Funfetti Cupcakes

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My friend’s daughter got very sick last week. She had to be admitted to the hospital and after four traumatizing days for my friend and her family she was finally released to come back home. She is still under observation but she is a trooper and fighting her way through her sickness with a smile.

Since the poor little girl went through so much, I decided to welcome her back home with cupcakes. I remember when I used to get sick as a child, I would crave for something sweet- anything to get rid of that bitter taste that medicines leave in your mouth.

I knew she loves funfetti, well which kid doesn’t? And, I had recently stumbled upon this recipe by Sally’s Baking Addiction. They seemed the perfect amount of fun to greet a child with.

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Sally uses a vanilla buttercream for the frosting and while I am sure that tasted absolute heaven, these days my latest frosting craze is the chocolate malt frosting (originally by Sweetapolita) I used for the five layer cake. And since I love the combination of vanilla with chocolate, you do get the best of both worlds, I paired these fun funfetti cupcakes with the chocolate malt frosting.

The cupcakes are great on their own, and fun to look at with colorful speckles all over the cupcake. So if you do not want the extra calories, skip the frosting and just make the cupcakes.

But, I’d rather you not.

Instead, I would suggest you have only one, or even half but make sure you have it with the frosting since it is so darn good. Since that’s how it is supposed to be. Because that’s what makes these divine. I can not say it enough, but treat yourself with this frosting now!

And, since these were being made for a kid in mind I made sure I topped each cupcake with a LOOOOT of frosting. <3

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Mocha Swirl Bread

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mocha swirl breadSHU_6326Seriously this cake is jinxed.

This is the second time I am trying it and the second time I am getting it wrong.

Last time I dropped the whole cake halfway through the baking process, while I was trying to check on doneness. You can refresh your memory here. This time even before starting, I managed to drop the box of cornmeal on the floor. On the plus side, the box did not empty completely and some of the cornmeal did not spill onto the floor, leaving me with sufficient cornmeal to use in the cake. On the negative side, the cornmeal did make quite a mess on the floor.

If that was not enough, like last time I forgot that I was supposed to put the espresso water and cocoa after I divided the batter. I would like to blame the whole cleaning up of the corn meal from the floor process for my temporary absent mindedness, but I dont think it was just that. The cake is just jinxed.

Since it was too late to do anything I thought I will make a mocha chocolate swirl bread. So I added 4tsp of cocoa, 3 tsp of sugar and 2 tsp of yogurt to one of the parts and baked it. It might not be like the original, but it did not turn that bad either. Anyway I will try again. Maybe third time’s the charm?

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Slutty Brownies…..

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….because well what’s Valentine’s Day (or life) without a little sluttiness.

I keep complaining to V that we do not travel much and though the “we” do not travel much part still stands, I am officially tired of traveling. My 2013 till now has been spent living out of the suitcase, and this is when I don’t even work. Even though its not official traveling I still won’t call it traveling for pleasure any more because honestly I just want to sit at one place and stick to that place for at least a week, if not more!

In my last post I mentioned the places I would be traveling to- from Kolkata to Lucknow to Jaipur to Delhi to Chandigarh to Delhi to Corbett to Allahabad to Delhi to finally Arizona in March. I have already attended four weddings this year (these are the ones that were weddings of close friends- I am not including the other random people’s receptions I have attended in between). I am traveling to Corbett for the fifth wedding (and hopefully the last one for some time) tonight. From there I head to my parents place in Allahabad and will also be attending the Mahakumbh Mela that I talked about in my last post.

I wanted to share my Vipassana and “bharat darshan” experience with all of you, but an hour on the laptop today will not suffice. SO I will leave that for another day.

Today, I want to share these brownies that I had taken on my train ride to Kolkata for my friends who were also traveling with me.

I have no clue why someone decided to name these brownies slutty.

A choc-chip cookie dough layer. Whole oreo cookies layered side by side on top of the cookie dough. A rich chocolatey brownie batter poured on top of the two and a final sprinkle of crushed oreos on top.

Ummm…..I kinda understand the idea behind calling them slutty. Just describing makes them sound like quite a tease! Chocolate chip cookie, brownies, oreos all in one bite- slut galore in your mouth!

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