Malibu Bay Breeze Cupcakes

This weekend I decided to turn the Malibu Bay Breeze drink into a cupcake!

Ingredients:
1 box Duncan Hines Pineapple Supreme cake mix
3 Eggs
1/3 cup Vegetable Oil
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup + 2 TbspsCranberry Juice
1/3 cup + 2 Tbsps Coconut Rum*
Red food coloring
3 cups confectioner's sugar
1 stick unsalted butter (softened)
1 Tbsp Pineapple Juice
Flaked coconut  for garnish

*For non-alcoholic cupcakes:
Replace coconut rum in the cupcake batter with ~2 tsp coconut extract and 1/3 cup water.
For the frosting replace the coconut rum with ~1 tsp coconut extract


Cake
 Preheat oven to 350F.  Place cupcake liners into two 12-cup cupcake pans.  Mix Cake Mix, eggs, vegetable oil, water, 1/3 cup coconut rum, and a little more than 1/2 cup Cranberry Juice until blended.  Beat for ~2 min on medium speed until smooth.  Split batter in half in two bowls, in one bowl add a few drops of red food coloring.

Pour one color batter into bottom of the cupcake liners to less than half full.  Then fill the cupcake liners with the other color batter until it is almost filled.   Bake for ~22 min, until you insert a toothpick and it comes out mostly clean. Completely cool cupcakes before frosting.

Frosting
Combine confectioner's sugar, unsalted butter, pineapple juice, 2 Tbsps cranberry juice and 2 Tbsps coconut rum in a medium bowl.  Beat until smooth.  Use a frosting knife to frost cooled cupcakes.  Sprinkle the flaked coconut on the edge of the frosted cupcakes.

For decoration cut colored straws so that they are ~1in tall and stick into each cupcake.  And for more color use drink umbrellas.

Enjoy these cupcakes as you celebrate the summer!

Chocolate Chip Cheescake Bars

This is one of my favorite recipes and also one of the easiest!!  Only 5 ingredients!

Ingredients:

1 tube (18 oz.) refrigerated chocolate chip cookie dough

1 package (8 oz.) cream cheese (softened)

1/2 cup sugar

1 egg

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Grease an 8 inch square pan.  Press half of the dough onto the bottom of the pan.  In a mixing bowl, beat cream cheese, sugar, egg and vanilla until smooth.  Spread over cookie dough.  Crumble remaining dough on top.  Bake for 35 - 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean.  Cool on a wire rack. Cut into approximately 12-16 bars.

When I went to the store today I was disappointed to only find 16oz or 32oz tubes of chocolate chip cookie dough.  I decided to buy the 32oz tube, and wing it.  With the remaining 14oz of chocolate chip cookie dough I decided to make "Chocolate chip cheese cake cups"!

Here is my modified recipe for the filling:

1.5 packages (12 oz.) cream cheese (softened)

3/4 cup sugar

1.5 eggs (I cracked the egg into a bowl and only added ~1/2 to the batter)

3/4 teaspoon vanilla

-Beat ingredients together until smooth. 

For cups:

-Split 14oz of chocolate chip cookie dough in half for bottom and top of cups.

-Bake for 25-30min at 350 degrees.

-Makes ~7 cups.

Enjoy these simple and delicious treats!!

 

(ok so I turned  a non-cupcake recipe into a cookiecup recipe...what can I say, any excuse to use my cupcake pan!)