Ice Cream Cupcakes!

Today is J's 27th birthday! My old man. And I don't mean because he is turning 27, I mean because he has to ask me weekly how old he is. ::sigh::

As you may know, I am huuuuge on birthdays. J is not. But he has learned by now that it is just too bad, because I will make a big deal out of his anyway! Since he is not a huge fan of cake, I was trying to think of something creative to make him this year for his birthday dessert. I came across this recipe from one of my favorite food blogs, Beantown Baker.

I let J pick whatever flavors he wanted, and he was torn between strawberry and coffee ice cream. I decided why not make them both!

I am a total cheater and I used a boxed cake mix, as well as frosting from a jar. Sue me. The cake is devil's food, and the frosting is chocolate cream cheese. We had a little leftover plain cream cheese frosting so I used that for a few as well. I ended up actually buying four different kinds of ice cream, which was dumb but oh well. They were buy one get one, and there were some really tempting flavors! So we have coffee, strawberry, mint oreo, and chocolate peanut butter cup.

Jen from Beantown Baker said that she filled the cupcakes a little less than half full. I think this looks about right, no?

Apparently not. They came out baked all the way to the top of the cups! I ended up having to cut the tops of them off. For the second tray, I used less, and they still baked up really high.

::snort:: Baked up.. really high..

Anyway, it was okay because I was supposed to use a couple of the cupcakes to mix with the ice cream anyway, so I just used the cut out bits instead. However, after making 18 cupcakes (I only have a tray for 12 and a half tray for 6.. I need to get on that) I still had about half of the batter left, and I realized that was going to make a lot of cupcakes. Instead I used the last of it to make a 9" round cake.

So the cupcakes are done, and I am supposed to mix the cut outs with a bit of ice cream, spread that on, then spread just ice cream on the top. Well I still hadn't made the cake part small enough, because after adding just the slightest bit of cake/ice cream mixture, they were reaching the top of the cups! I stopped after three and cut more cake out of the rest, but I was starting to be afraid they would not have enough cake after all was said and done!

At this point they were becoming a bit of a melty mess, and I forgot to take a picture of this stage. I popped them in the freezer and we went to my parents' house to hang out with them and J&K. Played a little Scattergories, good times.

Got back a couple hours later and they were fully frozen - sweet! Time to attempt frosting them. I decided to pipe the frosting on like Jen did, but rather than get out my piping bag, I decided to just use plastic baggies with the corners cut off.

Bad idea.

My frosting looks like poops. Also please notice the top right cupcake where the plastic baggie burst and a big ol plop of frosting fell on top... so that is how it stayed.

And can we talk about the fact that as I was doing it the ice cream started to melt again, and for some reason ice cream apparently defies gravity and rather than melting over the sides of the cups, it started moving up through the freshly piped poop, I mean frosting???

Ya that really helped... not! I am headed straight for Cake Wrecks, I'm telling you!

Somehow, a few of them turned out semi-decent looking. I particularly like this coffee one, as well as the strawberry one that I showed at the beginning of the post. (Did you like how I showed the appetizing one first, to make you keep reading? How do you like that bit of trickery?)

Here they are sitting in the freezer, waiting to be eaten tonight. I will post again after we eat them to let you know how they turned out.

So about that 9 inch round. I figured I would use this to decorate and draw attention to the fact that it is J's birthday we are celebrating. Yeah, I should have just called it a day. If the cupcakes don't get me into Cake Wrecks, this certainly will!!

But at least my cake stand is pretty! I have to take a minute to AW this stand. I luurrve it. I found it at Home Goods recently and have been dying to use it. So I guess not all was a loss!

Stay tuned for a recap of the most important part of the cupcakes - eating them.