happy little chocolate avocado cupcakes-with rainbow sprinkles!

yup. avocado cupcakes. these cupcakes are so so so so so good!!! these might just be the best chocolate cupcakes i ever made.  i love them, love them, love them. 

my husband has been a little stressed at work lately so i made him some "love ya cupcakes".  i wanted to combine his two favorite foods (chocolate and avocados) with mine (cupcakes!).   i found this awesome recipe from vegetarian times and just made a few substitutions. 

here's the yummy ingredients i used:

1  1/2 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 cups unsweetened cocoa powder

1 tsp. baking powder

3/4 tsp. baking soda

3/4 tsp. salt

1 avocado, pitted and peeled

1 cup agave nectar (substituted for maple syrup)

3/4 cup nonfat milk (substituted for soy milk)

1/3 cup canola oil

2 tsp. vanilla extract

you can follow the directions on the vegetarian times website. the recipe says it makes 12 cupcakes but i actually had enough batter to make 12 regular cupcakes plus 12 minis.

mash and puree the avocado

mix it all up... with my new kitchenaid!

plop the batter in the cupcake liners...

done! 

(sorry but i had to try the minis before i took the picture)

 i love they way they baked with puffy tops.

for a quick topping i dipped them in chocolate. i bought a whole bunch of these baker's dipping chocolate containers because i found them on sale for less than a dollar each. i kinda like the way they look on top of cupcakes and it is really easy substitute for frosting. especially when i don't feel like washing lots of dishes! 

yay!

topped off with rainbow sprinkles

and a some leftover halloween skulls and bones. 

so, my husband says he likes the chocolate cupcakes from VCTOTW  a little better, but these are the best to me! please, please, please try these little cupcakes and tell me if you love them as much as i do! 

happy little cupcake goodies

over the weekend my husband and i went to visit his parents and grandma. they surprised me with all these wonderful goodies!



cupcake pin cushion made by grandma!

a kitchenaid mixer!!! can you believe it!! i really needed a mixer since my small handheld mixer broke. I dreamed about owning a kitchenaid and was filled with gratitude for this sweet gift. it belonged to grandma and she decided to give it to me because she was perfectly happy with her 15 year old little sunbeam mixer. i just love her for it and i am so excited to use it!


new cupcake cookbook.
we were hanging out at the bookstore and my mother in law bought me this cute cupcake book! it's called cupcake by pamela clark. i took a picture of the book up against my living room window and it came out looking like this. weird huh? It looks like i photoshopped it in the picture or something. i've looked through many many cupcake cookbooks and was really impressed with this one. it had a lot of different ideas i had never seen before like these....















i can't wait to try them all using my new kitchenaid!

happy little zucchini cupcakes!

thursday was my sisters birthday. her birthday request was zucchini cupcakes with lots of nuts but no frosting. i still didn't have a mixer (my old hand mixer died a few months ago and i have been mixing all my batters by hand) so i found an easy recipe that uses a cake mix and did not require a mixer (i'll post some exciting news about my mixer situation later today). check out this recipe because the blogger gives you some cool step by step pics that i love. i changed up the recipe a little by adding in lots of walnuts to the batter and leaving out the pistachio frosting glaze. 

happy little cupcakes waiting to be baked.

sneak peak.... (I made a small cake too with the extra cupcake batter)

finished.... but they felt necked without frosting. 

i made some fondant flowers and  m&m ladybugs for decoration. i stored the cupcakes overnight then dusted them with powder sugar and fondant decorations an hour before the party. the cupcakes were so moist that they absorbed the powder sugar immediately (i reapplied the sugar a few times but it still did not stick. buy the time i finished the cupcakes i was is such a hurry to leave i forgot to take some pictures. sorry!

i managed to take a few quick shots at the party but they did not come out too great.

here's one of my little nephew picking out his favorite. if you look behind the cupcakes you can see the mini cake i made too. by accident my nephew stepped in the cake! it had an impression of his little foot. we didn't eat it but it was sure cute to look at.

happy little birthday cupcakes

i made these birthday cupcakes for my dad! reading left to right they say, "happy birthday" in hiragana.

i used the simple vanilla and agave nectar cupcake recipe from vctotw (if you preview the book on google you can find the recipe or find it here). i had some fresh blueberries so i added them to the batter too. i've made the agave nectar cupcakes 3 times now, once with chocolate. i think they taste ok but i don't really like the way they smell after they bake. my dad and my husband love them and they are usually not into healthy stuff so i make the cupcakes for them.

i really wanted to make the super natural agave nectar icing to top the cupcakes but i could not find soy milk powder anywhere! so instead i just applied a really thin layer of melted chocolate on top of the cupcakes (not great for a diabetic, but it was his birthday). my dad loved them of course!

happy valentines day! vegan chai latte cupcakes

valentines/happy belated birthday cupcakes

hearts were made with powdered sugar and heart stencil

delicious

Vegan Chai Latte Cupcakes, originally uploaded by happylittlecupcakes.

valentine sandwich cookies

valentines sandwich cookies

i got this amazingly simple recipe from bakerella's blog! she is so talented and always has the cutest ideas. I made two different types of sandwich cookies using box cake mixes and cream cheese icing.

devil's cake mix sandwich cookies with chocolate chips and cream cheese frosting

box white cake mix sandwich cookies (i added a dab of pink food gel to the cake batter)

decorated with candy melts

i packed these up and sent them with my husband to work today. he said they were gone in an hour! yum.