WARM WEATHER AND HOT DEALS!

Okay, so I am so excited while typing this I can barely contain myself!  I went to Gap today and bought 4 shirts and 1 pair of jeans for Logan for $3.81 out of pocket!  I don't normally shop at the Gap but this deal was too good to pass up!

I saved $80 off the regular retail prices!!  Thanks to a friend and Hip2save.com, I was able to get a "$25 off a $50 purchase" coupon sent to my cell phone.  Plus, I had a  $25 gift card thanks to another friend.

I also went to JCPenny and got a necklace, earrings, and a ring for $3.00 (I had a $10 off a $10 purchase coupon) All in all I would say it was a great day!

Cappuccino Goodness

Over the weekend, Judson hosted the REAL Women Conference.  I was on the planning team and volunteered to be in charge of the dessert table.  The conference was fantastic and there were lots of yummy treats. The day before I was busy making about 140 mini Cappuccino Cupcakes for the dessert buffet. I had several people ask me for the recipe so here it is.  

The recipe is from the KitchenAid Best Loved Recipes cookbook. 

Cappuccino Cupcakes

Cupcake Ingredients

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened

1 1/2 cup sugar

3 eggs

1 Tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons instant espresso or instant coffee granules

3/4 cup milk

1 3/4 cup all purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

 Beat butter in bowl of electric stand mixer on medium-high until creamy.  Add sugar gradually with mixer running and beat 3 minutes or until light and fluffy.  Reduce speed to medium and add eggs, 1 at at time, beating 30 seconds after each addition.  Stop and scrape bowl. 

Dissolve instant coffee in milk. Set aside.

Combine flour, baking powder and salt.  Turn mixer on low and add a third of flour mixture alternately with half of milk mixture, mixing 15 seconds after each addition.  

Spoon batter into 8 greased and floured custard cups.** (see my notes below about what I did) 

Bake in a 350 degree oven for 30-35 minutes or until toothpick inserted into cupcake comes out clean.  Remove from cups and cool on a wire rack.  

**Since I did mini cupcakes, I made the following changes to the recipe.  I used mini cupcake liners instead of greasing the pans.  I also baked them at 350 degrees for 13 minutes.  You may need to test the amount of time but each batch was always done right at 13 minutes for me.

Coffee Cream Cupcake Topping

1 1/2 cups heavy cream

1/4 cup sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons instant espresso or instant coffee granules

Beat cream, sugar, and instant coffee in bowl of electric stand mixer on high until stiff. It will take a few minutes.  I frosted the cupcakes right before I served them.  I didn't have a frosting bag so I used a zip lock sandwich bag and cut the corner. Worked great!