From Canning to Baking!~Cupcakes, Bread and Cinnamon Rolls

I've been baking up a storm the last few days!

First I baked Chocolate Mocha Cupcakes with Mocha Butter Frosting. They turned out great and we all loved the taste!






Then I baked Onion Soup Bread. I was totally surprised my kiddo loved this bread. He doesn't eat onions, although he likes onion flavor. It has something to do with the texture of onions. I guess the soup didn't have enough to bother him and what little it does have, they are crunchy. He told me it was so good I should make a bunch of loaves and sell them! lol



Today it was rainy here again and damp. I decided to make some home made cinnamon rolls. I used my bread machine on the dough cycle and I don't think it made it any quicker! But they turned out lovely.



Look at that gooey yumminess!



The weather is getting cooler here as well as the days getting shorter. I shouldn't rush fall or winter, it will be long enough on it's own. But I do miss the type of cooking I do during these months.

How about you? What have you been baking?

The ONLY Way To Make Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes

The idea of ice cream cone cupcakes has been around for, uhmmmm, as my kiddo would put it.... decades! lol

I've baked them a few times before for both my sons and it always didn't go as well as the recipe would have you believe it should/would. There are several different methods.

There was the Betty Crocker method (found HERE) that had several problems. Some were top heavy, some of the cones did not "stick" to the batter and had to have the cake "glued" to the cone after baking.

There was the "mini muffin" method, (found here) where you bake mini cupcakes in your mini pan then put the cooked cupcake in a cone, and decorate. When the kids ate them it was a mess! The cupcakes didn't stay in the cone too well.

Then there is the method that has been around for "decades" and Paula Dean likes it. It can be found here. The first time years ago when I baked these and placed them on a cookie sheet, it was disaster with a captial D! Trying to get the filled cupcakes into the oven with out any falling over wasn't easy...BUT after they were in the oven and started baking they have a tendency to fall over also. The cake will bake up until it hits the ridge of the cone then most "tops" fall to one side, causing the cone to fall over.

My attempt at these this past Saturday for my grandson's birthday was the best so far. Leave it to Martha to show us the correct way to do it! lol
Remove center of a 12-inch tube pan and cover pan with a double layer of heavy-duty foil. Use a skewer or paring knife to poke 12 small holes in the foil, 2 1/2 inches apart. Gently place a cone in each hole, pushing it down until only about 1 inch of cone is showing.

I adapted Martha's method to my liking. I covered my 9x13 pan in a DOUBLE layer of foil, used a skewer to poke the holes and stuck my cones in.

I used a Duncan Hines cupcake mix that I had picked up from CVS for FREE using Extra Care Bucks, a tub of Pillsbury frosting that came with sprinkles and Keebler ice cream flat bottomed cones.



Be sure to only fill them up about 3/4 full or they will bake over the cone, make a mess and your cone will not stand up!



Here they are all baked. See how all but one of the tops fell to one side as the cake down in the cone baked and rose?



All frosted and ready for the kiddos! To ice them I used a ziplock bag with the corner snipped off, placed a plastic star tip I saved from a tube of icing a few years ago and piped my soft serve ice cream frosting on top. The kids loved them!



Have you ever made ice cream cone cupcakes? Did they turn out great or did you have a disaster you trashed? Do you have a favorite tip to share when making them? Let me hear them!

Spring Flowers~ Cupcakes

Spring is here and flowers are popping up everywhere... even in my kitchen. :)

I seen these cute Flower Power cupcakes over at Grannies Kitchen and had to make some. The total time on the recipe is over 4 hours and I decided to do mine a little different. I needed something fun to do to relax after working hard all day but didnt have 4 hours.

After baking up a quick batch of cupcakes, all I did was cut my large marshmallows using scissors into 5 pieces. It was really cool how when you cut them the scissors pretty much shaped each petal.
I took another large mallow and cut it into slivers. I rolled a sliver to make the center of the flower (cause I didnt have small mallows).
Next I colored my sugar and decorated! Very easy and fun.

Thanks Grannies Kitchen for sharing.