 

When we lived in Seattle I painted owls on our wall in the bathroom I loved how they turned out and miss those little guys. See - 

Justin also made me this picture. He painted the frame, cut the fabric and laid out the letters. I love it. I can list the things I love on one hand. In no particular order they are 1.My Horse 2. My Family 3. Coffee 

 4. The Beatles and 5. My Friends. So I thought it was really sweet that he picked a Beatles quote. 

On top of that he sent me flowers at work and got me a gift card to the coffee shop next door. Smart man! He also got me the Tigers hoodie that he has owed me for 2 years now. I made a deal that I would watch the first 3 star wars movies if he got me a tigers hoodie. Never again folks, never again. LOL

                                                

And this is pretty silly. we got each other the same card! From 2 separate stores. I had to laugh when I opened mine. Guess that's what soul mates is all about. 

Pretty awesome Valentines Day if you ask me. Tonight the farrier comes out to check Miss Muffin out and he will hopefully give us the go ahead to start working her again. She's been a huge bundle of energy lately and I'm sure she wants to get out and run around. I'm so glad to see her on the mend. Silly horse. 

Let's talk cupcakes. I posted a few pictures of the cupcakes I made last night and got a few requests for the recipes. I'm happy to share and I really hope you try them out! Also, pics or it didn't happen! 

I'll start with the Strawberry Pop Tart ones:

This is a recipe that I followed to a T - I don't usually do that. I generally just wing it and guesstimate. Guess I was being nice :)

Vanilla Cake:

White Cake Mix

2 eggs

2 egg whites

1/4 cup oil

1 cup buttermilk

1/3 cup sour cream

3 teaspoons vanilla extract

I dumped it all in my mixing bowl and let it mix away. Scrape the bottom of the bowl on occasion with a spatula. Then mix some more. Once thoroughly mixed and in your cupcake pans bake at 325 for 20 minutes. I like to bake mine for longer at a lower temp because it seems like if I don't they explode. Ick. 

After you pull them out of the over let them cool. And no "still sort of warm-ish" isn't cool enough for frosting. 

Once cool mix a bit of water with some powdered sugar until it's a thick sort of paste. 

Glaze:

2 Tablespoons hot water

1 1/4 cup powdered sugar

It's easiest if you put your glaze in a small round bowl. You'll then dip your cupcake (upside down) into the glaze and let the excess run off. I get bored after awhile so I twirl them around and try to make designs on the bowl. Once they are all glazed let them sit for 20 minutes or so until the glaze gets stiff. 

Strawberry Buttercream:

1 cup butter, softened

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 box strawberry jello

3-4 cups powdered sugar

Bring your butter to room temp or softened. Whip it real good in your mixer until it is smooth. add 2 cups powdered sugar & gradually add more until it's frosting like. Add 1 tablespoon water to your box of jello and mix well. Let sit until your ready for it. Add aprox 4 tablespoons milk to your frosting and then whip for 5 minutes on medium speed to fluff it up a bit. Then dump your strawberry mix in. Mix it well and you should be ready to frost some cupcakes. 

I generally go with the Wilton 2D tip when I'm decorating. It's the big guy. 

Then if you want to get super fancy buy some strawberry pop tarts and while pretending your Godzilla and your smashing all the little houses break them into bite sized pieces for decoration. 

Like so:

check out that icing! Totally worth that extra 20 minutes. 

RIP Pop Tart. NOM NOM NOM ! 

On to the Guinness Cupcakes:

Cupcakes:

1 cup Guinness beer (Bonus: the cans have 2 cups of beer in them. What on earth should you do with the extra cup??)

2 sticks unsalted butter

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 cups sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

3/4 teaspoon salt

2 large eggs

1/2 cup sour cream

Melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat until the butter melts. Add the Guinness and mix well.  Add cocoa powder and whisk until smooth.  Remove from heat and set aside.

Combine the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, eggs and sour cream.  Beat until combined. Like in a mixer, not in an emotionally damaging way. Get it together people!  Add the beer mixture to the eggs and beat again, until combined. 

Fill cupcake liners about 2/3 full with batter.  Bake at 325 until a toothpick, knife, spaghetti or any other pointy object inserted in the middle comes out clean – about 20 minutes.  Let cool in the pan for about 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

For the Frosting:

2 stick unsalted butter

4 cups powdered sugar

5 tablespoons Bailey’s Irish Cream (or to your taste) And by to your taste I seriously mean taste this while gradually adding booze. It is really easy to go overboard and get drunk off your cupcakes. Just saying...........

To make the frosting:  Place the butter in mixer and beat on medium-high speed until fluffy, about 3 minutes.  Slowly add the powdered sugar to the bowl and continue beating until completely incorporated.  Add the Bailey’s and mix until smooth, adding more if necessary to get the desired consistency for frosting. Feel free to add milk to thin it out and fluff it up a bit. You don't have to keep pouring booze in. But you could pour yourself a drink if you'd like. 

Frost the cupcakes as desired.

I made a Baileys Butterscotch gnoche and it just about knocked me over when I tasted it. I recommend adding less baileys to this. 

 2 cups butterscotch chips

1/3 cup Baileys

Throw your chips in the microwave in 15 second intervals until melted. Then mix well and add baileys. mix mix mix until it's a thick syrup consistency. The easy way to add the drizzle is to put your gnoche in a ziplock baggie and cut the corner off. 

Here's a disclaimer - by this point you have more than likely finished the Guinness you didn't use, made yourself a Baileys and coffee and had several tastings of your frosting and gnoche. Bake responsibly! Just because you can't feel your fingers and you've been dancing around the kitchen like an idiot the oven is still very hot! VERY HOT! Don't grab sh*t without oven mits on. Also don't continue to wear the over mits and pretend you're a seal. No one needs to see that. 

Pics or it didn't happen -

So there you have it. Any questions? Enjoy! 

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