When icing attacks!

In the oven this week--cupcakes!

I had a going away party to go to, and I thought I'd bake a batch of cupcakes to take for the kids to enjoy. I had some new colored icing to try out. And what kid doesn't like cupcakes, right?

Well, I'll go ahead and tell you--these cupcakes did not make it to the party. Not because I ate them all myself since they were so scrumptious. But because they looked absolutely hideous, thanks to that funky icing! They don't taste that bad. Oh, but they sure look it!

Anyway, I started with this.

I mixed the ingredients according to the box. I added just a few mini chocolate chips to make the cake more moist.

I lined my cupcake pans with regular white cupcake liners. I had some cool blue and yellow ones I was going to use after they were finished baking.

I baked according to the directions--I think it was 22 minutes on 350. I let them cool in the pans for a little while, then I took them out and placed them on a large baking sheet to cool completely. They sure did smell good!

Here's when it started getting crazy. I had these tubes of Wilton cake decorating icing. It was supposed to be a blue and yellow swirl. It came with two tubes and two decorating tips.

Well, the icing was NOT blue and yellow. It just turned green. And the tube was so hard to squeeze! I could hardly get the stuff to come out. The first one didn't turn out so bad.

But as I kept squeezing, things got worse and worse. The tip clogged up. The icing wouldn't come out of the tube. It had air bubbles. Needless to say, it was not a pretty sight.

I only finished about 8 of them with one tube of icing. I moved on to the other tube and the other tip. This decorating tip was even worse! Aaaahh! I ran out of icing with three cupcakes leftover. See how awful they look?

I thought I'd just spread the frosting across the cupcakes. They wouldn't have that piped look, but at least the cake would be covered. That didn't work either! The icing was so hard and thick that it just ripped the top of the cupcake off. I gave up.

I decided to melt a little peanut butter, chocolate chips, and sugar in a bowl.

I dipped the last three cupcakes in that mixture and sprinkled a few chocolate chips on top. They at least looked better than the others.

This did NOT turned out as planned. No, no, no. I don't think I'd ever had such a hideous batch of cupcakes before. They don't taste bad--the cake is nice and moist and the icing has a decent enough flavor. But are they visually pleasing? Ha! Absolutely not. At least I didn't waste my fancy cupcake liners, though.

I think I'm going to stay away from the icing in a tube from now on. Let's hope that next week's baking has a much better result!

S'mores Brownies

I didn't get around to baking two different things this week, but what I did bake was absolutely delicious! Behold--S'mores brownies!

Here are my ingredients. I wasn't paying attention and picked up the Mocha Fudge brownie mix. Regular chocolate would be fine, too.

The smartest thing I did was using butter to grease my glass baking dish. I usually use Pam cooking spray and it leaves a disgusting, oily film. The butter had a much better taste!

I put a layer of graham crackers on the bottom of the pan. Notice how I had to break apart a few crackers to fit around the edges.

I mixed the brownie mix according to the directions on the box. I added an extra egg for "cake-like" brownies. The mix smelled amazing! I think it was the mocha flavor coming out.

I stirred, and stirred, and stirred. I couldn't get all the little lumps and air bubbles out, but that's okay.

I poured my brownie mix on top of the graham crackers. The directions said to bake between 28-31 minutes (I think.) I decided to bake for 27 minutes so the brownies wouldn't burn after I added the additional toppings.

Here's what I got after 27 minutes baking time.

I added some large marshmallows--20 to be exact. I tried to spread them apart evenly. I put them in the oven for 3 minutes.

I mashed the marshmallows down with a spoon, then sprinkled some chocolate chips on top. I put them back in the oven for 2 minutes.

I put the oven on broil for 1-2 minutes to toast the marshmallows. I watched them carefully--I didn't want them to burn! I think I got them just right.

I'd mashed up some graham crackers in a baggie while the brownies were baking.

I sprinkled those on top. Not the prettiest look, but oh-so-tasty!

I let them cool for about 25 minutes--that was hard because they smelled so wonderful!

Time for the moment of truth. I cut into the ooey-gooey awesomeness. Look how the graham crackers came up from the bottom during baking!

They were super moist. The mocha flavor was amazing. The marshmallows were just right. YUM!

My only complaint? They were super sticky and hard to cut because the marshmallows got stuck to the knife so easily. No problemo, though. I scraped it off with a spoon. Next time I could space the marshmallows out far enough so I'd only have to cut into the brownie when dishing out individual servings.

Chad doesn't like brownies--he says they give him indigestion. Pssh. He did taste them, though. I took about half of them to my mom and dad. I didn't want to be stuck with the whole pan because I knew I would eat them all! Plus, I'm just a nice daughter like that.

Overall, I'd definitely make these again. There are so many variations I could do--add some nuts, use peanut butter or butterscotch chips, garnish with Golden Graham cereal and Hershey's bars--lots of possibilities!