Christmas Cupcakes

I've been kitchen-bound for two days baking vanilla cupcakes, chocolate cupcakes, orange cupcakes, banana cupcakes and corn muffins to give as gifts this Christmas.

Baking can be time consuming and super tiring (thank heavens for kitchen aid!) but I'm not one to complain. I am happy :)

Thanks to Tans and Beth for helping me out and for being my "tasters".

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

(sans the frosting)

(banana cupcakes, chocolate cupcakes, vanilla cupcakes, orange cupcakes, corn muffins)

(first batch of frosted cupcakes)

(christmas cupcakes)

( tanya's snowy pine forest)

(love cupcakes with white frosting)

(tanya's ideal "wedding" cupcake: orange cupcakes with white buttercream and gold dragees)

Kitchen Adventures02 - Truffle Brownies

I love brownies. I love them gooey, moist, fudgy and dark as opposed to dry or cakey. There's nothing like a bar or two (or three or more) to snack on during blah days.

I have yet to meet a person who hates brownies.
Normally, I would grab a box of brownie mix, add butter or oil, eggs and water and mix,mix, mix until my arms ache. Then I fill a pan with brownie batter, stick it in the oven and lick my spatula clean while waiting for the brownie to bake. Nothing wrong with doing that right?
Then I realized I did not have a decent brownie recipe. How on earth did that happen? What if the store runs out of brownie mixes? This can't be!
So now I'm on the search for the best brownie recipe and I started with truffle brownies.
These brownies are dense, dark, and rich. I made mine with ricoa unsweetened chocolate and they turned out okay. Still, I regret not buying that bar of Valrhona. Imagine if I used good quality chocolate! Chocolate bliss!!!

If you want the recipe click here.




PS

I tweaked the recipe a bit by adding coffee to the ganache.
Thanks to Beth for lending me her camera.