S'mores Cupcakes with Kahula

The kid in me is out and raging. Enter the most fantastic of all fantastic treats from childhood with a little grown up injected inside and you have S’mores cupcakes with a hit of Kahula. Somebody pinch me.

I first saw these cupcakes on Annie’s Eats and then it seemed like the S’mores influence was everywhere with S’mores cakes, snack bars, energy bars, candy bars, you name it. So, this has been on my must bake list forever and I finally got around to making them. The cupcakes shown on Annie’s Eats were beautiful and refined and I wanted mine to be more rustic and, for lack of a better term, sloppy. In my mind, that’s what S’mores are, sloppy kid food that are a mess to eat. That’s the fun of them and being a kid, permission to be sloppy and unrefined. I also have to be buttoned up in a corporate office all day so I like to take a more laid back approach to my baking.

So, I used the Annie’s Eats recipe but I put my own spin on it with the Kahula injection. I also made some minor alterations to bits and pieces to suit my palate.

Enjoy! AJ – xo

Pumpkin Bourbon Pancakes

In life, we sometimes have to roll with the deck we have been dealt. For me, that means finding the bright side of a child that sleeps minimally.

I have been told by the teachers at school, fellow parents, books and every child psychologist who has managed to publish something that if your child is not getting 10-12 hours of sleep in a day/night, they will have stunted growth, behavioral problems, learning difficulties, socialization issues, the list goes on and on. So, despite rearranging my schedule so my little guy is in bed by 7:45 p.m. every night, he continues to wake up at 5 a.m., 6 if I am lucky. Of course, this leads to a tired and difficult child in the afternoon who can no longer nap in his pre-kindergarten class. God help me.

So, this morning, after going to bed at a very late 9 p.m. last night, my little monkey was up and ready to go at 6 a.m. Argh! Sleep, my child, please, sleep!! No dice, he was up and nothing was going to change that. So, I did the only logical thing to do at that point, dragged my overly tired tail out of bed, fixed myself an industrial strength cup of coffee and made Hot Chocolate and Pumpkin Bourbon Pancakes with my son. For a brief moment, I am going to block out the criticism and paranoia and enjoy this moment while silently praying that the 9 hours of sleep will not stunt his growth.

I got the recipe here. I added in a teaspoon of vanilla and a teaspoon of bourbon. I threw some chocolate chips into a few pancakes to experiment and I thought they drowned out the pumpkin taste. Out with the chips. Then I tried big chinks of cooked bacon on on a fork full of pancake and syrup and I swear, angels did sing. Make sure you top this off with whipped cream, a critical component.

Cheers! xoxo