A + chocolate cupcake

I only took one semester of Home Ec. & it was in (I think?) 7th grade. It was a fun class, but the only thing I really remember was that what I called a spatula was actually called a rubber scraper. I mostly learned to cook & bake by watching my mom & lots of trial & error. I still consider myself a better cook than baker, since my cooking experiments seem to always turn out while my baking experiments are barely over a 60% success rate (even when I'm using someone else's recipe).

This cupcake is a game changer. After tasting it, I could picture myself winning Top Chef: Just Desserts... or at least getting an A+ in my Home Ec. class.

I have a suspicion that adding red food coloring would make this very similar to a red velvet cupcake, but I've never made red velvet cake so who knows what kind of crack they put in that stuff (disclaimer: there is no crack cocaine present in this recipe, only an added chocolate drizzle on top).

This is modified from Emma's basic chocolate cupcake recipe. She also does an A+ job with the recipes she posts. The only "complaint" I have is that the recipe states "makes 1 dozen" but I got 25 cupcakes out of it. It was horrible! :)

A+ Chocolate Cupcake (modified from here)
makes about 2 dozen

2 1/4 cups flour
1/4 cup cocoa
2 cups sugar
2 tsps baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup cold coffee
1 1/2 cups water
2/3 cups oil
2 Tbsp red wine vinegar

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Combine dry ingredients in a bowl. In another bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients. Slowly add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients, mixing just until batter is no longer lumpy. Pour the batter into lined cupcake tins, filling each cup 3/4 of the way full. Turn the over down to 325 degrees & bake for 23-25 minutes.

Chocolate Drizzle
1 bar of Hershey's milk chocolate
2 Tbsp butter
approx. 3 Tbsp cream

Break up the chocolate bar & melt with the butter in a microwave safe dish (mine took about 50 secs to melt, but watch it closely!!). Mix well with a fork, then slowly add the cream 1 Tbsp at a time, mixing well in between. Use the fork to drizzle over cupcakes.

You know what? These cupcakes are vegan! I didn't want to lead with that cause it scares some people away (the chocolate drizzle, however, does contain dairy).

I made these yesterday, and I think they tasted even better today, out of the fridge. I'm surprised they even lasted that long.

mango power smoothie

I love using my little Magic Bullet blender to make single-serving smoothies! And since my work schedule leaves me with a weird amount of time between lunch and dinner, having a smoothie that will fill me up but won't make me full (get the difference?) is pretty handy. I've been experimenting with adding kale to give my smoothies a nutritional boost, and this one I whipped up today was too delicious not to share. I prefer my smoothies on the thick, creamy side as opposed to an icier smoothie (I don't like using frozen fruit or ice cubes), so using frozen bananas (ok, I'm going back on what I said two seconds ago. Bananas are acceptable.) is a great way to get a creaminess without any dairy--did I mention this is vegan-friendly?

(Vegan) Mango Power Smoothie (makes 1 serving)
1 ripe mango, diced
1 banana, sliced then frozen
1/4 cup oatmeal, uncooked
1/2 cup loosely packed kale
1 Tbsp water

Put all ingredients into a blender and blend. Depending on the type of blender you have, you may need to experiment with the order you layer the ingredients--with the Magic Bullet, it works best for me to have the kale closest to the blade so it gets well-chopped and I'm not drinking big pieces of kale.

I love adding in all sorts of different ingredients and seeing what color the smoothie turns out to be--anyone else find this exciting? It's really cool, you guys.

This entire smoothie was gone before I even finished writing this post. Count that as a success.