Pudding Cupcakes

Hiya:)

How is everyone? If yall are like us, pretty much inundated with snow.  It was pretty, but now it’s time for it to move on along and let Spring in.  Tomorrow’s high is going to be around 10 F.  The big storm really threw everything into a tail spin around here. The kids were out of school for 3 days. There was a Chili Cook-Off scheduled at the kids’ school that I was going to participate in but it was cancelled.  They’ve rescheduled it but I’m not sure I’m going to be able to do it.  Stay tuned to this space:)

So back to the snow. We got about 24-25 inches or so. And once Paul dug us out….

We spent on afternoon with the kids sledding with our friend Monica and her crew:) That was a lot of fun:)

Then, when we found out that the Chili Cook-Off had been cancelled, Paul surprised us with a last minute trip up to Lake Geneva:) We played at the water park, Paul and Matthew gave snow boarding a go:)

And while they did that, Jamie, Sarah and I went to a Pastry/Dessert class at the Grand Geneva. It was a lot of fun:) Jamie didn’t want to go at first. He wanted to just stay in the hotel lobby and wait for us doing what he does 75% of the day!

I told him no, he was going to come and participate.  There were about 13 of us plus the head Pastry Chef at the Grand:)  We really enjoyed it.  Here are our creations;)

They really worked hard on their’s Me, I was scared to mess mine up so I went for the less is more (and safe!).  Jamie told me before we even finished the class that he was so happy that he decided to come had a blast;)  What was so awesome was that they kept them for us and then brought them to our table after we had an awesome dinner (prime rib and crab legs:).   Perfect ending to a wonderful last minute getaway:)

Needless to say, the kids were worn out from having a great time.  By the time bedtime came Saturday evening, they were ready for bed;)

Now it’s Monday and the kids went back to school. Well, the boys went back to school, Sarah stayed home with a nasty nose.  Today was also Matthew’s best friend, Robert’s, birthday so I made cupcakes (I looooove a cupcake!).  They are fun to eat and fun to make:)  The ones I made today are a cupcake version of the Puddin’ Cake that a friend of mine’s momma used to make when I was younger;)  If you’ve never tried it, may I recommend them:)  The top picture is where I stopped for Robert then I began playing around with butter cream icing and my decorating tips:) Anyway, give them a try!:)

OK, so HERE’S What You Need:

Yellow cake

• I made a Betty Crocker Yellow cake mix
• I’ve seen people say they just bought a ready made pound cake at the store and used that.

1 pkg instant pudding (I used chocolate)

1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar

2 cups milk

HERE’S What You Do:

In a bowl, mix your pkg of pudding and confection sugar together...

Pour your 2 cups of milk in and whisk until it's not thick but not runny (You are going to have to pour this over the top of the cake and it'll run down into the holes)

Pour the puddin' over the cakes - I pretty much let it get to thick before I got it over the cupcakes and so... Confession *sighs* It didn't really drizzle down into the holes like it was supposed too *looks at her feet and shuffles a little bit* sighs* Sorry:(

**OK so this is where I stopped for Robert and the kids loved them:)  Soooooo… I was looking over at the butter on the counter and rifled through the drawer to find my tips that I hadn’t used yet… So I began to create:)

Threw about a cup of butter over in the mixing bowl, some powdered sugar. Mix mix mix 5 ish minutes on high. Splash of vanilla. Mix mix mix... Taste.. Hmmm more powdered sugar. Mix mix mix. Splash of milk, mix mix mix.. taste. Have Paul taste. Taste again. Mmmm:) Now for the color. Started with green. A bit of blue... ew, it's kinda gray so I don't even remember what color - blue or green but anyway, was happy with the turnout;)

Got to play with my new piping tips:) (Never have used anything other than the plastic things that you get at the grocery store with the store bought stuff). I had some candied cherries and a few sugar flowers so popped those on there and Voila!:) Thought they were really cute:) Enjoy!