Chocolate Cake/Cupcakes

I LOVE a good chocolate cake. This is one of my favorite go-to recipes. It's so easy to make, it turns out perfect every time and I always have the ingredients in my pantry. It's just as easy to make as using a cake mix and tastes SO much better.

One of my favorite memories from growing up was making this cake on Sunday evenings with my family. Sundays were church and family day and after Sunday dinner it was kind of tradition to make some type of treat (or Mollicks as we like to call them in my family). My brother, Andy, always seems to be the unofficial person that made this cake. It was kinda his thing. We would take a piece of warm cake right out of the oven and pour cold milk over it and devour it. We also affectionately referred to this cake as "snacking cake" because it is so delicious by itself that you don't need any frosting. Not that a good frosting would hurt this cake, but it really is so yummy plain. I made these cupcakes for my birthday with a fresh strawberry frosting that was so yummy. Honestly, this is my favorite chocolate cupcake recipe.

This recipe is versatile because it makes a great cake, double-layer cake or cupcakes. The cupcakes are slightly dense and very moist. They also hold up really well when doing filled cupcakes.

Here's what you need:
-1/2 C butter (one stick), room temperature
-1 1/2 C sugar
-2 eggs
-2 tsp. vanilla
-1/4 C cocoa powder (double this if you want a more intense chocolate flavor)
-2 C all-purpose flour
-1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
-1 tsp. salt
-1 1/4 C water

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine butter and sugar in a medium mixing bowl. Cream together until fluffy, about a minute. Add eggs and vanilla and mix to combine evenly.

2. In a separate bowl combine all dry ingredients and whisk together to incorporate them. If you want to sift them together you can, but I just give it a quick stir with a whisk to make sure all dry ingredients are incorporated.

3. Pour half of the water into first wet mixture  Mix just until combine. Pour in half of dry mixture and mix just until combine. Pour the remaining half of water into bowl and mix until combine. Mix in the remaining dry ingredients.

4. Grease and flour baking pan or use cupcake liners. If using (2) round pans, I always line the bottom of pan with a circle of parchment paper to ensure that cakes can be easily removed from the pan.

Cupcakes: Fill liners 2/3 full and bake at 350 degrees for 18-20 minutes.
Cake 9x13: Bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes
(2) 9-in round cakes: Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes

**Cakes are done with you touch the center of the cake and it springs back without leaving an indent of your finger. Or when you insert a toothpick and it comes out clean. I always bake the minimum time and then recheck it every minute or two until done. 

5. For round cakes and cupcakes: Remove pan(s) from oven and allow to rest for about 5 minutes. Remove cake or cupcakes and transfer to a cooling rack. You can frost once cake is completely cooled.
    For 9x13 cake: Remove from oven and eat cake while warm or allow to cool completely in pan before frosting.

Chocolate Cupcakes with Fresh Strawberry Frosting
{www.somethingquitedomestic.blogspot.com}

Here is the printable recipe.


Enjoy and Happy Baking!

Brave Birthday Food, Part 1

Doing themed birthdays can take some work and require planning and preparation. I did a Brave birthday for my daughter and I found a lot of cute ideas of how to incorporate the theme into the food we served. Just like I've said before, you don't have to take tons of time to be creative and festive. I got most of my ideas from Pinterest and then I tried to think of different ways to serve cute food without having to spend a lot of time doing it. I decided to make my daughter a themed cake from scratch and knowing that would take the majority of my time, I tried to find ways to cut corners elsewhere without compromising the theme.

At the party we served Arrow cupcakes, Bullseye cakes, Bear claws and Target practice pizza. This post will focus on those and then I'll make a separate post about the birthday cake. I also used some cute Brave themed printable food tags from Printabelle. There is a whole Brave themed printable party pack on that website that you can print for free. There were SO many cute party ideas.

The Witches Green Potion: I had planned to make this cucumber lime drink and then completely spaced it during last-minute party preparations. This is one of my all-time favorite drinks to serve at a party. It's easy to make and it is SO refreshing. I get a lot of compliments when I make it. I got this recipe from one of my favorite sites for all things festive: So Festive!. All you need to do is add a few drops of green food coloring (I know it's not the most healthful, but birthdays are but once a year!) and it would make a yummy green potion that fits perfectly in the theme! If you are against food coloring, you could drop some scoops of green sherbet after the ice melts to make more of a slushy drink.

Target Practice pizza: My daughter loves Pizza and this was a cute way to incorporate it into the party. If you couldn't tell from the picture, these were pizzas from Papa Murphy's. I called a few days before the party to preorder the pizzas and also asked if they could arrange the pepperoni in the shape of a target. I could have easily done this myself, but I figured they had to put the pepperoni on anyways and it would save me a lot of time the day of the party. My local Papa Murphy's store was happy to help and I think the pizza turned out cute. This saved SO much time.

The Bullseye cakes: These were the easiest things to make! I used the Little Debbie cream-filled snack cakes that I had leftover from when I made the birthday cake. I used some leftover buttercream frosting to draw on the target with a writing tip and piping bag, dyed a little frosting red and used a Red Hot in the center. I got those little cocktail toothpicks that have the wispy stuff at the end and voila! You now have a cute Bullseye cake. I prepped these about an hour or so before the party. You could prep these the day before, but just keep them in an airtight container.

The Arrow cupcakes: I made vanilla bean cookie dough cupcakes (I will post the recipe once it's perfected) with buttercream frosting. This is my absolute favorite recipe for whipped buttercream. It's from Our Best Bites and I love making it and substituting the white sugar with brown sugar. To save extra time you could easily make cupcakes from a cake mix and it would still taste good because the frosting is to die for. I made the arrow toppers from this site, Cue the Confetti, and they were SO easy to make and it really tied in the theme. K loves cupcakes!

I actually made these about 5 days before the party and froze them. I took them out the day of and frosted them. I kept them refrigerated because my frosting required refrigeration,but these could be left out if using a different frosting. This is one of my secrets for cupcakes and cakes--they freeze well so when you make a batch just make extra and toss them in the freezer. They'll keep for a month or two in an airtight container.

Bear Claw cookies: I saw this idea on Spoonful via Pinterest and I had to make them. These took a little bit of time, but they fit perfectly with the theme that I couldn't leave them out. I was in a pinch for time so I didn't follow the recipe on the original website, but rather used a quick recipe for Cake Mix Cookies (that I also use when I'm making homemade Oreos). I got about 25 claws out of this batch. I also made these the day before the party and stored them in an airtight container. You could also make these and freeze them and then thaw out the day of your party.

I'm going to show you how I made these. They look a little more complicated, but they are easy to do.

Here's what you need:
-Any dry cake mix (I used Devil's Food)
-1/2 C shortening
-2 eggs
-2-3 TBS water
*1/2 C of slivered almonds

Just mix all the ingredients (except for almonds) together in a large mixing bowl. Normally you would spoon drops on to a baking sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes, but I had to get them into the claw shape first.

Here's how to make the claw:

1. Take a TBS measuring spoon (or cookie scoop if you have it) and a 1/2 TBS measuring spoon to make 2 balls. I did this directly on a parchment-lined baking sheet so that I wouldn't have to transfer them before baking.

2. Push down on both of the cookie dough balls and lightly shape them into the form of a foot.

3. Take 5 slivered almonds and place them into the cookie dough to look like the claws.

4. Bake at 350 degrees for about 10-12 minutes. Remove from oven when done and allow the cookie to rest 5 minutes or so before trying to remove them to a cooling rack. If you try to do this step while they are still warm, they will break.

Here's the printable recipe.


Enjoy and Happy Baking! Hope these ideas were helpful to you. I loved how fun it was to plan a Brave Birthday party.

Butterscotch Spice Cupcakes

I have this thing for cupcakes. I don't know what the obsession is, but I seriously love cupcakes. I frequent local bakery shops trying to find the perfect cupcake. But I'm not gonna lie, I've turned into a cupcake snob. I can find GOOD cupcakes, but not the "oh-my-heck-these-knock-my-socks-off cupcakes." Either the cupcake is a little too dry or the frosting leaves that filmy, greasy texture in my mouth.

I have tried several recipes trying to find the perfect cupcake. Well, I think this recipe is pretty dang close. I made a double batch of these delicious cups of heaven and took them to my work to let my co-workers sample. One co-worker said, "I'm not into cupcakes, but these are so delicious!" This same co-worker also said she didn't like homemade frosting because her mom never made good frosting, so she prefers store-bought (*gasp* I know!). It's been my mission in life to introduce her to lick-your-fingers delicious homemade frosting. My mission was accomplished with this cupcake. More to come later on that.

These cupcakes remind me of Fall. They are so full of flavor and contain everything great about Fall: spices, pumpkin and butterscotch. Then, when you think THAT can't get any better, those spices and pumpkin marry butterscotch and create this gloriously delicious cupcake. These cupcakes are moderately dense, extremely moist and have the perfect combination of spices, pumpkin and butterscotchy goodness. This recipe is definitely going to be added to our list of Fall traditions. I think these would be perfect for a Thanksgiving dinner if you want something different than the usual Pumpkin pie. They are pretty easy to make and all of the ingredients I had on hand.

 So here's what you need:
-(1) Duncan Hines spice cake mix
-(3) large eggs
-1/2 C. water
-1/3 C. canola oil
-1 C. pumpkin (plain, packed pumpkin)
-(1) tsp. real vanilla
-(1) small box of instant butterscotch pudding (not prepared)
-3/4 tsp. Pumpkin Pie spice
-6 oz of butterscotch chips (about 1/2 of a standard bag of baking chips)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 muffin tins with 22 cupcake liners (I love, love, love the foil liners made by Reynolds. The cupcakes stick less to the foil liners and makes a gorgeous presentation).

2. In a large mixing bowl, add cake mix, eggs, water, oil, pumpkin, pudding and spice. Mix well until incorporated. Add butterscotch chips.

3. Scoop batter and portion evenly into liners and fill to about 2/3 full. This batter doesn't rise a ton, so I use this little beauty and it made this step so easy and all of my cupcakes were uniform. I got this at my local restaurant supply store for about $8. It is a DSS24 size which is holds 1 3/4 oz.


4. Bake at 350 degrees for about 14-16 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Take out of oven and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

5. Once cupcakes are completely cook, frost with your favorite frosting. When I made these cupcakes, I used the Biscoff Spice Cream frosting recipe. It's so yum!

Printable recipe:

Butterscotch Spice Cupcakes
Makes about 22 cupcakes

(1) Duncan Hines spice cake mix
(3) large eggs
1/2 C. water
1/3 C. canola oil
1 C. pumpkin (plain, packed pumpkin)
(1) tsp. vanilla
(1) small box of instant butterscotch pudding (not prepared)
3/4 tsp. Pumpkin Pie spice
6 oz of butterscotch chips (about 1/2 of a standard bag of baking chips)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 muffin tins with 22 liners. In a large mixing bowl combine cake mix, eggs, water, pumpkin, vanilla, pudding and spices. Mix well to incorporate. Add butterscotch chips and stir. Scoop evenly into muffin tins, filling to about 2/3 full. Bake for 14-16 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool completely then frost.