Emmi Expecting: Meatloaf & Mac'n'Cheese Cupcakes!

Last Thursday I attempted to make a "cute" dinner as a surprise for James. This involved some of his favourite comfort foods in cupcake form! Who knew you could make meatloaf and mac'n'cheese in cupcake form? I certainly didn't. And before anyone asks, no, it's not cake flavoured like those foods; that would be disgusting. I found the recipes here and here, respectively. I thought it would be fun since James thinks my family is weird because we like snack-y, appetizer-y foods and can make a meal of those instead of having a quote-unquote "real" meal. Anyways, I set out to find all the ingredients and make these cupcakes. I had some trouble finding chili sauce and ended up using the only one I could find--sriracha chili sauce. Beware--this is HOT.

Sriracha meatloaf sauce


Just out of the oven

All ready!

Admittedly, mine are not as pretty as the ones that are on Sticky Gooey Creamy Chewy's blog. However, I didn't pipe on my potatoes and my oven doesn't have a broiler function, so you can forget that lovely browned look. Plus it was much messier than I had expected. They were pretty good, though James nearly burnt his tongue off. It was spicy for me too, but I enjoyed that bite. They were also enormous, and if I ever make it again, I'll probably halve the recipe. I say if because unfortunately, my stomach didn't quite agree with something in the meatloaf, be it the sauce or something else. The only meatloaf I grew up with was the singer, so I'm not too familiar with the food. The meatloaf was also difficult to eat since it was messy to eat with your fingers, too tall to really bit into (at least for me) and had a round bottom, so when assaulted with a fork, it rolled. Easy solution: cut off the bottoms before serving!

The mac'n'cheese cupcakes were pretty good. I only had one cupcake pan left, so I used one of our mini muffin pans as the second, and they turned out pretty cute. They burned a bit, which made the paper cups stick to the mac'n'cheese, which wasn't so tasty. Next time I'd figure out a way to avoid that. But all in all, they were pretty good. I still prefer my mom's macaroni and cheese, perfected with A1 sauce (my dad and I's secret macn'n'cheese weapon!) though I haven't managed to perfect the perfect cheese to noodle ratio she always manages to get. All in all, these recipes would be perfect for party food, just make them both in mini muffin pans and you've got instant comfort food appetizers that would rock for superbowl food (imo) or a movie slumber party. The novelty outweighs the cons, but I think I'll come up with my own recipes and simply transfer them to the cupcake bans for baking next time (and of course, add A1 to my mac'n'cheese)!