Swine Flu Cupcakes

Actually we made Orange-Chocolate Cupcakes but they were inspired by Swine Flu. I was sitting around with a recovering sick child and one on the brink of illness and I was stressing out because I was thinking it was Swine Flu. I was thinking that it was Swine Flu because my brother was just here from San Diego and him and his wife were sick and because I watch too much cable news. I was really stressing out because I am supposed to go see Chelsea Handler next weekend and I don't want to be home with sick kids instead!!

So here I am on a Monday afternoon freaking out and realizing I am being an idiot and that I need to do something to calm myself down. Baking and cooking usually helps and I had an excess of oranges. I had already made orange chicken the night before so I decided to make orange-chocolate cupcakes.

When I get inspired like this I make up recipes, but not really. My math skills are that of a 3rd grader so there is no way I could technically make up a recipe. So I usually just look at what I have on hand and then go to my cookbooks or allrecipes.com and find matching recipes. Then I draw a chart like the one below. The first column is the main ingredients, the second column is how much the 1st recipe uses of those ingredients, the third column is how much the 2nd recipe uses of said ingredients and the fourth column is how much I am going to use or what I am going to substitute. So for instance I didn't have plain yogurt or sour cream so I used vanilla yogurt and reduced the amount of sugar in the cupcakes. I used butter instead of oil and added Triple Sec. I also used whatever I had leftover of some Nestle Quik and then bulked it up with unsweetened cocoa powder and once again took notice of the sugar content.

Chocolate-Orange Cupcakes

10 Tbs. softened butter (That's a cube and 2 Tbs., this is not a W. W. recipe)
3/4 cup sugar
3 eggs
3/4 cup vanilla yogurt
juice from 2-3 oranges
zest from 2 oranges (Pampered Chef zester came in handy)
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. Triple Sec (optional and next time I am using more because you really couldn't taste it)
2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 cup Nestle Quik powder (that's all I had and then I bulked up with cocoa powder to make 2/3 cup, if you just use the unsweetened powder adjust your sugar)
enough Unsweetened Hershey's Cocoa powder to make 2/3 cup
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt

Preheat oven to 375 degrees
Combine first 7 ingredients, and Triple Sec if using, and beat until fluffy. At this point I was ready to stop and eat it with spoon. Add all dry ingredients and beat until color is even but don't overmix.

Batter will be thick like chocolate frosting. Add to paper cupcake liners in cupcake pan. Fill 2/3 full. Bake 20 minutes. Should make 24 if you don't eat too much batter. Let them cool until they are warm and poke with toothpicks, drizzle slowly with a Tbs. of fresh squeezed orange juice until absorbed. Makes them even more moist and orangey tasting.








This is where I had to hide the batter while the first batch was in the oven and I had to get Jake out of his crib after naptime. Mike and Bekah would have been on it like flies.

They didn't sit there the whole 20 minutes

This is the best pic you are going to get. I flunked photography in high school because I spent all my time partying in the dark room instead of developing pictures. Trust me I wasn't partying by myself.

As for the suspected Swine Flu in my house........Bekah woke up with a 103 fever this morning and I asked my husband if he thought I would be stupid and paranoid if I took Bekah to our pediatrician. My husband said, "I would never think you are stupid.". Fine, paranoid I can handle. And I am so glad I took her because even though she does not have Swine Flu she does have a double ear infection and now she has a scrip for Amoxycillin. Yay!!!

Did I mention I am going to Chelsea Handler this weekend?