Sugar Porn for No Reason

White on white on white on white on white hot chocolate. Ghirardelli White Hot Chocolate from a cafe near my house. So unbelievably good all year long.

Emergency Homemade Cupcake Kit: Party-ready in 10 Minutes

You know what you’ll want every time you get a holiday party invite over the next few weeks? Adorable homemade cupcakes. You know what’s a pain in the ass to bake fresh every time? Adorable homemade cupcakes. But there is a solution! And after you’ve done the prep work, treats-on-demand will only take about 10 minutes to assemble a dozen cupcakes.

You will need:

• Sprinkles, sugar snowflakes, crushed peppermints, or whatever else delights your eyeballs
• Your favorite cupcake recipe (maybe the ever-reliable One Bowl Chocolate Cake?)
• Neutral-enough-to-go-anywhere cupcake wrappers
• Frosting recipe (more on this in Step 2)
• Piping bags and an icing tip (I like 1M or 2D)

Step 1: Make and Store Cupcakes

Bake and freeze. Hear me out! I always used to bake cupcakes fresh as close to serving as possible, but after a few conversations with professional bakers I learned that cakes not only do fine after freezing, they actually come out better. Many bakers bake their cakes ahead of time specifically to give themselves time to freeze them before serving, because that’s how awesome freezing is for taste and texture.*

So! This weekend, make and freeze a ton of cupcakes. When your cupcakes come out of the oven, put them on a cooling rack for 10 minutes. Wrap them in plastic wrap (I wrap several together at a time), burrito in aluminum foil, slip into a freezer bag, and put them in the freezer.

Step 2: Make and Store Frosting

I think Wilton Buttercream is the way to go for an Emergency Homemade Cupcake Kit. It’s super fast, nearly foolproof, and it will last a couple weeks in the fridge (according to BakeLikeAPro, at least–reviews on the Wilton website give it up to 8 weeks especially if you sub water for the milk) so a batch or two will get you through the holiday season.

Step 3: Showtime!

When you get that last-minute invite or are having a couple people over for dinner after work, DON’T PANIC. YOU GOT THIS.

Take your cupcakes out of the freezer and unwrap. Slap some buttercream into a piping bag and frost those bad boys. Toss on some sprinkles and decorations.

BAM! You’re party-ready!

The cupcakes will thaw by the time you get wherever you’re going (under 20 minutes at room temperature). They will be magnificent and everyone will be impressed at your ability to pull a dozen cupcakes out of your ass.

*For a more in-depth discussion on how/why freezing cakes improves your cake, visit One Tough Cookie NYC.

Tell me! If you had to eat the same cake/frosting combination all season long, what would it be? (Obviously you don't have to eat the same combo all season - make a few different batches for your emergency kits! I'm just curious!)

Sugar Porn for No Reason

Some cute little cupcakes I made for my older brother's birthday.

By the way, never use Paula Dean cupcake wrappers. They are too big for any cupcake pan I have, and they folded in on themselves to make some weirdly shaped cupcakes.

Magician's Cereal Marshmallows Way Better in a Hot Chocolate

Tired of all that cereal getting in the way of your Lucky Charms? There is a solution! Because my boyfriend is the best boyfriend of all the boyfriends in the land, he found bags of pure crunchy cereal marshmallows. Check it out:

It says "add to your favorite cereal," but why would I do that? They already sell these in cereal. If I wanted that, I would buy that.*

When I'm not eating these straight out of the bag, they are perfect in hot chocolate. I'm never one to hate on the classic marshmallow (love you, marshie!), but these are infinitely more fun in cocoa because they are colorful and therefore cuter, and they also don't melt down.

Magician's Cereal Marshmallows > Classic Marshmallows

*(Of course, if you wanted to add these to your cereal because Lucky Charms isn't sugary enough for you, I fully support that.)

Chocolate-Dipped Marshmallows Take Advantage of Your Entire Sprinkle Collection

White chocolate-dipped marshmallows. Super easy, pretty inexpensive, relatively fast, and your entire sprinkle collection can come out to play. (Before you ask, of course these photos don't represent my entire collection.)

You need:

• Marshmallows
• White chocolate (or milk chocolate or candy melts)
• Sprinkles
• A toothpick or something

I used white chocolate because, frankly, the rainbow sprinkles I wanted to use would be cuter on white than brown. I use this particular white chocolate because in my thoroughly uneducated opinion, the ingredients lists on some of the other brands look grosser:

1. Melt the chocolate in the microwave in a small bowl. Most chocolate boxes and some chocolate chips will come with instructions for this. For that whole box, I microwaved on high 30 seconds, stirred, and put back in for 30 seconds. When you take it out after that it will be a little lumpy, but that's OK. Just stir it a minute and everything gets smooth. It's better to err on the side of being too cool instead of too warm. Too warm and the marshmallows might melt (or, even worse, the chocolate might burn).
2. Skewer your marshmallow on a toothpick and dip in the chocolate. When it's covered to your liking (I usually covered it the whole way but you could do half or three-quarters or whatever), pull it out and tap it on the side a few times to shake off the excess.
3. Sprinkle on some sprinkles.
4. Use a fork to lift the marshmallow off the toothpick and place on parchment or wax paper. Let them dry a few hours, and store in an airtight container. Serve in mini muffin liners if you're fancy.

The chocolate melts in your mouth and the marshmallow is so fluffy and the sprinkles add a little crunch and Mmmmmmmmm. There were no leftovers.

Another good reason to use a variety of sprinkles is that I found that for some reason, my nonpareils made the chocolate funky on a few. But since they were only on a handful, it didn't ruin the whole batch:

(They're probably best the day you make them because you don't want stale marshmallows, but I made mine the night before, put them in the liners and in a cardboard box, then quadruple wrapped the box in plastic wrap and stored in the fridge. They were perfectly soft and delectable the next day.)

Cook's Farm Dairy Ice Cream Will Ruin You

While visiting Erik's family, they told me, "we are going to take you somewhere where you can pet baby cows." I didn't know anything more than that, and I don't feel like I needed to because, baby cows.

So, we headed on down to Cook's Farm Dairy.

It's a family dairy in Ortonville, Michigan (about an hour north of Detroit), where they raise cows and process their own milk and ice cream (!!). Go on inside the barn and you can get some for yourself.

I chose Udder Butter. Word on the street is that it is one of the most beloved flavors.

And this ice cream! It will just absolutely destroy you for any supermarket brands. At first lick you think, "Oh yeah, this is what ice cream is supposed to be."

(That's apparently considered "one scoop" at Cook's, by the way. They do not skimp!)

It is so rich and creamy, it tastes almost buttery. And it's so THICK and solid that it barely even melts. I ate this in the car with the heat blasting and never once had to worry about drips. We brought half a gallon of ice cream home from Michigan that weekend (Tractor Trails - another superb flavor similar to Moose Tracks) and it lasted in a styrofoam cooler for the six and a half hour drive. Yeah, when we got home it had a more milkshakey consistency, but still. That's some thick ice cream that it survived out of the freezer in any form for that long.

Don't worry, even in a state of ice cream excitement I remembered to go around back and visit the cows and thank them for all their hard work.

(Yanking my hand away because every time you try to pet her head, she tries to lick your arm.)

And of course the calf nursery.

I couldn't find a website or anything for them, but there's some info on Yelp if you want to check it out for yourself.

The (Superior) Cupcake Box Alternative You Can Buy at Staples

The cupcakes in this post are now out of date, but the idea is seasonless so prime your Pinterest finger.

Cupcakes are a pain in the ass to transport. I have one of those silly cupcake carriers for parties, but if you just want to leave an individual cupcake in someone's mailbox or something, that is never going to work out. And don't get me started on specialized cupcake boxes. Even at a discount they're usually $1 or more each once you buy all the lids and inserts and have them shipped to you. No Thank You.

But here is a 15¢ solution that you can buy at an office supply store and that actually showcases your treat:

It's just a clear plastic cup, turned upside down. I can't take credit for this idea - I bought a cupcake at craft show sort of thing last year*, and they served them up this way.

Mine are 10 oz and I think they are perfect. But if you subscribe more to the "cake is just a vehicle for frosting" school of thought, you may want to size up.

Look at everybody packed up together, ready for their new homes!

*I don't know for sure, but I think it was from A Sweet Life.

Sugar Porn for No Reason

From my very first trip to Orange Leaf. Since this first day, I have since eaten myself into almost-a-pound-of-frozen-yogurt-at-a-time oblivion enough times that they recognize me to the point of getting on-the-house yogurt on special occasions. So, we're very happy together.

A Visit to The Candy Bar and a bite of a Curly Wurly bar

I found a new candy shop the other day: The Candy Bar in Covington, Kentucky.

It's pretty awesome. It's open late-ish (for a candy shop) (8/9 PM) and it's in Mainstrasse Village, an area jam packed with restaurants and bars and such, so you can stop in for a treat after dinner or maybe between drinks. The walls, shelves, and everything are white, so the rainbow of candy wrappers really pops.

They even have Wonka Bars!

But I didn't get one. I went home with something with what seemed to be to still be a pretty Wonka-ish name: the Curly Wurly.

A Curly Wurly bar is braided caramel covered in milk chocolate. They're by Cadbury, and are very similar to the now-discontinued Marathon bars by Mars.

It's pretty chewy.

I like caramel to have a little crunch along with it, so I don't know if I'll buy this again, but it was definitely still tasty.