Black Forest

I have a LOT of Leos in my life.  Case in point: I have filled out 6 birthday cards in the past 3 days.  Yay!  I love my Leos, who are very similar in personality to my own Aquarius.  In the spirit of celebration, we decided to celebrate "First Friday" with Karaoke, and marked the occasion of both Don & Cecilee's birthdays with some black forest cupcakes!  I think Cecilee (who is also an amazingly talented chef, baker, person) has a particular affinity for black forest.  And how could you not?  Dark chocolate and cherries - sign me up!!

 So first, I needed to gather my materials - cherry liquor, pie filling, dark chocolate and maraschino cherries!  I could have made my own cherries and cherry pie filling, but had this stuff on-hand, and also didn't have a whole lot of time.

 I cored my dark chocolate cupcakes - they were so moist they did not want to core much!

 Add in that beautiful pie filling - yum!

 Infuse some liquor into the cupcakes for even more cherry flavor.

 Now time for the frosting.  Since these are so sweet, most recipes call for a whipped cream frosting.  This was the only part of these that I did not care for - I am not a huge fan of whipped cream. 

 I grated some dark chocolate.

 Sprinkled it over the cakes, and put a cherry on top!

 Delish!  And oh-so-cute!