Blueberry Cheesecake Cupcakes

I have not lived until tonight. Tonight is when I made Blueberry Cheesecake Cupcakes. Seriously. They were that good. I say "were" because by the time you read this, they will probably be looong gone. Here's what they used to look like:

So good, right?

Here's how I made them:

First, call your sister on the phone and ask how she would incorporate cream cheese into the cake part of a cupcake if she were to make this particular flavor. *Only do this step if you have the privilege of having a Cake Boss for a sister, which I do.

1 package French Vanilla cake mix
1/2 brick cream cheese
4 eggs
1 1/4 c milk

Combine cake mix, milk, and eggs with room temperature cream cheese. You want little bits of the cream cheese to come through as you eat but not huge chunks. Chunks are gross. Fill 24 muffin cups and bake at 350* for about 20 minutes (or when a toothpick comes out clean). Cool the cupcakes completely.

Meanwhile.....

Reserve 24 blueberries for decoration. Smush one pint of blueberries with 1/3 c sugar. Bring this blueberry mix to a boil and cook for two minutes, stirring constantly. Put in a bowl and cool completely in the fridge.

When blueberries are cold, mix around 1/3 of the mixture with one tub of cream cheese frosting or you could use your own cream cheese icing recipe since the store version turned a bit runny after adding the blueberries. Use the rest of the blueberry mixture for filling in the cupcakes. Use a piping bag with a larger tip to fill cupcakes. Frost with frosting and put a fresh blueberry on top. Now have a good time at the party in your mouth!

Here's what else I've been doing in the six years since I blogged last. Have you ever been to Silverwood? You should go. It's way too fun. Silverwood is down in Idaho kind of in between Sandpoint and Coeur d'Alene. It's a huge amusement park on one side and a water park on the other side. We went down there and rode rides and swam till we passed out every day. And we went to IHOP for breakfast one morning....which was clearly the highlight. Just kidding. But IHOP is always a good time. The highlight was clearly the Aftershock roller coaster.

Let me explain it to you. It's one of those roller coasters that the business part is above you and your legs are dangling. This one pulls you up so you're looking down at the ground then shoots you down and around the loop-de-loops and you get pulled up the other tower backwards so you're now looking up at the sky. Then it shoots you down and you do the whole thing again backwards.

If you look real close you can see my legs dangling, 3rd seat from the top. I dragged three of my nieces with me but to be honest, I was only talking tough and was surprised they agreed. I was kind of hoping they would back down so I could too and still sound brave. While we were waiting in line, Shalyce looked at me and said, "I'm out" and left. Ten minutes later she joined us back in line.

Dang.

Next thing I looked over at Taylor and she was completely white as a ghost.
T - "Amanda, I'm gonna barf. I can't do this."
Me - "Okay Tay. We can leave if you aren't feeling well." (you know, just being the supportive auntie that I am....)
T - "Well, I think maybe I'll be okay. Let's do this."

Double dang.

Torri on the other hand was waiting for the stinking ride to start! I think she was the only one who really wanted to go on it. Did I mention she's only 11?

Moral of the story is, we did eventually get on (after being at the front of the line for about three rounds), and we LOVED it! It was seriously the funnest ride ever. I talked Katie into going on it too and after a minor (MAJOR) melt-down, she decided she loved it too! We'll definitely be back to Silverwood. You should go too!

So in other news, I'm gonna be in a play! Taber Players is doing Nunsense and I'm Sister Robert Anne. She's the sassy, tough-guy, trouble maker nun from Brooklyn. If you don't know about Nunsense, go check it out on Youtube. The Late Great Rue McClanahan is the Reverend Mother on the Youtube version. It's pretty funny and I'm super excited! I'll post more about that later as we've just started and I don't have much to comment about it yet....