Welcome, April!

The end of March brought a wonderful Easter with the family, and it was Grace's pseudo first Easter. She even got a few gifts from the bunny and her own egg!

The GREEN egg story is kind of funny. My father-in-law grabbed a plastic cup and filled it with black iced tea. He looked down and said, geez, this tea looks really green. He had grabbed one of the cups we were preparing for egg decorating. The green dye tablet was in the bottom. Oops!

 Then came April. Grace's due date month! April 1st was our 38 week mark,so Grace.....when will you be making your debut? We took walks this weekend, and we went to spicy Indian for dinner. Nothing yet!

Also on April 1st, did you see all of the online April Fools Day pranks? I thought this one was pretty funny....

April is going to be a month I will never forget.

This week is my last week in the office. As of Friday at 5pm, my job will be stay-at-home (future) mom. So, today my office hosted a going away salad bar pot-luck luncheon for me. It was so sweet, and there were so many delicious things to eat! Yup, that rhymed. I made red-velvet cheesecake cupcakes. YUM.

Want the recipe???? I combined two recipes from The Cupcake Cure and Real Simple magazine recipes, so here's it is....

12 cupcakes & 20 mini cupcakes (what I made) OR probably 20ish cupcakes

CAKE

1 box red velvet cake OR German chocolate with red food coloring

1 stick VERY softened butter (as in leave it on the counter for an hour or pop it in the micro for 10ish seconds)

1 egg

CHEESECAKE

2 bars (16 oz) regular cream cheese, softened 

(leave on counter to soften or pop in micro for a few seconds)

heaping 1/2 c. sugar

2 eggs

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

CHEESECAKE FROSTING

1 bar (8 oz.) regular cream cheese, very softened

1/2 stick (4 T) butter, room temp soft

pinch of salt

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/2 c. powered sugar (2 c. if you like sweeter frosting)

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Cupcake liners

Raspberries optional

INSTRUCTIONS:

Preheat oven to 350

CAKE: With hand mixer, mix together cake ingredients until it is combined, crumbly, and wet.

Grab some gloves if you'd like, and scoop some cake into each cupcake liner.

Pat down the mixture so it is flat in the cup. It should take up a little less than half of the cup.

CHEESECAKE: With hand mixer, cream the softened cream cheese with the sugar, then add eggs and vanilla. It will be a little liquid-y. Spoon mixture into each cup on top of the cake. It should be enough to generously cover the cake portion. Do not fill the cups completely to the top. They will rise a bit!

Pop these into the middle oven rack! 25-30 minutes for regular sized cupcakes, 20 minutes for mini. When they're done, tops will have a little shine and will look firm. Don't let them get brown. 

While those are in the oven......

FROSTING: With hand mixer, beat softened cream cheese, soft butter, salt, and extract until creamy. Gently mix in powered sugar until combined.

Put frosting into piping bag. Store in fridge for the meantime.

Take out cupcakes from oven and tin. LET COOL COMPLETELY before adding frosting (frosting will melt on hot cakes).

Frost cupcakes and add raspberry or other garnish like chocolate curls or cake crumbs!

ENJOY!

I'm already loving welcoming the month of April. Hope April brings you lots of joy, too!

Sincerely,

Sara Cate