Happy Birthday!!
We were going for a pub crawl to celebrate Hubby’s college roommate’s birthday. I offered to bring cupcakes. He loves coffee flavored things, so I had quite a few options when I flipped through Crazy about Cupcakes. I decided on the Carmel Mocha cupcakes.
As usual, when I start baking, I get really excited and tend to bake way too much. Since I wanted to make the Carmel Mocha cupcakes “full-dairy” for the birthday boy, I wanted to make some cupcakes that I would be able to eat. I decided to use some strawberry preserves that we had paired with French Vanilla cupcakes. When I make two batches, I tend to make one from scratch and one from a box mix.
Everyone said the Carmel Mocha cupcakes were great, and I loved the strawberry filled cupcakes. Overall it was a baking success!






I am Jen the Beantown Baker. Engineer by day and baking maven by night. Hubby serves as my #1 fan and official taste tester. We got hitched back in 2006. Barefoot. In the sand. With the waves crashing behind us. It was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. 






Can’t beat an Ina classic!
Ina’s sound decadent, but I’m with you – I’d never have that much of anything on hand if I got a sudden brownie craving. Like that addition of mint here, but then I’m a sucker for anything chocolaty and minty.
What lovely, yummy-looking brownies. I love your addition of mint. YUM!
I’ve yet to try Ina’s brownies; I need to rectify that ASAP.
I have tried Ina’s brownies before and I have to agree….awesome! Although like you said I don’t have a lot of that stuff just sitting around. I love addition of mint in this recipe. Such a nice spin on the normal brownie 🙂
I just tried the Andes baking chips and really like them! Your brownies look SO good!
My favorite brownies of all time are a cocoa based recipe. I think that they are just as rich and chocolatey as any bar-chocolate recipe as long as coffee is added. These look DElish!