Muffin Cake Lives!!!

I am trying to lose the baby weight (yeah...we're going with blaming it on the baby...is that a problem?) so it's only fitting that I'd be obsessed with baking at the moment. And with Luca's birthday this week, I had the perfect excuse to bake something scrumptious. I was tempted to make the cake pops that are all the rage right now, but with a toddler and a newborn underfoot, I couldn't forsee being able to get them made and pretty without losing my mind. Plus, I'm kinda stubborn (Me? NAH!) and cake pops being all the rage made me NOT want to make them. You know...buck the trend and all that jazz. I needed something easier. Enter: cupcakes.

But the thing about cupcakes is, Darrick's not big into cake. I think he thinks it's too dry? So I wanted to do something with a little more oomph. I settled on a pudding center. Here are the pictures I took as I made them. I know...it's not like I did something no one's ever done before or anything, but for ME this was big!

First, I made white cake cupcakes (which look yellow here because of the lighting in the kitchen):



While they cooled, I made vanilla pudding. The kind you cook. On the stove. No instant in this house, no sir. And once the cupcakes were completely cool, I took a small knife and hollowed out their centers:



I don't own pastry bags, so I went the cheap route and used a sandwhich bag to fill the cupcakes. I just put cooled pudding in the bags (a tip: cover the pudding with plastic wrap while it cools to make it creamier) and snipped a hole in the corner:





For extra gooeiness (is that even right?) I filled them once, tapped them down on the counter to help the pudding settle, and topped them off. Once they'd sat in the fridge to let the pudding settle, I iced them and added sprinkles. I'd originally planned to use cherry frosting because Luca picked it out, but then I realized dark chocolate frosting would make them like Boston Creme cupcakes. An homage to the best donut ever, in cupcake version? Sign me up.:









Anyhow, we ended up out for dinner last night, so Luca didn't get to try the cupcakes until today. Though I fully admit that while I was decoratingI let her eat a spoonful of cherry frosting and poured sprinkles right into her mouth. She LOVED the cupcake she ate today SO MUCH she almost ate the whole thing!



















I'd say she liked them.