I have never been much of a baker. To me, it takes a person who has a healthy respect for math and measurements to be a successful one. I am more of a cook, going with gut feel or eyeballing amounts is more my style.
When a friend of mine asked me to bring something sweet to her holiday party I decided to forgo my usual route (buying cookies at Target) and try to actually make something. I had seen the idea for Santa Hat Brownies on Pinterest, and decided to give it a whirl. How hard could it be? You use boxed brownie mix and stick some strawberries on top. The result?
FAILURE
I had forgotten that I have never been able to successfully cut brownies out of a pan without having them crumble immediately. This is precisely what happened when I tried to cut out the cute looking round brownie bites that are shown in the picture (I should mention I was trying to use a shot glass to get the brownies out of a pan). Here is picture of the results:
So back to square one. I was about to give up but I had already bought a ridiculous number of strawberries and I wasn’t about to let them go to waste. Think, think think…
Ah Ha! Betty Crocker has been a long time friend of mine and she had just the solution. Instead of making brownies for the base I decided to whip up Betty’s famous Chocolate Cake mix, and make mini cupcakes (for some random reason I had all the ingredients I needed in my kitchen). I also decided to go with Betty’s Vanilla Buttercream frosting instead of the Mascarpone Buttercream that is recommended in the recipe. I don’t own any frosting decorating bags, and I am not about to invest in any, so I threw the frosting into a zipped sandwich bag and cut off one of the corners. The result this time?
SUCCESS!
Yummy Santa Hat Cupcakes for everyone to share!
About Erika
They look delicious!! Cupcakes are a clever idea!