Key Lime Pie Cupcakes

These cupcakes are outrageously good.

Buttery, crumbly graham cracker crust on the bottom, light vanilla cake, and a dollop of tart key lime cream cheese frosting to top it off.

How good are they?
I once watched a friend eat six of these cupcakes. In 45 minutes.
I ate two of these, right out of the oven, even before the frosting.
My dad's coworker sent him a lengthy e-mail extolling the virtues of these cupcakes.

SERIOUSLY JUST MAKE THESE ALREADY OKAY

Key Lime Pie Cupcakes

Makes 24 cupcakes.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Graham crust:
10 graham cracker sheets
10 oz butter, melted
1/2 cup sugar

Finely crush 10 graham cracker sheets in a ziploc bag. A round glass or rolling pin works well for this.

Melt butter and combine with graham cracker crumbs and sugar in medium bowl until well-mixed.

Press about 2 tbsp crumbs into bottom of cupcake liners.

Vanilla cupcake:

Use boxed mix or preferred basic vanilla cupcake. I haven't found a fool-proof vanilla cupcake recipe yet, so for now, I always choose Duncan Hines mix.

On top of the graham crust, fill cupcake liners about 2/3 full with batter.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 18-20 minutes.

Key Lime Cream Cheese Frosting

16 oz cream cheese, softened
8 oz butter, softened
2-3 tbsp key lime juice
3-4 cups powdered sugar

 Beat cream cheese and butter with electric mixer until fluffy, about 3 minutes.

Mix in powdered sugar, 1 cup at a time, until you reach your desired consistency.

Add key lime juice, 1 tbsp at a time, until desired flavor is reached. If the frosting becomes thinner with the addition of the juice, add 1 more cup of powdered sugar.

Pudding shots

This may be the pinnacle of my baking experience:

Alcoholic pudding.

And it's not just a hint of alcohol; you'll definitely feel the effects of these babies.

I made vanilla, chocolate fudge, and cookies-and-cream pudding shots using cake-flavored vodka. I think my favorite was the cookies and cream, but maybe that's because I put less vodka in that one. I topped these cuties with a dollop of whipped cream and some sprinkles (of course).

These are easiest to eat with a spoon, because the pudding itself is pretty thick.

Recipe:

Adapted from Endless Simmer

• 1 3.9oz Instant Vanilla (or any flavor) Pudding
• ¾ cup milk, cold
• 2/3 cup Cake Vodka
• 12 oz Cool Whip

Whisk pudding and milk together in a bowl until smooth. Mix in cake vodka and then fold in cool whip. Adjust proportions of milk and vodka according to taste, craziness of party, and current BAC.

Two Pies

 Key lime pie, with fresh whipped cream

Mud pie with graham crust, chocolate pudding and cool whip

Re: Blog theory

 Let's get a little philosophical here.

Turns out I'm not naturally one of those once-daily bloggers, or even a biweekly blogger. Turns out that I'm more of a unimonthly blogger. This strategy works only moderately well, because I'll have four or five new baking adventures to discuss in every post, which isn't quite the most exciting way to present information. Blogs provide single servings of information, the perfect size for quick consumption (a la Fight Club's single-serving friends.) Blogs aren't cookbooks with discrete chapters of recipes, and I've undertaken the responsibility of contributing to the entropy of the food blog world.

So, instead of recipe conglomerates, we'll move into single-serving posts, with single topics.

In the meantime, here's a single serving of a very cute dog.

Very Berry Birthday Cake

I decided to give this post a very innocent-sounding name, because the festivities surrounding this cake were not exactly innocent.

This is a great "healthy" cake for those people in your life who DON'T want a double-fudge peanut-butter-cookie-dough ice cream cake for their birthdays. Not that I'd be interested in a cake like that.

For this cake, I used a standard yellow cake mix (my favorite is Duncan Hines.) I whipped up my signature cream cheese frosting -- super simple and delicious. Although boxed cake mix can usually pass for homemade, I think homemade frosting tastes SO much better than the can. I'll always take the time to make my own frosting. 

I baked two 9-inch yellow cakes and layered frosting, blueberries, and raspberries between them. I think the cake turned out gorgeously -- and tasted pretty fantastic as well.

Cream Cheese Frosting:

16 oz cream cheese, room temperature

8 oz butter, room temperature

3-4 cups powdered sugar

1 tsp. vanilla extract

Blend together cream cheese and butter until fluffy. Add in vanilla, then powdered sugar one cup at a time, until desired consistency is reached.

cakes on cakes

I don't know why I haven't been motivated to blog my most recent baking exploits this spring. It's not that I've stopped baking; I'm loving my studio apartment and its little kitchen. I suppose this blog slump could be attributed to the fact that I've discovered that baking with a glass or two of wine and listening to some catchy tunes (like Justin Bieber -- judge me, go ahead) is an excellent Friday night activity. However, post-baking and wine, I'm not too disposed to blog. I usually text various friends and ask if I can bring over some freshly baked mini pies, or salted caramel cupcakes, and the answer's usually yes. I'm often repaid in libations of some sort, so it's certainly a fair trade.

Anyway, here are some treats that I've concocted over the past few months.

Chocolate Peanut Butter cupcakes -- the classic combo. I made these for a Cupcakes and Cocktails party at my apartment.

Samoas cupcake. It's absolutely as good as you'd imagine. Chocolate cake, caramel buttercream, caramel drizzle, toasted coconut and chopped Samoas to top it off. Decadent, baby.

I'm SO PROUD of THIS CAKE! My very first layer cake, frosted and everything. I wanted to tackle the layer cake thing, and only afterwards found out that my friend Emily's roommate's boyfriend was having a birthday party that night. I showed up with a cake in hand and presented the birthday boy with his cake. Although we'd never met before, I would argue that starting a friendship by giving someone a cake is a great strategy. He says hi to me in the library like all the time.

Blurry times in a moving car. So sue me. These are St. Patty's Day cookies with royal frosting... suuuper time-consuming, but they're yummy and visually pretty impressive. And I'm always looking to impress people.

SO professional. These are PB and Chocolate cupcakes, and Cookies & Cream cupcakes, that I made for a bake sale at my school. They went pretty fast, and I was very flattered. I know this because I was creepily skulking at the side of the bake sale table staring down the treat-seekers. Whatever. It's not a big deal.

These messy lil things are mini pies! I bought a frozen pie crust, mushed it up, and pressed it into a cupcake pan. I tossed some chopped apples with cinnamon and sugar and poured them into the mini crusts and BAKED THEM. They were hella yummy. I do need to work on my presentation, though. 

I made these little guys last night! Chocolate cake with salted caramel frosting and caramel drizzle. Again, I brought these over to a friend's apartment and got first dibs at the pong table. WATER PONG, okay? What kind of girl do you think I am?

Making a 21st birthday cake this weekend. I'm really looking forward to it, because I'll make sure the festivities are WELL underway before anyone tries the cake. Because then everyone loves it. When you pregame a cake, it always tastes delicious.

So now you know.

Cheeseburger Pie

Continuing the "dips on dips" theme of this football season (chips&salsa -----> buffalo chicken dip ----> reuben dip ----> sausage and cream cheese dip), I made my darling father some yummy noms for the Broncos game today. Cheeseburger pie. Yes. Cheese, and burger. And also the pie part too.


http://family.go.com/food/pkg-family-approved-recipes/recipe-633078-cheeseburger-pie-t/

(sans pickles)

MM MM DEE LICIOUS