Quick & Easy Black-Bottom Cupcakes

To celebrate Father's Day, I volunteered to make a couple of desserts for a casual evening gathering on my parents' backporch.

I decided to go with quick-n-easy desserts that I don't have the recipes for. A quick text to a co-worker got me started on the first - a strawberry angel food cake trifle.

Basically, it's a layer of cut-up angel food cake (or pound cake), topped with a layer of pudding (made with 1 & 1/4 c. water or milk & a tub of whipped topping), then a layer of whipped topping (I heart whipped topping!), then a layer of strawberries (or your choice of berries or fruit or candy). Repeat!

Since my four boisterous nephews were also going to be present, I decided to go with cupcakes for my second dessert.

One of the first recipes I remember baking on my own is black-bottom cupcakes - from scratch. The recipe was out of this great kid's cookbook that my sister and I loved.

Well, I didn't have that recipe at home but I did have a box of chocolate cake mix, a brick of cream cheese and some chocolate chips! With a quick call to my sister who provided an alternate cream cheese mixture recipe, I was off to the oven.

The recipe...

Chocolate cake mix

Cream cheese filling:

1 8 oz. package cream cheese (softened)

1 egg

1/2 c. sugar

1/8 t. salt

Chocolate chips (as many as you want!)

Make cake mix as directed on the box.

Beat cream cheese filling ingredients (except for choc. chips) together. Stir in chocolate chips.

Fill the cupcake liners about 1/3 (or a bit more) with cake mix and add a tablespoon of the filling. Bake according to the instructions on cake mix box.

 

They turned out pretty good. Not quite a good as the originals, but no one complained! Next time I think I'll try to make the cake mix and filling a bit thicker and see what happens.

Be sure to visit some of the great posts from the Cupcake Carnival and Cupcake Tuesday by clicking on the buttons below. They are way more creative than I am!