Reese's PB Chocolate Cupcakes

My mother-in-law requested cupcakes for one of her co-workers turning the Big 4-0 so I whipped up some chocolate cupcakes, but then for a little twist I plopped a Reese's peanut butter cup in the batter right before baking.  {Not the regular size Reese's and not the NEW super mini size, but a medium size Reese's.}  Then I topped it off with my yummy peanut butter cream cheese frosting and they turned out pretty yummy.  Since I had enough batter leftover to make another dozen, I tried folding in some Reese's peanut butter chips instead of the peanut butter cup, and dang if they didn't all sink to the bottom.  Even after I tossed them in flour.  Oh, well, they still got eaten.  :)

Pancake Cupcakes

 

 

I think I'm getting a reputation at church as being the cupcake maker.

A friend came up to me at church and told me he had had a dream about a pancake cupcake and challenged me to make one.  Well, his birthday is tomorrow so SURPRISE... I give you a pancake cupcake!  I take NO credit for coming up with this recipe on my own.  In fact, there are several pancake cupcake recipes out there in blog world!  I found this one from brown eyed baker and you can find the recipe HERE.  The thought of bacon on a cupcake pretty much grossed me out, however, the mix of salty and sweet in that maple buttercream is de-lish.  So yummy.  A few things I learned and will remember next time is to really spray down the cupcake liners, the pancake sticks to the liner pretty badly and the recipe says to bake them for 10 minutes, but mine took about 13 minutes.  And, I drizzled some maple syrup on top of the cupcakes before frosting them, too.

My house has smelled like BREAKFAST all day from that bacon...

Morning Show Valentine Segment

 

My Valentine Spread for the Morning Show

 

Me with one of the co-hosts of the show, Anne Dill.

 {Gotta LOVE Dunkin' Donuts!}

I had the great pleasure of going on WCIA's morning show this morning to share the Valentine party I did with the kiddos this weekend.  It was a lot of fun and everything went really well!  Here's a link to the clip in case you missed it!  Click HERE to see!

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

CSN Giveaway

Elizabeth over at Elizabeth Ann's Recipe Box is giving away a $20 giftcard to CSN!  

Go enter and then check out her awesome blog!

Happy Heart Day Party

 

The aprons were hung while visions of valentine chocolates danced in their heads...

 

  How stinkin' cute are these aprons?!  

I found them in the dollar section at Target {LOVE TARGET} and then my sweet, sweet friend, Kathy, sewed all the kiddos names on them for me!  Thank goodness she accepts payments in form of cupcakes!  

 

 I made the girls gumball necklaces.  They turned out pretty cute!  

I got the idea HERE.

I got the inspiration for adding the sugar cookie to the milk bottle from The Sugar Fairy. 

Apparently there are cookie cutters out there with the little notches already cut out, but since I was in a pinch for time, I just cut little notches out myself while they were still warm.  I'm on a hunt now for those cookie cutters!!!  :)

 Jillian decorating her sugar cookies.

 I LoVe, LOvE, LOVE her Valentine shirt and hair bow!  

I got it off etsy HERE.

 

Brock's finished plate of decorated cookies. 

Pretty sure he used a whole thing of red sanding sugar on ONE cookie.

 

After cookie decorating it was time for ice cream sundaes!   

{What's a little more sugar, right???}

 Time to pass out valentines!!!

As a party wrap up I read Lily's Chocolate Heart by Kevin Henkes.  Such a cute story about Lily the mouse who can't decide what to do with her last chocolate heart.  She tries to think of all the places she could put it, but ends up eating it.  I had little chocolate Reese's hearts {YUM!} for each of the kids and asked them if they'd save theirs or eat it.  And leave it to my son...he announces to everyone that he'd poop on it.  

Nice.

The party was so much fun and the kids enjoyed having their sweet little friends over and give me any excuse to throw a party and I'm happy!  

So, which holiday is coming up next????

Super Bowl News Segment

Are you ready for some FOOTBALL???

So, blogger has allowed me to upload more pictures, so I best take advantage of my now *paid* for photo storage!  Enjoy!

 These are chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter cream cheese frosting that is so stinkin' yummy.  I have a link at the end of this post with the recipe.  I topped them off with some very dangerous Reese's peanut butter cup minis.  I have to remind myself that just because they're MINI, does NOT mean I can eat handful after handful of these scrumptious little suckers. 

Coconut Cupcakes with green tinted coconut "turf", topped with a chocolate covered marshmallow.  Have you ever tinted shredded coconut before?  Me either...until now.  And talk about EASY.  Fill a pint jar about 3/4th's full with your coconut.  Mix 1 Tb. of water with your food coloring/gel and mix it up, pour it over your coconut and SHAKE, SHAKE, SHAKE!  Then pour it out onto some paper towels and let it dry.  Simple.  (And cute!)

All printables from Shindig Parties to Go

Gorgeous cookies from Dandy Delights

 So, here is my Super Bowl spread from the news segment from tonight...
How cute are my printables from Shindig Parties To Go?  Amanda, I'm gonna guess a fellow polka-dot lover, was so sweet to share her printables with me for this segment.  You can get your own set HERE.  And those cookies... Stinkin' ADORABLE!  Super Sweet Sara from Dandy Delights shared her gorgeous cookies and chocolate covered strawberry marshmallows with me for the segment.  Be sure to check her out!  And if you're lucky, over on my facebook fanpage, you could WIN 6 cookies, 6 chocolate covered raspberry marshmallows, and 6 salted caramels from Dandy Delights... just in time for Valentine's Day.   And that peanut butter cream cheese frosting, you can find that recipe HERE.

Here's the link to my news segment in case ya missed it!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAjNxO8dB1I

Enjoy! :)