Tea For Two-sday ~ Tea Cup Favors and Mini Caramel Mud Cakes

It's still Tuesday - even on the East coast - so I'm posting this!  I recently helped co-host a tea party for some lovely ladies and wanted to share a couple things.

I did my favorite kind of favors - tea cups and saucers that the ladies get to keep!  In order to do this, I have to start ahead of time looking at yard sales and thrift stores.  My goal is always to pay $1 or less per cup and saucer (sometimes I spend a little more if I'm not finding what I like).  The best way I've found is to go to Good Will stores where they have cups ad saucers separate.  If you spend a while searching, you can find cups and saucers that match, but were separated.  Then they're only 49 cents for each cup and each saucer!

This time I collected over 20 of them and put a tea bag and a truffle in each one.  Here's a picture of a few of them:

I also helped with the food.  One of the recipes I made was Caramel Mud Cakes from my Cupcakes cookbook - but I made them into mini cupcakes.  Aren't they cute?

Sadly, by the next morning the powdered sugar had melted into the cupcakes and you could barely make out the hearts.  So don't do that part ahead of time!  :)

Caramel Mud Cake

1 stick butter, chopped coarsely
3 1/2 oz. white chocolate, chopped coarsely
2/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/4 cup honey
2/3 cup milk
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup self-rising flour
1 egg

1.  Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.  Line 6-hole oversize (Texas) or 12-hole standard muffin pan with paper baking cups.  (I made 36 mini cupcakes.)

2.  Combine butter, chocolate, sugar, honey, and milk in small pot; stir over low heat, until smooth.  Transfer mixture to medium bowl, cool 15 minutes.

3.  Whisk sifted flours into chocolate mixture, then egg.  Divide among baking cups.

4.  Bake large cakes about 40 minutes, small cakes about 30 minutes. (I baked the minis 15-20 minutes.)  Turn cakes onto wire rack to cool.

5.  Sift powdered sugar onto cakes in desired design.  On full-sized cakes you can use lace or a doily to make them pretty - didn't work right for me on the minis so I used a little heart stencil I had.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

They turned out cute and they were yummy, but I would much rather have experienced the full flavor of a standard sized cupcake!

I hope you found a new idea to try!  Have a lovely day/evening/night my friends!