TWD: Chocolate-Chocolate Cupcakes

All packed up to go in my spiffy travel case

This week's selection was chosen by Clara of I Heartfood4thought and it provided a lot of excitement in our household (yay chocolate!). I did not get around to decorating my cupcakes in any spectacular Halloween fashion but I cannot wait to check out the blogs and see the creativity that everyone else came up with! I had big hopes for decorating them with a Penn State theme as I was bringing them over to a Penn State viewing party (like the team, the cupcakes were classics without any extra ornamentation!) :-)

My cupcakes were done in about 18 minutes and I was glad I checked early because there were so many reports of them being dry. I added nutella to half of my cupcakes which was a tremendous addition!

The lone survivor!

Yes, they do look dry now, but it was 2 days later! :-)

TWD: Caramel Peanut-Topped Brownie (Cup) Cake

Tammy of Wee Treats by Tammy picked a good one this week- Caramel Peanut-Topped Brownie Cake!

I decided to take the recipe and make cupcakes out of it to see how it would turn out. I knew if we had a whole brownie cake laying around it would be bad news for me & my husband (and besides, who doesn't want a cupcake?) :-)

The cupcakes turned out very nicely- except they were a tiny bit dry. I probably should have cut the baking time by 1-2 minutes (I baked them for about 25 minutes). The caramel took almost 20 minutes to make but was ferociously delicious! I can't wait to have an excuse just to make the caramel again!

One important tip I learned about caramel: just because the metal spoon that is sitting in caramel isn't hot, doesn't mean the caramel on the spoon won't burn the roof of your mouth off!

I made 3 different types of cupcakes: plain, caramel covered & peanut/caramel topped and the caramel only were the most popular. Really this was a great recipe, I'm so glad I made it into cupcakes, they were the perfect size! If you decide to make the cupcakes, fill the cups no more than half way because while baking the cupcakes will grow big time otherwise (unless you want huge cupcakes and there is no harm in that!)