Hello all.... Life is crazy, and I'm not sure when I'll be able to post new recipes again, so until further notice The Food Knows is on break. Sad, I know. I will still be updating The Muffin Top frequently, so please come by and say hello. I love reading your comments.. truly makes my day.

Iron Cupcake December Challenge

Since I've joined Iron Cupcake I have only had time to complete one challenge... sad I know. I wasn't sure if I would have time this month either, but last night I needed to make a dessert to take somewhere, so I figured it was the perfect opportunity to complete the challenge and produce and tasty dessert. Since I am trying to develop some perfect "go-to" recipes for your basic cakes I decided to not be too daring (and since I didn't want to frighten anyone with extreme cupcakes).





I LOVE my mom's Christmas fudge... love, love, LOVE!!! So I thought, why not incorporate them into my cupcakes?? After a little bit of tweaking I came up with the most moist chocolate cupcakes I have ever tasted. Not trying to brag, but they were. The frosting turned out perfect.... sweet, fudgy, with just a bit of a crisp chocolate layer on top. YUM! This is such a simple recipe; no strange ingredients... you should have everything you need in your pantry. I highly suggest you try these out, you wont regret it! And yes, I've achieved my chocolate cupcake go-to recipe. :)

Merry Christmas!!!

Iron Cupcake Challenge: Chocolate with a Twist

Super Moist Chocolate Cupcakes with Almond Fudge Frosting
Cake:
2 C Flour
2 C Sugar
1 C Water
1 stick Butter
4 Tbl Cocoa Powder
1/2 C Oil
2 Eggs (slightly beaten)
1 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 C Buttermilk

Sift flour and Sugar. Bring to a boil the water, butter, cocoa, and oil. Add to the flour mixture. Blend well, then add the eggs. Dissolve the baking soda in the milk and add to mixture. Fill cupcake cups 3/4 full. Bake at 375F for 25 min.

Fudge Frosting:
1 stick Butter
1/3 C Milk
4 Tbl Cocoa
Powder Powdered Sugar
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
1 tsp Almond Extract

Bring to a boil butter, cocoa, and milk. Blend in vanilla, almond, and powdered sugar until desired consistency (spreads best when thick). Frost and enjoy!

I know I haven't been around much lately, but hey, its the holidays.... crazy time! Any who.... here are a few pics of the gingerbread house I created! Festive huh? To see more pics and other houses that my classmates made click here...right here.

I hope everyone had an amazing Thanksgiving!!! I want to share with you a few Thanksgiving recipes that our family enjoyed. Somehow only the desserts got photographed... weird.

I can't believe it is already December! I would like to wish my good friend, Shannon, a very happy birthday today! She is officially old.

... more recipes to come...

We have been working with gingerbread architecture lately at school, so I wanted to share the recipe we have been using for our building gingerbread. If you want to read more about my experiences with gingerbread or at culinary school you can read about it here.

How many of you build a gingerbread house every year? I have always bought the "just assemble" gingerbread kits from the store, but I am going to try to make mine from scratch this year. It may be a few weeks before I'm finished, but I'll be sure to post pictures.

I have a confession. I don't really care for Halloween. I'm actually quite glad its over. No, it has nothing to do with spooky people or evil things.... I just don't love dressing up that much. I love looking at other people's costumes and am always impressed at how creative some are, but whenever I put on a costume I just feel a bit silly. I showed up to the Halloween party in regular clothes, but was attacked by Shannon and the trunk of costumes she brought along with her (how did she know so many of us wouldn't have costumes on?) I ended up in a red polka dot dress, black tights and mouse ears. I was a poor Mini Mouse..... but I did bring good cupcakes!

I worked most of Friday afternoon baking cupcakes for the party. I decided to make 2 flavors: s'more and mint chocolate chip. For some odd reason I've found myself eating s'mores quite often lately. First while carving pumpkins, then at the s'more and espresso bar downtown, and again when some of us got together to make Indian food. The s'more cupcakes came out great! They toasted nicely in the oven and had a great graham cracker crust on the bottom.



The mint chocolate chip cupcakes are another story. I've made these before, so its not like I didn't know what I was doing. They came out great the first time, and I immediately added them to my favorites list. This time I wanted to be a bit more creative in my baking, so I decided to bake them in ice cream cones and give them a nice, big swirly top. I was thinking about dipping them in chocolate as well to make them look like those Dairy Queen ice cream cones (if you are not from Texas you wont know what I'm talking about), but I ran out of time. Well, let's just say they didn't turn out. The cones were beginning to get a bit too crispy in the oven, but the cake was not finished baking. I know I could have turned the oven down, but I didn't have that much time. A little goo in the middle never hurt anyone, but as soon as I took them out of the oven the middles caved. "Just cover them up with frosting," you might say. I thought about that. I had decided to make a mint swiss meringue buttercream frosting, which I love, but my butter had become a little too soft, so it was too creamy for the meringue. Needless to say I chucked them in the trash.... well, not before dipping one in the frosting and eating it. They tasted great, but looked like crap. I know I could have just taken them to the party anyways, but I just couldn't make myself bring something that ugly to a party.

Anyhow, we had a great time at the party! Jenn brought some really tasty fondue, and Renee created quite the spread of cheeses, sweets, pumpkin cake, and of course candy corn!

I haven't had much time to cook or bake lately, but I'm making cupcakes tomorrow for the Halloween party and I promise to post some pics and a few recipes!

To tide you over here is one of my favorite cake recipes. It's not fancy, it doesn't contain all natural ingredients, it is completely unhealthy and some of the ingredients come out of a box. It is delicious!! My friend Mallory loves this cake. I recall a time or two when we roomed together making this cake and coming home to an empty pan :) I think this recipe would make really cute cupcakes. Enjoy!