this week's cookbook

For Mother's Day, my dear sis gave me this:

And because the high temperature on Monday barely made it to 70 degrees, it was a good time to try it out.

I made the Chocolate Malted Cupcakes, and can I just say, mmmmmmmmm.

I had to make some substitutions, I used plain yogurt in place of the sour cream, and the only malt powder I had was the chocolate flavor, but neither of these changes hurt the flavor at all, if anything, they made it better.

There are so many wonderful ones to try, I think I may need to bake once a week until I get through the whole book. Of course, the photography is beautiful. And of course, they are not exactly low fat items. The frosting alone for the ones I made required 3 sticks of butter and a pound of powdered sugar.

But cupcakes are small, right? And they made an ordinary Monday in June feel rather special. Bake up your favorite kind this week, and maybe stick a little flag in them in honor of the 4th. Which reminds me, I really need to get my flags out...