FOURTH FLOOR FOODIES PRESENT . . .
By Foodie Sheila Lynch
These delicious babies are better than your average cupcake or muffin because they are both healthier and more moist. It's just a slight variation of the recipe listed on the back of your chocolate cake mix box. But you can cut out the eggs and the oil. People will be impressed by your culinary skills, even though it's super easy. Pumpkin lovers will rave over your ingenius use of pumpkin, and those adverse to the vegetable will be delighted when they find that they can't taste it at all. Why the hybrid name? I find it's too sweet to be a muffin, and definitely too rich to need a topping, like icing. If anything, I'll eat it with cool whip.
Ingredients
1 package Betty Crocker's Super Moist Devil's Food chocolate cake mix
1 15oz can Libby's PURE Pumpkin (CAREFUL! Don't get the pumpkin pie mix!!)
3/4 cup of water
Directions
Preheat oven to 350.
Mix all three ingredients together until well blended.
Grease cupcake pan or use paper baking cups.
Scoop batter into cups. Bake for 40 min.
Makes 12 cupmuffins. (NOT 24! If you want 24, make the muffins smaller and reduce time to 30min or so.)
Wanna take it up a notch?
Really impress your friends by making this mini version:
Follow steps from above, but use mini muffin pans (makes about 36 cupmuffins).
Take a plastic sandwich bag and cut off the tip of one bottom corner (hole should be about width of pinkie finger).
Spoon icing into plastic bag and squeeze it out the slit, making a circular motion with the bag (practice on a plate first). Or purchase (or borrow my) decorating tips.
Slide a tip into the bag so it sits in the hole, before putting the icing in.
Another notch?? Okay... Make your own icing!
Ingredients
1 1lb box of powdered sugar
1 cup of butter (softened, not melted)
1/4 cup of cocoa powder (this can vary to taste) a few splashes of milk (to make it the consistency of icing)
Directions
Mix/Beat all ingredients together.
Spoon into that plastic bag.
Decorate the topc of the mini cupmuffins with a dollop of homemade icing. Mmm.
* Picture shows store-bought icing, not homemade.
"Fourth Floor Foodies Present . . ." appears each week in The Common Room.