DIY: Chocolate Cupcakes with Birthday Cake Frosting

Hello all,

My friend's birthday was this week (HBD Nicole! Whoop Whoop!) and so I got back into the kitchen. I've been working on experimenting with cupcake concoctions, but wanted to find a simple chocolate cupcake recipe that would pair well with my birthday cake frosting. This was the perfect occasion for such experimenting! Here is a simple chocolate cupcake recipe and also the recipe for my birthday cake frosting (previously seen here with the birthday cake frosted brownies)

What you'll need:
- 2 cupcake tins
- 1 fork
- 1 mixer
- Cupcake Liners
- 2 medium size mixing bowls

Cupcakes
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 6 tbsp cocoa powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 large egg
- 1/2 cup milk (can use buttermilk)
- 1/2 cup olive oil (can use vegetable oil)
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1/2 cup hot water

Frosting
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- 1 stick (1/2 cup) butter unsalted
- 1/3 cup yellow cake mix
- 4 tbsp milk (and have on hand to add PRN)
- 1 tbsp vanilla

- Sprinkles- any kind, color, or amount you'd like!
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 300°F and place cupcake liners in the cupcake tin.
2. Add the dry ingredients to a large bowl and whisk together.
3. In a different bowl, mix the egg, buttermilk, vegetable oil and vanilla.
4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until well combined.
5. Add the water to the batter and mix until well combined.
TIP: Do not be alarmed, batter looks way more watery than boxed cupcakes
6. Fill the cupcake liners about half way and bake for 18-22 minutes or until fork comes out clean
7. Let cupcakes cool for at least 20 minutes. 
TIP: For faster cooling, take out of cupcake tin and place on baking rack
8. Mix together ingredients for frosting, adding the sprinkles in last. 

There you have it! Some DELICIOUS cupcakes with my favorite DIY frosting to date. YUM! What do you think of this recipe? Anything I should add or subtract to make it better? I know there are lots of complicated recipes for chocolate cupcakes out there, but was happy to find and experiment with one that is more simple. 

Thanks for baking with me,
- Olivia :)

#BookWorm: Extraordinary Means

Hello fellow readers!

While on vacation a few weeks ago I finished up a YA book called Extraordinary Means by Robyn Schneider. I picked this book from my stack because it seemed like a quicker read for vacation and also had an interesting plot. A boy named Lane catches tuberculosis and is sent to live at Latham House, a modern day sanatorium for multi drug resistant TB. While there he meets new friends, Nick, Charlie, Marina, and Sadie who have all been living at Latham house for various amounts of time. They struggle with the hope for a cure and with how to spend their daily lives at Latham house. 

I think for me the most interesting part of this book was that places like this really existed, and how did people deal with re-entering the real world when isoniazid was found after being trapped so long in isolation? Obviously this book is fiction, but it does have interesting points that I think a lot of my cancer patients deal with also. People walking by you hear a cough and panic like they're going to catch it and your own family afraid to come around because they don't want to get sick from you. Dealing with that all the time would make me crazy especially because people don't understand diseases all the time. 

Anyways, the book was a quick and interesting-to-me read but also semi predictable. The ending came quickly and all of a sudden I was like "oh that's it?" I would have liked to read more about what happened beyond Latham House for each character. I would say 8/10 for rating. Has anyone else ever read this book or one of Robyn Schneider's other books? Let me know how you like her writing. I'm going to keep going down my list of ever growing books! But I've been kind of going out of order based on if the book is going to be made into a movie soon or if I have a certain desire to read one thing vs another. But I have been adding everyone's suggestions to my list.

Thanks for reading with me,

- Olivia 

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things: Outer Banks, NC

Hey all,

The month of May was kind of crazy for the Franeks, as we spent a majority of our free time traveling. We recently took our first trip to the Outer Banks here in North Carolina and we LOVED it! If you are looking for a relaxing place to go that also has fun things to do and explore, this is a great place to do those things! We totally could have spent a whole week there, but a long weekend was a good amount of time too. There are not a ton of places to stay, but we did an Air BnB studio apartment in Kitty Hawk (central OBX) that allowed dogs which was perfect for us. Here are some of our favorite things that we did and places we liked to eat from our trip!

1) Barefoot Bernies
This is a pretty typical beachy restaurant, except to me the food was GREAT! For once I didn't order a burger or grilled cheese (my go-to's at these types of restaurants) but instead ordered their grilled chicken with mixed vegetables and mashed potatoes. YUM! Madi got ahi tuna and loved that too. It was good service, not a long wait, and great food. Can't ask for much more than that!

2) Bodie Island Lighthouse
A friend at work told me about this lighthouse because I was worried about leaving Nike alone at the Air BnB for a long time to drive down to Cape Hatteras. This lighthouse was beautiful! It was $10 to climb to the top (a little pricey for us) but it had a spectacular view of the Outer Banks and you got to learn about the history of the lighthouse and the lighthouse keeper. If you know me well, you know that I love lighthouses. This one was no exception. But bring your bug spray because the fly bites are awful!

3) Stack 'Em High

This breakfast restaurant was super low key. You actually go up and order cafeteria style for things like fruit, oatmeal, cinnamon rolls, drinks, and then things like pancakes or omelettes are made and brought to your table. It was cheap, fast, clean, and delicious. You can't ask for much more than that! We wanted to go back Monday morning but didn't want to leave Nikes again, but we will definitely go back on our next trip!

4) Corolla and the Wild Horses
So I guess we got pretty lucky with our trip because we saw quite a few wild horses and a lot of people I have talked to went out looking and saw none. We did the Back Country Safari Tours and really liked it! We learned a lot about the horses, how many there really are on the cape (about eighty six documented) and the different rules and regulations of the horses.

5) Wright Brothers National Park
My mom's boyfriend told us about this as he is a pilot and they visited on their trip to the Outer Banks. It is a nice little outdoor museum ($7/person to enter and you can bring dogs! Score!) and has the site from where the first plane took off. They also have an indoor museum but that was being renovated currently. Places that allow dogs and encourage learning are a win-win in our book!

We always think it's funny that most people go on vacation to relax or would go to OBX to hit the beach the whole time, but most of our time was spent learning things about the area. That is pretty much how most of our vacations are. We really are just giant nerds. Another thing we loved about the OBX is that the beaches are SUPER private and chill. We had to go early or late because dogs could only go before 8am and after 5pm but both times we went there was no one with in a football field's distance from us. Super nice! The flies were definitely out there too though, so bring some chairs and spray! Our next adventure won't be until our big two week summer trip in July. For now we are just catching back up and getting ready for Sondra to move in! Less than two weeks y'all! :D

Thanks for keeping up with us,
- Olivia :)