Cupcakes & Custard

Hi everyone!

As promised, I'm posting the recipes for my recent dessert ventures: chocolate dulce de leche cupcakes and berry custard pie. As you know from my last post, my parents came to visit over the weekend, and on Friday, we all went down to Mr. G's parents' house for dinner. I was assigned dessert, so I was excited to try a new cupcake recipe, of course. However, I also wanted to make something low-fat for my health-conscious dad, so that's how I found the berry custard pie recipe.

Chocolate Dulce de Leche Cupcakes

I randomly got the idea to add dulce de leche to my cupcakes - it's one of my favorite flavors, and it seemed fitting around Cinco de Mayo. :) At first I was going to add it as a filling to a chocolate cake, but then I found this amazing recipe for chocolate dulce de leche cupcakes! Here are the recipes I used:

Chocolate Dulce de Leche Cupcakes

Dulce de Leche (for filling and/or topping)

Unfortunately, I had a few problems with these cupcakes... They turned out pretty good still, but they were a struggle to make. FYI - dulce de leche is very challenging and very time-consuming to make. If you have the time and the patience, go for it, because it tastes delicious home-made. But if not, you can always buy it in a can. That wasn't the only problem, though... This is really embarrassing to admit, but I forgot to put in the chocolate chips!! Kind-of important for CHOCOLATE cupcakes! :( Thankfully, I had already put cocoa powder in the mix, so they still tasted like chocolate. But I'm sure they would have been much better with the chocolate chips... Oh well. Lesson learned: pay close attention to your ingredients!! Especially when there is a lot, like in this recipe. Double-check everything!

Also, my cupcakes fell in the middle instead of rising... Maybe it was due to the missing chocolate chips? Or maybe it was the temperature change. Who knows. Either way, I opted out of using dulce de leche filling since there wasn't really room for it... Instead, I just put a lot on top of the cupcakes and swirled in chocolate fudge. They ended up looking pretty cute, and they still tasted good in spite of all the problems.

Here they are, flaws and all:

Berry Custard Pie

The berry custard pie recipe went much more smoothly than the cupcakes, and it came out delicious!

As it turns out, there is actually a pie crust recipe included, but I used a different one that is actually easier and worked great.

Here are my recipes:

Graham Cracker Pie Crust

Berry Custard Pie

I didn't take a picture of the pie. :( Completely forgot. But it was a hit, and it is surprisingly healthy! I used peaches and raspberries - only because my dad doesn't like blackberries - but I think any berry combination would work. I loved the peach/raspberry mixture, though! And I think the custard actually tasted better than the cupcakes, but if they had been made right, maybe that wouldn't have been the case...

In other news, I'm hoping to get another DIY project done this week - either the book page wreath or the moss letters (see "Crafting My Nest" for more info). I'll report back!

Feel free to comment if you've had a similar ditzy baking moment, or if you have any fun cupcake recipes or low-fat dessert recipes to share!

<3 Mrs. G