Go Cougars!

So in honor of tonight's big Sweet 16 game I made some awesome treats in the Cougar blue and white. These of course can be adapted to match whatever team or color scheme you are going for. Let's hope these bring us good luck! This idea came from www.ourbestbites.com.

Blue and White Cupcakes
white cake mix
2 eggs
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup milk
1/3 cup vegetable oil

Mix everything together until smooth. The batter will be thicker than a normal cake batter. The thicker batter helps with the color distribution and produces a delightfully delicious cup cake! Divide the batter into 2 different bowls. Add food coloring until you get your desired richness of color. Alternate spooning blue and white into each cupcake paper until 1/2-2/3 full. use a toothpick to swirl the colors together a little bit. Bake according to directions on box. Let cool, then frost. I just used white frosting with blue sprinkles, but there are lots of cool frosting ideas out there too.

thick batter

Alternate blobs of each color.

They're pretty enough even without frosting

but then they would probably be called muffins.

Boston Cream Cupcakes

 Welcome to my first post! I made these for my daughter's birthday party and they were a big hit! This recipe comes from Paula Deen via my mom. Easy, simple, affordable, and delicious! That's what I call a perfect recipe!

(photo courtesy of foodnetwork.com)

Boston Cream Cupcakes
yellow cake mix and ingredients on the box
3.4 oz package instant vanilla pudding
1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream (I only had 1 1/4, but it worked fine)
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup sour cream

1. Bake cupcakes according to directions on the package.
2. While the cupcakes are cooling mix pudding, cream, powdered sugar, milk, and sour cream until you have stiff peaks.
*Note: this makes a LOT of filling. You can probably cut the recipe in half, or eat the extra with a spoon. Your choice. You can probably guess which option I took. :-)
3. Fill the cupcakes. This can be done using various methods. I found the one that worked the best for me was to clip the corner of a ziplock bag, insert the decorator tip with the fattest opening, and fill the cupcakes by stabbing and squeezing in filling 2-3 times. The cupcakes split open on top, but the next step takes care of that.
4. Make ganache!
Ganache:
1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
3/4 cup heavy whipping cream
2 cups powdered sugar
Melt chocolate and cream in double boiler. Remove from heat and whisk in sugar. Let sit 20-30 min.

5. Pour ganache over filled cupcakes. It should pour smoothly right on top. My ganache sat a little too long and needed to be spread out a little, but it worked fine too. The ganache is going to get on the cupcake papers, it's fine. It's actually kinda pretty.
*Note: Put the cupcakes on a cooling rack on top of waxed paper before pouring on ganache. It's a lot less messy!
6. Put cupcakes in fridge to cool and set up. (I just transferred the whole waxed paper/cooling rack/cupcake set-up to the fridge so the cup cakes could continue to drip.)
7. Devour! (but you already knew that!)