Chocolate Mint Cupcakes & warmer weather!

The weather finally broke out of the freezing temps and it is forcasted to be close to 50* everyday this next week! It's ALMOST warm enough for me to wax my car! Don't get me wrong...I LOVE WINTER! I love snow (seriously, I think we got about 4" of snow this year), I love the crisp morning when you walk outside, you can see your breath...I am a freak, I already know this and I have shamelessly admitted it many times, but I too, get to that point that I am ready for it to be over and move onto the next season.

Heading down to Cory's today for a day of scrapbooking...I should be packing, but I'm sitting at my computer drinking my morning coffee. I ate oatmeal for breakfast, I need to get on the treadmill, take a shower and then I can leave!

So, I've jumped on the cupcake/scrapbook bandwagon! I made cupcakes to take to Cory's. Now, I am NOT A BAKING KINDA GIRL! I obviously can bake and cook, but I have never been one to whip out homemade cookies, fudge, cakes or muffins during the holidays. (I am ok if it comes in a box) I can impress the best of them with a loaf of bread - little do they know, I have a really cool easy to use breadmaker! And the best bread mix in the world is:


OK, back to cupcakes. So, I bought a box of chocolate cake mix, the ONLY THING I ADDED was a teaspoon of peppermint extract and a teaspoon of vanilla extract to the mix and baked the cupcakes as usual.

While they were cooking, I made a buttercream frosting ( click here for recipe ) (NOTE: I also added a teaspoon of peppermint extract to the buttercream frosting to give it a slight minty flavor) and loaded it into a gallon ziploc bag and put it in the fridge to get cold and stiff.

When the cupcakes were done, I let them cool and as soon as they were cool, the frosting was stiff, I cut off a corner of the ziploc bag and added frosting and Ande's mint chocolate's and WA-LA:




OK...off to pack to go to Cory's! Enjoy the Day! Enjoy the Sun (if it's out where you are, of course! LOL!!)