Cream Filled Chocolate Cupcakes

Perfect Pairing:  Candy corn topping

Growing up we didn’t have store bought treats in the house.  When my brothers or I were offered a Little Debbie at a friend’s house, we were all over it.  

What we did have at home were amazing homemade desserts every so often, and those most definitely trumped any Little Debbie treat.  One of my all-time favorites were Cream Filled Chocolate Cupcakes. 

Oh gracious, are these fantastic.  My mom got the recipe from a cookbook created by a Sunday school class at our church, called the Circuit Rider’s Cookbook.  

As a little background, a Circuit Rider was a Methodist minister that would ride on horseback from rural church to rural church to preach the good news. 

Well if you know anything about church ladies, you know they can cook, so this little well-loved cookbook has some real gems in it.  You know you have a jackpot recipe when there are stains all over it!

So what we have here are scrumptious from scratch chocolate cupcakes that are piped full of creamy deliciousness and then iced with chocolate fudge icing.  Little Debbie would be ashamed to stand next to them. 

We always seem to make them in the fall and top them off with a candy corn. 

They are a surefire family favorite!  

One year ago on Perfecting the Pairing: Sloppy Joe Dip

Two years ago on Perfecting the Pairing: Pumpkin Crisp

Three years ago on Perfecting the Pairing: Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

Four years ago on Perfecting the Pairing: Halloween Candy Bark

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Un-Recipe Files: Personalized S’Mores Bar

            

Last year we started a new tradition we like to call Wienerpalooza.  It is a super classy event, as you can imagine.  Basically it is an al fresco party where we serve all sorts of hot dogs and brats cooked over the fire with plenty of toppings.  

You can read about last year’s event on my Mini Chile Cheese Corndog Muffin post. 

Most of the same people were in attendance this year.  We planned it so that it would happen during my best friend’s annual lake visit with her family.  

Love this family!

We had beautiful weather again this year.  I love to see the cute kiddos running around playing.

This was Callie sneaking chips last year.

And this year!  So cute.

There were two new guests this year….

Last year they were just a twinkle in their mama’s eyes and a bump in their belly!

For dessert we did a personalized S’more bar.  While the original s’more is pretty great why not improve it with chocolate graham crackers and a variety of candy?  

My personal favorite was a Reeses instead of the standard chocolate.

I think the personalized s’more bar will be happening every year!

One year ago on Perfecting the Pairing: Lemon Orzo Salad

Two years ago on Perfecting the Pairing: Payday Bar Cookies

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Special, Special K Bars

Perfect Pairing:  Pantry clean-out

Way back when I was in college and living in the sorority we had a very exciting week once a semester called study treat week.  I am not sure study treat week helped us study for finals, but I am pretty sure it helped keep on that college “insulation” that tends to happen.  These were not healthy treats.  They usually included pizza rolls and other frozen novelties as well as our house mom’s famous scotcharoos.  It didn’t help the whole insulation issue when they were put out late at night.  Recipe for trouble, all around.

If you talk to any of my sisters about the food at the house I think ALL of them would mention the scotcharoos.  They would also probably also mention the super weird jalapeño chicken that inexplicably had insane amounts of cream sauce and Fritos.  College was healthy.  Anyway, the scotcharoos.  They were ridiculous.  These Special, Special K Bars remind me of those college treats.  You noticed the extra special in the name right?   These bars are extra special because I added coconut and toasted pecans.  Side note, when I was a little girl I named my cat Special.  Poor cat. 

I was on a mission to clean out the pantry when I made these, so when I ran out of Special K I added some rice cereal.  Feel free to do that as well!  Just another texture in the mix.  If you don't have pecans, use whatever nuts you have in your pantry.  Everything is topped with chocolate and peanut butter.  Theyyyyyy didn’t suck. 

This is a great recipe to use the “sticky ingredient trick” I mentioned on this Payday Bar recipe post.

One year ago on Perfecting the Pairing:  Burger Sauce

Two years ago on Perfecting the Pairing: Chilaquiles

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Chocolate and Banana Overnight French Toast

Perfect Pairing:  Overnight softened butter

I must have a thing for overnight breakfast items.  Let me demonstrate.

Overnight Muesli (fun fact, I don’t think I have EVER spelled muesli correctly on the first attempt)

Overnight French Toast

Overnight Cornbread Strata

Overnight All Purpose Breakfast Casserole

I love being able to get the prep work done the night before, and breakfast is ready for the oven the next morning.  Often, I will prepare breakfast while I am making dinner and enlist family and friends to do the cleanup.  It is a good system.

I needed to add one more overnight recipe to the breakfast lineup, Chocolate and Banana French Toast.  It is as good as it sounds.

It is made of layers of cinnamon raisin bread, bananas, chocolate chips, and is topped with an oatmeal streusel (also never get the spelling of that right on the first try).  How can you go wrong with those ingredients? 

You could easily swap out the cinnamon raisin bread for just cinnamon if you don’t like raisins in your breakfast.  I know that is pretty common.  I personally really liked it with the raisins.  You can top with syrup, but it hardly needs it.  Gilding the lily?

The oatmeal streusel is made with oatmeal, brown sugar, and softened butter.  It is really important for the butter to be soft when you mix this up.  I would suggest putting the butter on the counter the night before when you are prepping.  It will be the perfect consistency in the morning.  There have been many times I have tried to speed up the process by using the microwave, but I inevitably forget and end up with half melted, half softened butter.

One year ago on Perfecting the Pairing:  Raisin Bran Muffins

Two years ago on Perfecting the Pairing:  Best Ever Blueberry Muffins

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Chocolate Sauce

Perfect Pairing:  Oreo Ice Cream Pie

This chocolate sauce is so easy to make and it is about 100x better than the store-bought version.  My family has been making this for years.  The original recipe card (that we still use) was written on a typewriter.  I believe the original came from my Grandma Rosie.  Who, by the way, was also the originator of Grandma Rosie’s Ice Cream Dessert.  The perfect pairing on that post was chocolate sauce.  They are a great combo.

Over Christmas I needed to make a dessert to serve a large group of people.  I wanted to find something I could do in advance.  I decided to make Oreo Ice Cream Pies.  They are not fancy, but they are really tasty.  They do get fancied up a bit when you drizzle on the homemade chocolate sauce. 

There is no recipe for these pies.  I started with pre-made Oreo crusts, a few half gallons of ice cream in various flavors, and Oreos.  

I used one crust for each half gallon of ice cream.  I let the ice cream sit out to soften a bit.  Once the ice cream starts to soften I transferred it to a large bowl and stirred with a wooden spoon until it was spreadable, but not melted.   

Half of the ice cream went into the pie shell, then that was topped with a handful (okay, maybe two handfuls) of chopped Oreos, another layer of ice cream, and then a few Oreos on top for good measure.  Then back to the freezer.  Dessert for 20+ people in just a few minutes!

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Nutella Crunch Ice Cream Cake

Perfect Pairing:  Freezer Space

When I saw this cake on Foodgawker I knew I had to make it.  There are only three ingredients, vanilla ice cream, rice krispies, and nutella.  These are all very good things.  It kind of reminded me of everyone’s favorite Lake House Brownies.

I followed this recipe from Family Feast exactly, down to chilling the bowls and pan.  They give great instructions.  It takes up quite a bit of freezer space, but it is worth making the room.  They recommend letting the finished product freeze for 4-6 hours or overnight.  I believe I took it out around 4 hours and it was a little soft.  It would have been fine to eat right away but I wanted to take pictures.  This ended up being quite the scene. 

I removed the dessert from the springform pan and placed it on the pedestal I had picked out for the pictures.  It looked lovely!  Maybe a little soft, but I would make it work.  Plan A was to put it on the counter and stand above it on a chair.

Well the lighting was all off and it clearly was not going to work.  It was also melting very fast.  I knew I needed to hurry.  In my rush to jump off the chair I sustained an injury.  This particular chair has sharp metal corners.  I had spent the day by the lake so I was in my swimsuit and a skirt.  The sharp metal corner got me in the back of my leg right by the, uh…. Tush.  I don’t often swear but man I wanted to at that moment.  Grandma Rosie was right there so that was not going to happen.  Once I stopped seeing stars I carried the cake into a different room with better light.  Annnnd dripped the entire way.

OK, the dessert was in good light and I started snapping away.  It kept dripping. 

I finally got a somewhat decent picture and quickly got the whole thing back in the freezer.  The next day when it came out of the freezer it was the perfect consistency and sliced beautifully.  Also, it was absolutely delicious.  How could it not be amazing?  Totally worth the embarrassing injury and messy floor.

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World’s Best Chocolate Layer Cake

Perfect Pairing:  Vegetable peeler

There has been no official study proving that this truly is the World’s Best Chocolate Layer Cake, but I think it is definitely the best.  Perhaps I am too emotionally attached to make an unbiased decision.  You see, this is my birthday cake!  My wonderful mom makes it for me every year.  Proof…

1997

Try not to be jealous of my awesome short-sleeved sweater with shoulder pads.  Not sure what I was trying to accomplish with the hand under the chin move.

2002

2012

That is when my age started with a "3"!

2013
 

I love the story behind this cake and how it became my personal birthday dessert.  My mom first tasted it at a family reunion in the summer of 1982.  She was 9 months pregnant with me and picked up a piece of this cake in the potluck line.  She absolutely loved it, and really wanted the recipe.  She left a note on the cake asking the cake-maker to find her and share the recipe.  I love that story!

The actual cake portion is nothing crazy, just a standard cake mix.  It is the chocolate layer in between the cake that makes this special.  This is how it goes down.

Slice the two 9 inch cakes in half, lengthwise.  This is much easier to manage if you freeze the cakes first.

Spread a layer of melted chocolate and toasted slivered almonds.  This layer hardens as it chills and just makes the whole thing over the top delicious.  It is kind of like a candy bar in the middle of the cake. 

 Another layer of cake, layer of cool whip, then more chocolate

Top everything off with cool whip and chocolate curls. 

Use a vegetable peeler to make chocolate curls before melting the rest of the chocolate.  It is so simple but adds a nice touch to the finished cake.

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