A little bit of baking

May was a big month for baking in our house. Here are a few of the tasty treats.

First up, pink lemonade cupcakes for a friends, daughters birthday. After a lot of tasty experiments, I ended up using a white cake mix, doctored up with my secret doctoring concoction, with an additional ingredient of almost an entire can of pink lemonade concentrate into the batter.

And the frosting, a basic butter cream with about 1/3 cup of thawed pink lemonade for extra pucker.

For my mother-in-law's birthday I went with a chocolate caramel cake. The trick to making this one absolutely delish....almost 24 hours in the refrigerator. There is just something about a chilled cake that makes it so much more dense and wonderful. Try it next time, you'll be absolutely amazed.

Next up, the husband's birthday. For this we went with a rich vanilla cake and milk chocolate frosting. Holy cow it was yummy.

The most fabulous creation was next, for my birthday. I wish that I would have taken a picture of the inside of this cake, it was gorgeous. I wanted a cake that tasted like a chocolate malt so that's just what I fixed. I started with a yellow cake mix and added about 4 tablespoons of malt powder. Then I divided the mix evenly and added about 4 tablespoons of cocoa powder to one half, making it chocolate. I cold have added some melted chocolate chips, too but I didn't think about that until later.

So, the cake was a decadent chocolate malt marble cake. And such a cake wouldn't be complete with out chocolate malted frosting as well. This was an absolute bomb of a cake and may have been the tastiest thing I've ever made or eaten. And, I made it really small, a 6" round which was perfect because once my guests and I were served, there wasn't anything left. This was not something that my waistline needed a second helping of, even though after several glasses of milk, my taste buds were craving more.

And finally, the baking ended this past weekend. My brother earned his Eagle Scout award and my mother commissioned me for 100 Eagle Scout cupcakes to serve as refreshments. I found an eagle scout candy mold and made the little cakes as patriotic as I could muster. They were vanilla with chocolate frosting, milk chocolate with chocolate frosting and chocolate chocolate chip with vanilla bean frosting.

Phew!

I gained 5 pounds just writing this post. If you want more details on cakes and recipes, just send me an e-mail.