Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Caramel Dipped Devils Food Cupcake with Pecan Topping



I love to bake. I don't really like to cook that much but baking that's a different story. No cutting or peeling to be done. Just measuring, mixing, and putting in the oven to wait. It always smells so good and the result is normally delicious. I was making some cupcakes for dessert for a spaghetti dinner at the grade school and was trying to use up the rest of the ingredients I had opened to make one more batch of cupcakes. I found a devils food cake mix and I had some canned pumpkin, condensed milk, a a bag of caramels, and a few pecans. I thought that sounded like a turtle candy so I begin dumping everything into the mixing bowl. Here is the recipe:

Caramel dipped Devil's food Cake Cupcake with pecan topping

-Devils food cake mix
-a small can of pumpkin
-1/2 cup oil
-1 egg

Mix cake mix, pumpkin, oil, and egg with mixer. If too thick add a little water to the pumpkin can and pour a little at a time into the mixture until it's at almost at cake consistency. It can be a little thicker than normal.

Fill cupcake liners and bake at 350 degrees for approx 20 to 23 minutes. Check with toothpick to make sure they are done. The pumpkin makes the cupcakes really moist and you can't taste the pumpkin flavor.

Caramel and Pecan Topping

-bag of caramel bits(or 24 whole caramels)
-1/4 cup of condensed milk
-1/4 cup pecan bits

Melt caramel and condensed milk in candy melter. You could also do this in a saucepan but the candy melter is easier when you dip. Let caramel melt completely before dipping.

Let cupcakes cool. Lay out some wax paper. Dip top of cupcakes in the melted caramel. Immediately place a handful of pecans on top of hot caramel. Let stand for about 5 minutes.

ENJOY!

Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Icing



My favorite dessert of all time is my mom's pumpkin cake with cream cheese icing. It is so good it screams come and eat me while I sleep. After I eat a piece it makes me want to run a mile so I can eat another piece(and I hate to run). This recipe is great during fall but I like to enjoy it all year round. Here's the recipe so you can make a pumpkin cake or cupcake:




Pumpkin Cake
2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups sugar
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinammon
4 eggs, well beaten
1 cup oil
2 cups canned pumpkin
Mix Well. Bake at 350 degrees. For cake - bake for 1 1/2 hours. For cupcakes - bake for about 25 minutes, check at 20 minutes with toothpick.

Cream Cheese Icing
1 stick butter
8 oz cream cheese
1 lb box conf sugar (if you don't buy boxes like me is 3 3/4 cups of conf sugar)
1 tsp vanilla
Cream butter and cream cheese together. Beat in Conf Sugar. Add vanilla.

Let cake cool and frost. ENJOY!


To create swirly frosting on your cupcake buy a pack of cake decorator bags. Cut the end off about 1/2 inch up and fill with frosting. Squeeze frosting to the bottom of the bag and swirl onto cupcake starting on outside of cupcake and working inward. YUM.