I was in a baking mood this last week, but I'm kind of a lazy baker. I buy the Betty Crocker boxes of cookies and cakes and then instead of following the directions I turn them into something else. It's kind of like making it myself, but so much easier. I highly recommend this process to everyone. Anyway, my friend Meaghan was having a house warming party and I told her we'd bring some treats and I decided I wanted to try something new. The original plan was to have blueberry chocolate cupcakes but that plan was sidelined by 1- Safeway not having any pure blueberry juice, and 2 - my eyes landing on a devil's food cake mix.
One of the first things you need to know about baking with a box, is that you really should never use oil or water. I will typically substitute butter for oil, and milk for water. I find that this leaves my baking goodies more chewy and fresher for a longer amount of time. Everything is also richer in flavor. Okay, so here's what you need:
Cupcakes
- A box of chocolate devil's food cake - I like Betty Crocker Super Moist Devil's Food Cake Mix
- 1 Cup Black Cherry 100% juice-Alternatively, you can really use any juice you'd like.
- 3 eggs
- ½ cup Butter
- 48-ish mini cupcake cups
Frosting
- 4oz Cream Cheese
- 4oz Unsalted Butter
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- 1tsp vanilla extract
- 1 cup fresh, or thawed frozen blueberries
Follow the directions on the back of the cake box, subbing the juice for the water, and the butter for the oil. Using a teaspoon, yes a teaspoon. Fill you mini cupcake cups. Bake each batch for approximately 20 minutes. You're going to end up with 48+ mini cupcakes.
While your cupcakes are baking put your cup of blueberries, along with about a 3/4 cup of water in a small sauce pan. Bring the blueberries and water to a boil and then allow them to simmer for about 5 minutes. Strain the blueberries and then mash them up like there's no tomorrow. You can also use a blender if you want, which does work very nicely. Add all your frosting ingredients and stir everything together until you have delicious blueberry frosting.
For easy cupcake frosting I recommend spooning your frosting into a ziploc bag and then cutting a small hole in one corner. Then you can use the ziploc bag like a pastry chef, and feel like a badass as you easily and quickly frost your 48+ cupcakes.
If you're not going to eat all your cupcakes in one sitting you should definitely remember to put them in the refrigerator as the frosting will be super nasty if you don't. Now go enjoy your delicious creating.
:)M
P.S. - I wrote/built this entire entry using my new HTML skills. I'm feeling pretty awesome about it.
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