CHOCOLATE CUPCAKES WITH SALTED CARAMEL CREAM CHEESE FROSTING
YUM! Another birthday at work. This time I did my version of this popular combo and had people do a blind taste comparison with a local bakery version. Guess who won!
SWEET CHEEKS FOR THE WIN!!!!
HAPPY LATE ST. PATRICK’S DAY!
A few days late because it’s hard to find time to bake during the madness of SXSW!
Chocolate Guinness cupcakes with Irish Cream butter cream. Yummy and boozy! Oh and gold nugget sprinkles of course!
BIRTHDAY CUPCAKES!!!
Chocolate with vanilla butter cream in bright blue with sprinkles! And Danbo!
I know I’ve gotten boring lately. Stay tuned for some seriously cute Dino themed baby shower cupcakes and some special St. Patrick’s Day cupcakes!
KETTLEBELL CUPCAKES!
We get to eat cake after our workout tomorrow!
When I heard that there was going to be a little going away workout party for some gym members and cake was involved, I jumped at the chance to make cupcakes…for the gym…
It’s a good thing Michelle’s workouts burn at least 500 calories because I didn’t use anything fat free in these.
Chocolate cake with vanilla bean butter cream topped with fondant kettlebells!
My plan was to print out the gyms logo on sugar sheets and make little logo disks to top the cupcakes…but the bake shop wouldn’t do trademark/copyrighted stuff…maybe I need to buy a food color printer…
Anyways…I think the kettlebells are pretty cute. Now to get to the gym and work hard enough to be able to eat one! (OK let’s be honest…work hard enough to burn off the cupcake I just ate…quality control ya’ know)
Yellow cake…help me out here.
Another baking friend of mine was telling me of her yellow cake experience. She said she tried to make yellow cake and it stated too much like corn bread. I found a Martha Stewart recipe and figured my friend must have had a bad recipe. I’ve had nothing but good results from Ms. Stewart, so I figured if this didn’t turn out well…there’s just something wrong with homemade yellow cake.
Well I tried it and I too got the cornbready taste. I don’t get it! Texture wise it was good…but the flavor was cornbready. What’s going on here? Please, if you have any suggestions on a good yellow cake that tastes like yellow cake from the box tastes like, please share. This may just be a cake I leave out of my recipe box.
RED VELVET CUPCAKES!!!
Well, it’s been awhile since I posted…wait…did I post the vanilla cupcakes I made for my sister? I did right? Ok…well, it was starting to feel like a long time since I’d done any baking.
I started a new job at work and one of the things they are hoping I can accomplish is to improve team morale…but task since no one really gives a shit other than to make their money…can’t say I blame them. So we decided we’d start doing little things and one of those things was Monday treats or some shit.
As I hadn’t baked in awhile I figured I’d whip up a batch of cupcakes. It also happens to be a team members b-day Monday, so double whammy!
I chose to give another shot at red velvet, since I wasn’t 100% happy with my last effort.
Cake wise, I nailed it this time. Good texture, lightness and taste. However, getting the final result was a bit of a cluster-fuck.
First off, this is the first time I’ve baked since little Agnes joined the household. She has learned how to jump up on things and I had a heck of a time keeping her off the counter and out of the batter. At one point she got in the sink and stepped on the spoon used for food coloring and I had little red kitty paw prints on my counter….don’t worry I cleaned up and did not contaminate the cupcakes…
As far as the frosting goes…
First off, I thought it’d be nice to do a two-tone frosting. I finally got a new tip and wanted to try my hand at the little rose looking application. Well, I put too much gel color in my frosting trying to get a darker red, and that caused my frosting to…damn. I figured no one would really care though so I went ahead and filled my piping bag…
I filled it too full and made a helluva mess…just…bad. Cleaned that up, felt my roses were…alright, could be better, but I’ll blame that on the frosting for not being as stiff as I’d like.
I finished frosting and went to the fridge to make room for the cupcakes…and somehow managed to knock over a full pitcher of cherry kool-aid…shit. So now I’ve got red liquid all over the floor and the fridge. FML. Managed to clean that up and get the cupcakes chilled.
I figured after all that headache a beer and a cupcake was in order.
All-in-all I’d say it was worth the trouble.
BLACK AND WHITE FOREST CUPCAKES!!
So my mom was out of town when I made my last batch of cupcakes, and I’m house sitting for my parents this weekend so I promised I would leave some cupcakes. My dad told her how good the black forest cakes were so she bought me some cherries to make her some.
I had been toying with the idea of getting some rainier cherries and making a white chocolate version of black forest cake (white forest cake) but rainier cherries are SO pricey. Well what do you think was waiting for me in my mom’s fridge? Some rainier cherries! So I went to the store, bought a bar of white chocolate and some regular cherries and decided to make two versions of forest cake.
If you aren’t aware, rainier cherries are more of a golden fleshed cherry, not all dark red, their flavor is a bit sweeter too. They are also bigger. So they work just right in a vanilla or white chocolate cupcake.
So here they are, my black and white forest cupcakes!
