Chocolate Stained Kitchen: National Cereal Day

Today is National Cereal Day. I was originally going to celebrate by simply eating cereal for breakfast, but at the last minute I decided to be much more festive by baking cereal cupcakes. That and I was up again before 5 AM and had nothing to do. So, I made myself look somewhat presentable and drove to the market to buy ingredients in the very wee hours of the morning. I usually make my cupcakes from scratch because I haven’t had good experiences with boxed cake mix in the past. But, I was feeling lazy today (due to hump day perhaps?) and Duncan Hines Triple Chocolate cake mix was on sale. So, that was reason enough for me to use pre-made cake mix this time. I also picked up a box of chocolate Cheerios. I’ve never had chocolate Cheerios but I like chocolate and I like Cheerios. Sounds like a good combo to me!

Stars of today's cupcakes:

CHOCOLATE CHEERIOS CUPCAKES

1 box of cake mix

1/2 cup ground chocolate cheerios, divided

1/3 cup water

1/3 cup oil

3 eggs

Directions:

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees and fill 2 cupcake pans with paper liners. Grind 1/2 cup of chocolate cheerios either through a food processor, magic bullet, or pour into a bag and crush with your fist like I did. Set aside. Combine cake mix, water, oil, and eggs per the directions on the box. Stir in 1/4 cup of ground chocolate cheerios. Pour cupcake batter into paper liners 3/4 full. Bake for 18 minutes. When ready, let the cupcakes cool in cupcake pan for 5 minutes. Remove from pan and let it finish cooling on a rack.

Frosting

1 stick of room temperature butter

2 cups confection sugar

1 tablespoon cacao powder or unsweetened cocoa powder

2-3 tablespoons heavy cream

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

With an electric hand mixer or stand mixer, cream 1 stick of room temperature butter for about 3 minutes until it is light and fluffy. Pour the heavy cream and vanilla extract and mix until just combined. Slowly incorporate 2 cups of confection sugar.

When the cupcakes have cooled, use a butter knife or icing spatula to frost desired amount of frosting onto each cupcake. Sprinkle cupcakes with remaining ground chocolate cheerios and top each cupcake with 3 cheerios.

Makes 24 cupcakes

I was very pleased with the cake mix and could definitely pass as homemade. It was moist, sweet, and loaded with chocolate chunks.

I also made myself a rare bowl of cereal with Great Harvest Cville Cluster granola on the bottom, Nature’s Path Bran Flakes cereal, 1/2 sliced banana, chia seeds, and milk.