Cup{cake} 'o Kahlua!

Hope you all had a nice weekend! Mine was great - very relaxing and spent a good amount of time with family which is always nice.

A few weekends ago, my cousin made a Kahlua cake for my auntie's Chinese New Year party. I particularly enjoyed it which got me to thinking about Kahlua cakes. Now in terms of my friends, I don't run with a large gang of bakers or anything, but in the last year or two I've been served five, yes five different variations on a Kahlua cake from a different friend (or cousin). Is there a secret R&D group at The Kahlua Company whose sole task is to churn out varying Kahlua cake recipes? Well if so, I guess it's working! I decided to make one. So I started searching the web and discovered something like 10 DIFFERENT (yet very similar) Kahlua cake recipes on recipezaar.com alone! Some with chocolate chips, some with nuts, some with a vodka/Kahlua syrup soaked into the top, some with a Kahlua glaze, some using a yellow cake mix and some instructing to make a chocolate cake from scratch. Whew!! Whatever happened to the one faithful "recipe on the box"? [I LOVES me some Rice Krispies treats!]

I finally settled on a no frills recipe. I also decided cupcakes would be more fun and would come out of the oven faster. The fantastic leavening in this recipe made them rise up perfectly! But now what do I do with 18 cupcakes? Hhmm I think some coworkers will be getting awfully lucky upon arrival at the office tomorrow morning...

1 pkg Devil's Food Cake mix
1 small pkg instant chocolate pudding
1 cup sour cream*
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup water
4 eggs
3/4 cup Kahlua
1 1/4 cups chocolate chips

Combine all ingredients adding chips last. Fill cupcake papers 3/4 of the way. Bake 350 degrees for ~16-20 minutes. Don't over-bake or they'll get dry!

*I only had a 1/2 cup of sour cream so I added a little whipping cream to make up for it. Not sure if it made any kind of difference but I felt better about it. And also sorta felt like I was "putting my own spin" on the recipe. Ha!

Oh and I finished my vest!! It's blocking right now as I type but it seems to have turned out great! I'm really excited (gawd what's happened to me that I'm excited about knitting a vest?) to try it on once it dries!