It officially feels like summer

My aunt (the bread lady) and I @ Family bbq

We had a family bbq... I made cupcakes. I started with chocolate frosting because we had a bar of ghiradelli semi-sweet... then I decided on chocolate cupcakes. It was a spectacularly beautiful day in Seattle today, and I was in an especially good mood... chocolate seemed fitting.

Sunset @ Fisherman's Terminal Today

Frosting (made up on the spot)
4 T melted butter
1 bar Ghiradelli semi-sweet chocolate
1/2 t vanilla extract
1/8 t salt
1/4 C milk
~3 C powdered sugar
(I didn't measure when i made this, so I'm estimating here... you may have to adjust)

Melt the first two in the microwave and then add everything else and stir until smooth... this frosting sets up perfectly, yet is light and smooth. props to me.

For the cupcakes I used the chocolate cupcakes Joy the baker used to make peanut-butter chocolate cupcakes on her blog a few days ago...

2.25 C flour
2C sugar
1 C cocoa
2 t b.s.
1/2 t salt
1 T vanilla
2/3 C oil
2 t white vinegar
2 C cold water

preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix the wet. Mix the dry. Mix together. Poor into LINED CUPCAKE PAN (I did one batch un-lined and they didn't come out well... too soft.) Bake for 20 minutes. Let them cool, and frost!

I took the perfect cupcakes to the bbq

And left the mistakes at home.

Did I mention, I LOVE SUMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Heavenly Banana Cake

I have to send you over to another blog for this recipe. I made Whipped the food blog's Heavenly Banana Cake on Memorial Day for a little family BBQ. The cake was good! If you like banana bread or banana flavor in general you'll like it. But it is very sweet, particularly the frosting. So I would suggest baking the cake, and then either using her frosting recipe but go really easy on the sugar, or use your own frosting... cream cheese would probably be best.