Eggnog Cupcakes

For me, one of the true marks of the holiday season is eggnog. So naturally when I needed to make cupcake for my office holiday potluck, eggnog cupcakes came to mind. For this particular cupcake adventure, I decided that I wanted to modify a cake mix instead of trying everything from scratch. This way I could save a little time, and cash.

Thanks to some extensive Google research, I found an eggnog cake recipe that uses a mix.

Here is the recipe that I followed, modified slightly to be made as cupcakes.


Ingredients:

* 4 ounces butter, softened
* 1 cup eggnog
* 1/4 cup rum
* 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
* 2 teaspoons vanilla
* 3 large eggs
* 1 package vanilla cake mix

Preparation:
Heat oven to 325°.

Beat butter until light; beat in eggs and eggnog and rum. Add vanilla, nutmeg, and cake mix; beat slowly to combine, then beat on high speed for 2 minutes. Spoon into cupcake liners. Bake for 15 to 18 minutes.

The batter tasted to delicious!!

The frosting was kind of my own invention. I just wanted to make a simple cinnamon buttercream frosting. I used two sticks of butter, about 3 cups confectioner's sugar, 3 tablespoons of eggnog, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, and 1 teaspoon of cinnamon. I tend to add things to my frosting depending on how it tastes. For this particular one, I think I ended up adding a little more vanilla which then required me to add some more confectioner's sugar so it wouldn't get too runny.

So of course I was making these cupcakes at the last possible second because I was trying to get out the door and make it on time for work. Unfortunately, I was a bad little blogger so I didn't take any pictures.

Here is an example of how I wanted them to look:
source: living artfully

In all honestly, my cupcakes were not decorated with love. My last frosting bag busted, so I had to frost them old school with a spatula. I did, however, throw some red and green christmas sprinkles on there to help add some color.

Enjoy!

First Crafty Wedding Purchase

On Friday night while my husband-to-be was going to town on his new XBOX 360, I was struck with the random urge to research ideas for my wedding table numbers. Throughout this entire wedding planning process, Google Images, has truly been my best friend.

I found so many great and creative ideas, but there seems to be a lot of hype about the Tolsby Frame from IKEA (pictured below).

Here are some examples of it in action:

source: ruffled
(p.s. - if you are in love with this format, you can download the template from ruffled!)

I really like the idea of the menu on the back as opposed to printing one out for each place setting. I hate wasting paper!

source: GatorBrideDesigns

In her etsy listing, GatorBrideDesigns also shows examples of using this frame at your guestbook table and for listing info about the signature drink. Love that idea!

So because I can't wait for ANYTHING, I spent my Saturday afternoon taking a little trip to my "local" IKEA in Stoughton, MA. The car ride isn't that far, but it was filled with a lot of "I think we should've turned back there..."

Into my blue IKEA shopper tote went twenty Tolsby frames. I can't wait to get started!