Just a simple cupcake kind of day...

I wanted to do something nice to celebrate John's last day of work at his current job and the moving on to his new one! So, I decided to bake a simple chocolate cupcake. This recipe is one that came from a great teacher friend of ours, Annette. She is one of the best bakers I have ever met!! This lady can make a chocolate chip cookie that is to die for. :) My stepdad even jokes that he would love for her to retire from teaching and come work for him... basically so that he can make sure he ALWAYS gets some of the freshly baked cookies.
Moving on, she makes a wonderful chocolate cake with a buttercream icing. I decided to take her great recipe and make cupcake with it!



The recipe was actually pretty easy to make... as you can see from the pictures, it makes a TON of cupcakes! This recipe would be a great one to use if baking for a party... not for one person like I did. :)



This picture has nothing really to do with the cupcakes, but a lot to do with a day in my kitchen. I turn around for one milli-second and look who is checking things out! Agh! Tugger is our youngest cat of three and he thinks he owns the place. I mean, I really think that he thinks that we moved into this house just for his sake! We love him dearly, but he does not listen to his mamma!



And to the grand finale! These cupcakes didn't 'rise' to the occasion, but I figured I was icing these chocolately tasty cakes and J could tell me the truth when he got home...
I used a Sweet Butter Cream Icing that turned out to be so fluffy. I felt like I was truly piping clouds from the sky on a dark, chocolate, moist cupcake! It was soo tasty too! I would tell you where I got the recipe, but this one I did all on my own. No measurements, of course... All I know for sure is that I used two sticks, YES 2, of non salted sweet butter. YUMMY!!!



Lessons Learned:
1. Always plan out what you what your final product to look like. I thought I did... then I tried to fit the entire CONGRATULATIONS on the tray and it was a noooo go! At least not without looking entirely silly.
So, I improvised and now the 'L-A-T-I-O-N' is sitting on a plate in my microwave.
2. Sometimes the best things are discovered by IMPROVISING! For instance, I didn't have any milk in my fridge. Weird, I know... What can I say? My husband is a demi-vegitarian and drinks either soy or almond milk and I am not a big milk drinker. So, it was either buttermilk or heavy whipping cream... and heavy whipping cream it was! Hey, I never said that my baking was low in fat! ;)
This changing of the recipe was probably the best thing ever!

I kept decorating to a minimum mainly because John isn't big on a lot of icing and I really just felt like baking today, not decorating.



It is safe to say that John LOVES the cupcakes!