S'mores and Oreos...anyone noticing a theme here?!

KitchenAid's and American goodies make me happy!

So my adventures in cupcaking haven't been too adventurous recently! and there's good reason for that! After ants devouring previous cupcake attempts, frosting turning into a melted mess and measurement conversion confusion, Caribbean baking has left me a little despondent! I don't feel comfortable baking in my kitchen the way I used to! so when I was asked by someone to make some kind of portable edible delights to take on a boat trip for the evening I knew it needed to be simple!

It's one thing having frosting melt on the cupcakes I am about to eat in my kitchen, it's a whole other ordeal having them melt out at sea with a mass of hungry people who are waiting on them! So I went with what I know works...what have I made since I've been here S'mores brownies and Oreo cupcakes! 

The ones on the left are ready to be grilled, the ones on the right had just come out from under the grill and then get sprinkled with chocolate chips whilst still warm so they melt a little

I baked a double batch of good old Martha's Brownie cupcake recipe, and topped half of them with marshmallows, graham crackers and chocolate chips...and the other half with Oreo frosting and a little bite of Oreo goodness.  I forgot to add what made this process all the more exciting was I finally had a KitchenAid to help me along! The lady I was baking them for has just moved house and found a KitchenAid was one of her new appliances awaiting her! how lucky is she! So she lent it to me...and oh how I miss my KitchenAid - it was so lovely to be reunited just for a day! 

Here are the Oreo ones in all their chocolate-y glory

Of course no baking session is complete without a few little mini's along the way to taste things out! 

Oreo Brownie Cupcakes...double stuff stylie!

I had a craving for Oreo cupcakes this weekend.  Byron had a craving for brownies - so what did we do? combine the two! I made my favourite Martha Stewart Brownie cupcakes and added some crushed Oreo into the mix....

...then I lined each cupcake case with half an Oreo cookie, this is one of my favourite tricks.  This time I made it even better by using a Double Stuff cookie half and oh wow it made such a difference! Double the yumminess for sure!

Then I spooned the cupcake mix into the cases, nearly right to the top (as brownies don't really rise all that much)...

...and this is how they looked when they came out the oven.

I made another Caribbean baking error though.  I took my cream cheese and butter for the frosting out of the fridge well ahead of time, thinking I was still back in England!, so of course by the time I got around to making the frosting they were both completely melted! So my frosting wasn't thick enough to form nice frosting peaks, I just slapped it on with a knife but it still tasted great.

I thought I'd show off a little more of the beautiful scenery I am surrounded with here in Turks and Caicos, so that's the canal our house backs on to in the background of the pic! Enjoy!

Grason for President!

So our neighbour Grason is running for class president tomorrow down at Provo Primary School, and what better way to get some winning votes than a little cupcake bribery! Grason made the cupcakes and his sister Milah helped him frost them in the turquoise colour of his Primary School colours...however due to the intense heat we endure on this Island the frosting was melting at an alarming rate so we put them in the fridge to set and they actually turned out looking more like glace icing even though it was thick frosting to begin with!

Then I whipped up some of my vanilla bean paste frosting and dyed it red, and we piped some 'G's' on the top, for Grason obviously.  We were pleased with how they turned out and I just hope they survived the heat on the journey to school this morning! I have yet to hear whether he won or not...but hopefully the cupcakes sweetened everyone's opinion just a little! 

S'mores Brownies

If you have been reading my other blog at all, you will know that on our 3rd day on the Island after taking out a mobile phone contract we won an iPad! Crazy right! Well I was able to download an awesome Betty Crocker app with hundreds of amazing recipes on and last night we had some friends over for dinner.  As I was browsing through the yummy recipes on offer I stumbled across these S'mores Brownies.  Well they were too good to pass by, and what was more exciting was knowing that I could buy the graham crackers and kraft jet puffed marshmallows down at the store (unlike when I was living in England!) so that is how this little bit of baking came about! 

Unfortunately all my lovely cake stands and scrapbooking papers had to be left behind in the UK... so I was worried about how I could photograph these beauties when I remembered about the amazing landscape we have all around us here so I ventured into our 'front yard' and here's how the pic came out:

Here is the view from above.  They are essentially a layer of brownie, a layer of marshmallows, broken up bits of graham crackers and then the recipe called for bits of Hershey's choc but that is definitely an American ingredient I draw the line at, so I substituted with some milk chocolate chips I had brought from home.

You bake the brownie first.  Then add the marshmallows and broken up graham crackers on top.  Put it under the grill (or broil for the U.S readers!) for 5 minutes, and then as soon as it comes out sprinkle the chocolate over the top so it will melt ever so slightly...perfect! You can find the Betty Crocker recipe I followed here

I had so much fun making these that I am totally envisioning S'mores cupcakes for next time!