Lets set the stage…. 1/2 a packaged of a prepacked dark powder mix (likely cake or brownie) and a me. I was fairly certain it was cupcakes from an adventure with the sou chef a few months ago but the box was badly injured while rolling around in the back seat of my car. Luckily, the tightly taped 1/2 bag of powder was unharmed but unluckily the package with the proper noun and directions passed away into recycling. Which left me with a mystery powder.
A spoonful later of this cocoa colored powder I was fairly certain it was cake mix. Well even more certain than I was certain before I tried it. Yum! But I still had no official directions to cut in half. So what was I to do but use my exquisite brain power and make some solid educated guesses. So one egg, a few tablespoons of oil, and about 3/4 cups of water later I had cake looking batter… and lets not act like I don’t know that it also tasted like cake mix too! So not to be outdone by nothingness and being on a kick to use up things in my pantry I threw in a handful of dark chocolate chips into the mix. Stir it in, filled 6 cupcake wells almost entirely full, and baking them at around 350 for 23 minutes or so we got…..
Poofy Cupcakes!!
Pop goes the weasel! We ran off to a friends and upon returning asked my room mate if we could use the little bit of her left over frosting she had in the fridge and we made:
Cupcake with Funfetti Frosting
Now these were good. The roommate and her friend went out to dinner and we went over to the sou chef’s house and on the way home picked up more vanilla frosting… because….well we were out and had 3 cupcakes left. If the roommate or her guest wanted one, we needed more frosting. When everyone passed on seconds or firsts on the cupcakes last night I put the remaining three into a plastic bag and went to bed… never expecting what today would hold.
After some fine soup, less fine work, and a roommate and sou chef talking about eating the cupcakes the roommate made a discovery. More like she had a streak of cupcake brilliance. She heated up some chocolate syrup, cut a hole in the top of her cupcake and poured the warmed chocolate syrup into the cupcake BEFORE icing it hastily with vanilla icing. The Vesuvius Cupcake was born….
The Tamed Mt Vesuvius
Next up was the sou chef. She cut the hole more precisely, warmed the cake up as well, and then added the warmed chocolate syrup before adding the icing. This approach was far superior in some ways and less superior in the icing staying on it way. I was the last to go and with all the tribal knowledge gained from the past two experiences I was ready. The loyal roommate pointed out that we should just heat up the chocolate syrup IN the cupcake. The great voice spoke and I listened. With paring knife precision a whole was carved out in the top of the last cupcake, slightly warmed chocolate syrup was poured into the brim, and 25 seconds was set on the microwave. At the sound of the ding the cupcake was removed and more chocolate syrup was added. The level of the syrup had dropped to the bottom of the well as it all was absorbed by the warm cake. Not a drop was lost to the plate…only in the cake. When the well was filled again with chocolate syrup it was quickly iced with the back of a spoon laden with vanilla icing. A fork was produced and the hmmmming noises started. Warmed chocolate chips embedded in chocolate cake infused with chocolate syrup served with a dollop of hand smeared vanilla icing. The Mt Vesuvius Cupcake.
Where energy and creativity meet 
these were so tastyyyyyy