Homemade Chocolate Cupcakes and Buttercream Frosting

One day last week Bekah insisted it was one of her stuffed animals birthday. She used some scraps of wrapping paper to wrap them a (recycled) gift and wanted to make them a birthday cake. I had to admit, cake sounded pretty good to me and I had just seen this awesome buttercream frosting recipe on Good Cheap Eats. So, we set off to make these homemade chocolate cupcakes and buttercream frosting.
The chocolate cake/cupcake recipe doesn't have any eggs in it, so I didn't feel a bit guilty letting Bekah lick the beaters. (I know they say since they eggs are pasterised, they won't hurt you, but I still worry).


Bekah had a great time adding the sprinkles!

These were so much easier than I thought they would be and so delicious. My husband claimed they were his favorite part of dinner that night and he is not a big sweets eater!
Now for the recipes:

No Egg Devil’s Food Cake

Mix together:
3 cups flour
2 cups sugar
6 Tbsp. cocoa
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt

Add:
3/4 cup oil
2 Tbsp. white vinegar
2 tsp. vanilla
2 cups cold water

Bake at 350 for 50 minutes or 15-20 minutes for cupcakes.

Homemade Buttercream Frosting

1 cup butter, softened
3-4 cups powdered sugar
1-2 Tablespoons milk or half and half
1 teaspoon vanilla

In large mixing bowl, beat butter until fluffy. Add three cups sugar, 1 Tablespoon milk, and vanilla. Beat until combined and fluffy. Adjust with more sugar or milk, depending on what consistency you’re looking for.

Making Juice

Sometimes it's those spur of the moment activities that are the most fun. For us, this involved a basket of oranges that were about to go bad. I've been trying to live a more frugal life and make use of all we have, so I had to come up with something to do with those oranges. So, what did we do? We made juice!

My sister had given us a juicer for our anniversary last year, so I decided to pull it out and put it to work. Bekah was more than happy to be my little kitchen helper.

I would cut up and peel the oranges and she would put the pieces in the juicer. (with it off, of course!) We first tried it with the peels on, but it was very bitter!


It actually made more juice than I expected. Bekah insisted on keeping some for Daddy to try when he got home. It was the most delicious juice we've ever had!

This was such a fun activity and Bekah keeps asking to make orange juice again (I think I've created a monster!). What I loved about it was this:
1.) It made her smile.
2.) It not only got her helping in the kitchen, but was also a great learning experiment seeing how the fruit turned into the juice.
3.) She became so excited about a healthy food.

It was also a great bonding experience for the two of us.

Candy Corn Cookies

I recently stumbled upon this adorable blog called Mommy's Kitchen and found these beyond cute candy corn cookies.

Now, to be honest, I DO NOT like candy corn at all! But, I DO like sugar cookies! My daughter saw these on the blog and kept asking to make candy corn cookies. So, in the middle of making dinner we threw these together. I did make some changes based on what I had on hand. I did not use the prepackaged sugar cookie mix. I used a sugar cookie recipe from my Betty Crocker cook book. I also made a big blunder because I only used one recipe....I should have doubled it....whoops! They came out tiny, but cute.

You can go here for the recipe.

Owl Cookies

Bekah and I have had so much fun learning about owls. After our owl mask craft we got to make owl cookies. I found this recipe here, but there were many other recipes and ideas when you google owl cookies. We also changed the recipe a bit since I didn't have any cashews. Some of the almond owl ears fell off after baking, but they still were yummy!

Bekah used to run away and cry whenever I used the mixer. Now, she's starting to want to use it....it's great!

This was a fun cooking project for us to do together. She loved helping out with putting the m&m's on for eyes. She kept trying to eat them and when I told her not to she said, "Oh, but I just can't help myself when mommy's baking!" How funny!

tiny and yummy apples

We had so much fun in the kitchen tonight. We made mini caramel apples that I had seen over at A Mommy's Adventures. Thank you so much to Michelle for this idea.
We heated up the caramel sauce I had made earlier this week and I used the melon baller to make small round balls out of our apples. Bekah loved dipping the apples with Daddy.

After dipping them in caramel they got a coat of sprinkles. At one point we ran out of sprinkles, so Daddy got out the mini m&m's.
Bekah loved every part of this. I think it was the most fun we've ever had in the kitchen together.
The apples turned out so yummy (especially the ones with the mini m&m's!

Yummy!