little ears and cupcaking a cookie

I. Adore. Pasta.

I love all noodles equally. Spaghetti, penne, rigatoni, orzo, couscous...

...but I get a little tired of the same old Barilla noodles in my local grocery store. That's why I was thrilled to see bags of orecchiette (named for their resemblance to little ears) at Publix. Now, at $5.29 for one pound (one freakin' pound!), this isn't something I'll be buying all the time, but I picked some up the other day to see what I could do with it. I ended up putting a teensy little twist on a recipe from Everyday Italian by Giada. Orecchiette with rappini and spicy Italian sausage. I added a lot more red chili flakes, some herbes de provence. That's it. That's my twist.

I wasn't feeling at all creative last night.

Look how lovely! You cook the pasta in the same water that you blanch your rappini, so it comes out this odd, almost green color.

Now to cupcaking a cookie.

A friend of mine who has spent a fair amount of time in South America has been suggesting that I try out this popular Argentinian cookie called alfajores. In Argentina, they are butter cookies with dulce de leche sandwiched between them, then coated with chocolate.

Cookies are boring.

I thought "how can I cupcake this?" and decided to make yellow buttermilk cupcakes filled with dulce de leche and topped with dark chocolate buttercream.

So cute! Why don't I make every cupcake miniature? I should, me thinks.

Everyone at work loved them, and though I've never had an alfajore, I thought they were pretty close. My friend agreed. I even had enough left over batter and frosting to make some unfilled yellow cupcakes (regular sized) with chocolate frosting, which happen to be my dear husband's favorite.

Win win win. ♥