Why the Title?

Many years ago, a friend and I hosted the best party I've ever had. It was called a Food Art Party. Everyone had to bring a creative food dish that was art. We had the best time with this! I made an old abandoned gas station out of graham crackers. It turned out really well. Anyway, that's a fond memory, so I named my foodie blog that. Everytime I see the title, I will think of that fun party.

Food is a passion of mine. I always have friends who ask me for recipes and I send people pictures of my food often (I'm so proud of it! LOL!). With this blog, I can just direct them to the recipes & pictures easily.

Here goes!

I'm starting this blog with pictures of the cupcakes I made today. They turned out so cute! I made the cupcake wrappers digitally using a kit from Shabby Miss Jenn. I LOVE how they turned out. Here are some pictures and the recipes follow.

Ok... I was a little worried about how the icing would hold up. Neither my hubby nor I like

buttercream icing, so I was looking for one that was not. This is the one I came up with....

whipped cream icing. I made the batch and iced only 5 cupcakes at about 11:00 AM. I put them in the refrigerator and we ate them at 6:00 PM. The icing held up beautifully for that amoumt of time. I've refrigerated the rest of the icing and will ice the remaining cupcakes per day as we need them. I'll make note of the icing's longevity as the days pass.

Here are the recipes:
Dark Chocolate Cupcakes

13/4 cups unsweetened cocoa powder (not Dutch-process)
13/4 cups boiling water
4 ounces fine-quality bittersweet chocolate (not unsweetened), chopped
one 8-ounce container sour cream
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
3 3/4 sticks (1 3/4 cups plus 2 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened
1 3/4 cups granulated sugar
3/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
5 large eggs

Preheat oven to 325° F. and line muffin pans with foil cupcake liners.

Put cocoa powder in a bowl and whisk in boiling water in a stream until smooth. Stir in chopped chocolate and let stand 5 minutes. Stir mixture until smooth and chocolate is melted and cool mixture. Whisk in sour cream and vanilla.

Into a bowl sift together flour, baking soda, and salt. In large bowl of a standing electric mixer beat together butter and sugars until light and fluffy and add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping down side of bowl. Reduce speed to low and add flour mixture and cocoa mixture alternately in batches, beginning and ending with flour mixture and beating until batter is combined well.

Pour batter into papers so they are filled 3/4 full. Bake 17-20 minutes or until a tester comes out with crumbs adhering.

Whipped Cream Icing

this was originally a chocolate whipped cream icing from www.epicurious.com.

I removed the chocolate and added the vanilla.

1 cup powdered sugar
1/4 cup milk
Pinch of cream of tartar
2 cups chilled whipping cream
2 tsp. pure vanilla extract

Whisk powdered sugar, milk and cream of tartar in large bowl until smooth. Cover and refrigerate until well chilled, about 1 hour. (Can be prepared 4 hours ahead.)
Using electric mixer, gradually beat cream into powdered sugar mixture. Continue beating until stiff peaks form.