Holiday Cupcakes

Here are a few new holiday flavors. Enjoy!

Cranberry cake drenched in rich caramel sauce topped with pastry cream and sprinkled with coarse sugar. The picture does not do these sweeties justice, you have to taste one. SO GOOD. Stay tuned at the end of this post I'll give you the recipe.

Chocolate Mousse. Okay it's not new but it is one of my favorites, GREAT for the holidays!

Peanut butter kiss. Chocolate cake topped with creamy peanut butter frosting and a Peanut Blossom, one of my favorite Christmas cookies!

Chocolate chip pumpkin with cream cheese frosting. They just aren't the same without the marshmallow pumpkin. I guess I should have stocked up during Halloween. Oh wait, I did! My husband ate them ALL!

Cocoa Caliente, Mexican hot chocolate. Now there's a Christmas aroma! Sweet cinnamon and chocolate, cue the Christmas carol. If you are not a fan of the spicy chocolate drink you can make a regular hot chocolate cupcake. It's really just a chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream, all decked out to look like hot cocoa. If you do like the Mexican version Nestle makes Abuelita chocolate in syrup form. Just add it to your chocolate buttercream.


Cranberry Cupcakes



These cupcakes were adapted from a cake recipe a friend of mine made for me years ago. You know the kind, you take one bite and HAVE to have the recipe! Well here you go:

4 1.2 T butter
1 1/2 C sugar

Cream together. In separate mixing bowl combine:

3 C flour
1 Tablespoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

You will also need 1 1/2 C milk. (I use whole milk)

Add the flour mixture and the milk alternately to the creamed sugar mixture. Starting and ending with the flour mixture. Fold in 3 C raw cranberries. (That's the same as 1 bag)

Pour into 2 loaf pans or a bundt pan (or cupcake wrappers!) Bake at 350 for 45 minutes. Cake should be golden and toothpick inserted should come out clean. (A few moist crumbs are okay though. Ya'll know how I dislike over baking.) Cupcakes only need to bake for 16-18 minutes.

If you made a cake, slice it while and drizzle with caramel sauce to serve. If you made cupcakes poke holes in the top with a skewer and pour sauce over it, allowing the cake to soak it up. It's best to do this while the cupcakes are still warm.


Caramel Sauce
1 C cream
2 C sugar
1 C butter

Combine ingredients in a pan over medium heat. Heat until butter is melted and sugar is dissolved. Serve over cake while sauce is still warm.