Which Wacky, Yummy Dessert Should You Make And Devour?

The Best Cotton Candy Cupcakes
Author: Hayley Parker, The Domestic Rebel
Recipe type: Cakes/Cupcakes
Prep time: 20 mins Cook time: 18 mins Total time: 38 mins
Serves: 18

Cotton Candy Cupcakes: fun, unique cupcakes flavored just like cotton candy!
Ingredients

FOR THE CAKE:
1 box white cake mix
4 egg whites
½ cup vegetable oil
1 cup water
1 Tbsp cotton candy flavoring
Pink and blue food coloring
FOR THE FROSTING & TOPPING:
¾ cup unsalted butter, softened
½ tsp vanilla extract
1 - 1 & ½ tsp cotton candy flavoring
¼ cup heavy whipping cream or milk
3-4 cups confectioners' sugar
Blue and pink sanding sugar
Blue and pink cotton candy
Popsicle sticks
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 2 muffin tins with 18 paper liners; set aside. Meanwhile, prepare your cake batter: combine the cake mix, egg whites, oil, water, and cotton candy flavoring with an electric mixer until smooth, about 2 minutes. Divide the batter evenly among two bowls and tint each bowl with your desired shade of blue and pink (I only did one drop of coloring per bowl for a more pastel look).
Evenly distribute the colors among each muffin cup, filling about ¾ full. Don't swirl the batters, just layer them. Swirling the batters together may muddy the colors.
Bake for approx. 15-18 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean or with moist crumbs. Cool completely.
For the frosting, cream the butter, cotton candy flavoring and vanilla extract together in the bowl of a stand mixer until smooth, about 1 minute. Gradually add in the confectioners' sugar, about one cup at a time, alternating with little streams of the heavy cream until the frosting is light and fluffy. Divide the frosting evenly among two bowls and tint each bowl with blue and pink until your desired shade has been achieved. (Again, I did one drop of each color).
Using a pastry bag fixed with your desired tip, spoon some of the blue frosting down one side of the pastry bag. Spoon some of the pink frosting down the other side of the bag. It's okay if the frosting colors mix toward the tip portion of the bag; it'll just turn purple 🙂
Pipe the frosting onto the cooled cupcakes and top with a sprinkling of blue and pink sanding sugar. To make the cotton candy sticks, rip off a small piece of cotton candy and attach it to the wet end of a popsicle stick (just stick the popsicle stick tip in a little water). Serve immediately with the cotton candy sticks, but keep in mind- cotton candy, once exposed to air, hardens quickly. It's best to make the cotton candy sticks immediately before serving.

Graham Cracker Crust
1 cup pulverized graham crackers (about 6 graham crackers, blended or food processed)
1/3 cup butter (melted)
1/4 cup brown sugar
Brownies
12 Tbs butter
1 cup brown sugar (lightly packed)
3/4 cup white sugar
4 eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup flour
1 cup cocoa powder
1 cup milk chocolate chips
Toppings
4 Hershey's Bars
10 ounce bag of mini-marshmallows
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Instructions


Preheat oven to 350
Grease an 8 x 8 baking pan
Graham Cracker Crust
Pulverize graham crackers, and stir in melted butter
Stir in brown sugar
Press into bottom of baking sheet, and set aside.
Brownies
In a heavy sauce pan melt butter and stir in white and brown sugars, stir over medium heat for about 1-2 minutes until sugar starts to dissolve.
Remove from heat, add vanilla
Add eggs in one at a time, and whisk them into the sugar butter mixture.
Add flour and cocoa powder, and stir together
Fold in chocolate chips
Pour brownie mixture over the top of graham cracker crust
Bake for 40 minutes
Remove from oven, and turn oven to broil
Immediately put chocolate bars over the top, and top them with mini-marshmallows (or cut up large marshmallows)
Broil for 1-2 minutes (keep an eye on them so they don't burn), remove once brown
Let cool
Enjoy

Chocolate Orange Layer Cake - The perfect alternative to a festive fruit cake for Christmas. Lovely layers of chocolate, sandwiches with orange flavoured chocolate buttercream. It's not Terry's... It's mine!
4.6 from 25 votes
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Chocolate Orange Cake Recipe
Terry's Chocolate Orange Cake Recipe - Lovely layers of chocolate sponge cake, sandwiched with chocolate orange buttercream frosting icing. It's not Terry's Chocolate Orange Layer Cake Recipe... It's mine!

Course Dessert
Cuisine Family Food
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 30 minutes
Total Time 50 minutes
Servings 8 People
Calories 1408 kcal
Ingredients
350 g Unsalted butter
350 g Caster sugar
6 Free range eggs
80 g Good quality cocoa
270 g Self raising flour
90 g Melted dark chocolate
3 Teaspoons of Orange Extract Waitrose sell a good one and it’s only £1.50 which is cheap as chips compared to some good quality extracts: Waitrose Cooks’ Homebaking orange extract
For the icing:
300 g Unsalted butter
600 g Icing sugar
150 g Dark chocolate
3 Teaspoons of Orange Extract
To decorate (if you fancy):
Sugarflair Tangerine Gel Food Colour
Your precious last Terry’s Chocolate Orange
Instructions
Grease 3 x 7″ round sandwich tins (or 2 x 8″).
Preheat the oven to 180C.
Cream your room temperature butter with your sugar until it’s pale, light and fluffy.
Next, mix in the eggs, one at a time, beating really well after each egg. Don’t worry if it starts to look a bit curdled, it’ll all come good.
After this, mix in your flour and cocoa. If you’ve been using a mixer, do this bit by hand. It helps to keep the sponge light.
Stir in the melted and slightly cooled chocolate and the orange extract.
Spoon into a your tins, smooth out with the back of a spoon. Make a bit of a dip in the middle to account for rising.
Bake for about 30 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. You might need to adjust the time by 5 minutes either way depending on your oven.
Meanwhile make your icing. Beat your butter until it’s pale, light and fluffy.
Beat in your icing sugar and orange extract.
Now split your icing into two bowls, weigh out 675g into one and there should be about 225g left in the other.
Add 150g melted and cooled dark chocolate to the 675g bowl of buttercream. Mix in completely.
Colour the other bowl of 225g of buttercream orange using Sugarflair Tangerine Gel Colour. Use a very very small amount at a time, just a tip of a knife or so, until you get the colour you fancy.
If either batch of buttercream is too stiff, beat in a teaspoon or two of boiling water to soften and lighten the texture of the icing.
When your cakes are completely cold, use a carving knife to level them. Just trim the top crust off. Remember, this is important, it’s not a waste of cake. If you don’t do this, with a cake this size it will be wonky.
Top each layer with a spread of your chocolate buttercream. Then snip the top off of two disposable piping bags, fill one with the rest of your chocolate buttercream and the other with the orange buttercream.
Pipe a circle around the outside of two of the layers, sit each on the one before.
On the top layer, pipe small dollops all over and top with your segments of chocolate orange.

1 (3.5 ounce) box chocolate-covered raisins
1/3 cup white chocolate melting wafers
Yellow food coloring
1/4 cup sliced almonds
1 9″ blind-baked pie crust
1/4 cup cold water
1 package (2 1/4 teaspoons) unflavored powdered gelatin
1 cup clover honey, divided
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 cup fresh lemon juice, strained, divided
1 tablespoon finely grated lemon zest
4 large egg yolks
2 cups heavy cream, divided
5 tablespoons confectioners’ sugar, divided
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Bubble wrap, to set
Lemon wheels, to garnish, optional
Flowers to garnish, optional
INSTRUCTIONS
Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper. Line the chocolate covered raisins in rows.
Place the white chocolate melting wafers and a few drops of food coloring in a microwave safe bowl. Microwave to melt according to package directions. Mix until smooth and yellow.
Dip a fork into the melted chocolate and then quickly wave the fork over the chocolate-covered raisins, back and forth, drizzling over the melted yellow chocolate to create stripes. Dip the ends of the almond slices into the remaining melted chocolate and press the almond slices onto the sides of the chocolate-covered raisins to create wings. Allow the chocolate to set before moving the bees.
Meanwhile, make an ice bath ready by partially filling a large bowl with ice cubes and cold water.
Pour 1/4 cup cold water into a saucepan and sprinkle all over with gelatin. Let the mixture sit until the gelatin absorbs all of the water, about 5 minutes. Stir in 3/4 cup of the honey, and then whisk in the salt, 3/4 cup of the lemon juice, lemon zest, and egg yolks. Place the saucepan over medium heat and cook for about 6-8 minutes, stirring constantly, until the mixture has thickened slightly. Don’t let the mixture come to a full boil. It will continue to thicken much, much more as it cools.
Immediately transfer the saucepan to the ice bath to let cool until the lemon mixture is cold to the touch. Whisk occasionally to make sure the mixture is cooling evenly.
Beat 1 1/2 cups of the cream with 1/4 cup of the confectioner’s sugar until soft peaks form. Mix in the vanilla extract and beat again until stiff peaks form. Fold the whipped cream, a bit at a time, into the cooled lemon mixture. Keep folding until smooth and well-combined. Pour the mixture into the prepared crust and smooth the top. Firmly press the bubble wrap, bubble-side down, onto the surface of the pie. Make sure that the filling has filled in all of the crevices in between the bubbles to get the neatest indentations. Transfer the pie to the freezer for at least 4 hours, to set. Once you can peel the bubble wrap off without disturbing the filling, it’s ready to glaze.
In a microwave-safe bowl, combine the remaining honey and lemon juice and microwave for 30 seconds, or until softened. Mix well and brush over the top of the frozen pie. Refrigerate the pie for an hour to thaw.
In a large bowl, whisk the remaining cream and confectioner’s sugar until stiff peaks form. Spoon the whipped cream on top of the pie and decorate with the honey bees, lemon wheels, and flowers. Serve.