Day Three Hundred Eighteen

At some point in time, Alexis fell deep for coffee. She has worked her way through every single item on the Starbucks menu and then some. In fact, I am no longer willing to place her order because she has exceeded the quantity of substitutions that I'm willing to make. There's soy and decaf and extra hot and blah, blah, blah. She is one of THOSE people.

Which means that her birthday cupcakes needed to be mocha. They weren't quite as ridiculous as her usual order as of late, but they were REALLY good.

AND LOOK AT THE TINY MUSHROOMS.

They're made out of fondant, by the way. A little fondant and a toothpick and they were ridiculously easy. I personally hate fondant because if I want to eat pure sugar, I'll pull out a spoon and a tub of sugar and just go with it. Turning it into the consistency of Play-Doh does not make it better.

ANYWAY. Fondant is disgusting, but it makes for easy decorations. A tiny little frog with candy eyes, a few mushrooms, and Alexis ended up with cupcakes that she loved.

Java Cupcakes

(makes 40 mini cupcakes or 12 full-size cupcakes)
 

1 1/2 cups flour
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/4 cup instant coffee
5 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup water
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 tablespoon white vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and throw cupcake liners in a pan.

2. Place the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, instant coffee, and salt in a large bowl. Stir it all up with a whisk.

3. Add the water, butter, vinegar, and vanilla. Stir with a fork until the chunks are gone. It took me about two minutes.

4. Place the cake mix in your cupcake liners, filling each one about 2/3 of the way.

5. Bake at 350 degrees for approximately 22 minutes for mini cupcakes or 25 minutes for full-sized cupcakes.

Chocolate Cream Cheese Icing

1 8-oz package cream cheese, softened
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup cocoa powder

1. Throw it all in a mixing bowl. Mix it at medium speed until well-blended.

2. Tah-dah!

Comments

[Karl]

Alexis might be a good candidate for falling into the fun rabbit hole that is roasting your own green coffee beans at home.

It's about a $200 investment to get started (or $20, to start using an air popcorn popper). Check out sweetmarias.com for information! No affiliation other than being a satisfied customer for maybe a decade now.

Of course, if you don't have a coffee grinder, you'll need that too. A nice starter hand grinder is $30-40, SM carries them as well. Electric burr grinders start around $100 for a decent one and go up as high as you care to imagine.