Oh, and by the way Mom....

How many times have parents around the world heard this phrase after supper or just before bed followed by "I have to take cupcakes to school for Easter tomorrow", "We have a bake sale tomorrow", "I just remembered it's my turn to take snacks to school".  I can only imagine the streak of fear that must run through the parents body.  Luckily Roman is young enough that I haven't encountered this yet, but I'm sure it's only a matter of time.

In preparation for the day that Roman reminds me at 7:00pm that he needs treats for the next day, I decided to test out a cupcake recipe that is super quick, easy, and delicious.  I also didn't want them to look like I just unwrapped a packaged and put them into me Tupperware container, or that I whipped them up in a mass panic.  So much expectation on a tiny cupcake!  I also wanted the ingredients to be easily accessible, whether at a grocery store, corner store, or even 7-11.  Hey, desperate times call for desperate measures!

Here is what you need!
1 chocolate cake mix
1 package instant chocolate pudding powder
1 container premade chocolate frosting

I chose a No Name chocolate cake mix because I knew I was going to alter it, so the quality of the mix isn't that important.  I prepared the cake mix as per the boxes instructions but added 4T of the pudding powder to the cake mix.  This adds some moisture and fudgieness (is that a word?) to the cupcake.  This technique would work for any flavor of cake, vanilla with vanilla pudding or even spice cake with caramel pudding!  Oh my gosh that would be delicious, must add that to my list of things to try!

Now the frosting is a whole other animal.  This frosting doesn't have the most spreadable constancy but it has a fairy good flavor.  I decided to whip some life into it, literally.  I scooped the icing into my mixer and whipped it at high speed for 3-4 minutes.  This loosened the frosting up and gave it a bit of volume, and allowed me to spread the frosting on the cupcakes much easier.  When the frosting set it set with a nice sheen and, again, fudgieness to it.  I think I'm going to call Winston and have them add it to the dictionary!

These cupcakes turned out perfectly!  They are soft, moist, and perfectly chocolaty!  Including cooling time for the cupcakes, they took about 1 hour to make from start to finish.  Totally doable in a weeknight, after supper, panic stricken baking session.

*NOTE: I wanted to share a behind the scenes photo from todays blog post.  I took these photos the morning after I baked them so I had good lighting.  I wanted to have a photo of a bitten cupcake, so unfortunately I had to bite the cupcake.  Problem is I couldn't stop.  I ate the whole thing at 10:00am.  I just wanted everyone to know the pain and suffering that goes into each of these blog posts...