Margarita Mix It Up

After three unintentional days off, the Bitchy was starting to come around. So, despite the 90 degree temperature and lack of cloud cover, I set out clockwise around the normal loop.

It was a cool 79 in the house, so initially I felt good. I had Patti Smith on repeat. It didn’t take long past one kilometer for me to start feeling the sun rays. The run became miserable. I could feel my days off. The only thing keeping me going was the thought of the bottle of Jose Cuervo on my counter. Calm down, Dad.  I don’t have a problem. At least not a drinking problem.

Nope. I was thinking about the freshly baked Margarita Cupcakes, waiting to be frosted.

I know “they” -who is they anyway?- say not to reward yourself with food, and this really wasn’t a reward. It was just a matter of fact that in order to eat the cupcakes, I had to get home. And the faster I went, the less time it took. Mind you, I was still pretty slow for the duration of the two miles.

Anyway, I found the recipe for these on Lauren’s blog, and I suggest you bake these or any of the other delicious-looking cupcakes you find there.

The consistency of the frosting was a bit runny for my taste. I contribute that to my poor choice to use light cream cheese and butter, which I already had in the fridge. Oh well, they’re still delish. And I have enough tequila and Margarita mix for a real Margarita. Yes! So much for my run.

“This paragraph not only has curly quotes, but also -yes!- typographically-correct dashes as well.”

Since I’m not Betty Crocker, I buy Betty Crocker. Then I get sucked into Pinterest, and I feel the overwhelming need to bake something that is not straight-out-of-the-box delicious. However, I couldn’t just let the box o’ deliciousness go to waste, so I checked the BC website for anything requiring one box of Supermoist Devil’s Food Cake Mix.

Molten Chocolate Cupcakes. Score.

The total time required is two hours, and that almost dissuaded me until I realized that one hour of that is just refrigerating the molten gooeyness. There will be no picture accompanying this post, because I couldn’t find the camera, my phone’s camera sucks, and while these bad boys were delicious, they were also a visual atrocity. I omitted the pudding, making the cupcake part too weak to hold the molten chocolate. What I made were basically upside down cupcakes. (I say upside down because the molten goodness settled on the bottom, so I just flipped them over and skipped the icing. *sigh*) You can view a perfect example and original recipe here. I’ve italicized my mistakes. I’m not like the chefs on the Food Network who can eyeball recipes and improvise. I know this now. On a side note, you cannot substitute Splenda for sugar when making fudge. Unless you want fudge soup. Back to the Molten Chocolate Cupcakes.

You will need

3/4 cup whipping cream

1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

1 box Betty Crocker® SuperMoist® devil’s food cake mix

1 box (4-serving size) chocolate fudge instant pudding and pie filling mix (I omitted the pudding because there was pudding in the cake mix. It made a big difference.)

1 1/4 cups water

1/2 cup vegetable oil (I used olive oil, but I don’t think it matters)

4 eggs

1 container Betty Crocker® Rich & Creamy chocolate frosting

Powdered sugar

Sliced strawberries

 

In 1-quart saucepan, heat whipping cream over medium-high heat until hot but not boiling. Stir in chocolate chips until melted and mixture is smooth. Refrigerate about 1 hour, stirring occasionally, until thick.

Heat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour 24 large (2 3/4×1 1/4-inch) muffin cups (dark or nonstick pans not recommended). I suggest using cupcake liners in case the chocolate settles to the bottom-with liners you can salvage the treats. In a large bowl, beat cake mix, pudding mix, water, oil and eggs with electric mixer on low speed 30 seconds, then on medium speed 2 minutes, scraping bowl constantly. Place 1/4 cup batter in each muffin cup. Spoon 1 tablespoon cold chocolate mixture on top of batter in center of each cup.

Bake 20 to 23 minutes or until top springs back when lightly touched. You cannot do the toothpick test, because there will be molten chocolate in the middle. Hopefully. Cool 1 minute. Carefully remove from pan; place on cooking parchment paper. Or not. Cool 10 minutes. Frost with chocolate frosting. Just before serving, sprinkle with powdered sugar. Garnish with strawberry slices. Serve warm. Store loosely covered.

Like I said, these are delish, and I will be attempting them again. Maybe I will even follow the directions exactly.