It's a Picnic

It's a Rainbow

Limocello

Lately My husband has request several different and unusual cupcakes. He is pretty amazing at favor combination. This is a take on my Boston Creme cakes that I've posted in the past.

Basic yellow cake with zest of 3 lemons.

I added Vodka to the lemon pudding and whipped cream for the filling

Topped it with a lemon butter cream with lemon zest.

Sangria

Basic yellow cake with 1 cup red wine, minced apples, and zest of 1 orange

I added 1 cup of reduced red wine to a simple butter cream.

They came out pretty good the color of the cake was a little strange so I added a bit of purple coloring to make it a little more appealing.

Star Wars-Cookies n' Cream

My basic Chocolate cake with Cookies n' Cream butter cream.

Francesco request chocolate of course but I wanted to do something a bit different. The cookies in the butter cream gave it a nice texture.

Gabriella Turns 2

So my beautiful niece had her 2nd birthday and her them was Dr. Seuss. I made these adorable thing 1 & thing 2 cupcakes. They were my dutch chocolate cupacke with raspberry buttercream frosting with cotton candy for the hair. It was a wonderful, fun party.

Happy Birthday Gabriella!

xoxoxoxo

Long Overdue

For those of you that didn't know I have been on bedrest since January with our third child. I haven't had to opportunity to be creative with my cupcakes in a very long time. We welcomed a beautiful baby girl into this world on March 14th. She is amazing and we couldn't be more thankful.

On to the cupcakes...

I made these gorgeous Margarita Cupcakes with lime buttercream for our friends birthday over the weekend. They were delicious! The buttercream frosting was ouststanding and I think the best I've made. So simple but great!

LIME BUTTERCREAM ICING:
2 sticks unsalted butter (1 cup), at room temperature
5 to 6 cups powdered sugar
2 Tbs fresh lime juice
1/8 tsp salt
1 tsp grated lime zest
small lime slices for garnish, if desired

Once cupcakes are completely cooled, prepare the icing. Place butter in a large bowl and beat with electric mixer until butter is fluffy. Add 4 cups of powdered sugar, salt, lime juce, and lime zest. Mix until thick and creamy. Add more powdered sugar, if desired. Use small lime slices as garnish

Orange Cream

My sister's friend asked me to make cupcakes for her daughters 1st birthday party in November, 40-50 to be exact. She didn't care so much about making them look fancy. Her only criteria was that they were delicious. She said her and her hubby usually eat dessert that are chocolate and peanut butter so that makes it pretty easy for one kind of cupcake. Usually infants shouldn't eat nuts until they reach 2 yrs old so I'm dabbling in the kitchen a little to figure out what option I'm going to go with for cupcake #2.

I've been thinking alot about what to make for this birthday girl. I tried a Orange Wheat cupcake with Vanilla Honey Cream icing.
... not the winner.
Although it tastes pretty good, it more like a muffin from the wheat flour.
My husband loved it but he loves that wheat taste.
The Frosting was pretty yummy and I can thank the honey from that. It's amazing what a couple teaspoons can do.

1/3 cup (75 ml) regular block cream cheese,
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
2 teaspoons honey
3/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Pinch of salt
2 cups sifted powder sugar

Beat cream cheese with butter, honey, vanilla and salt. Gradually add icing sugar until thick enough for spreading.

Stay tuned for more ideas and recipes...

Cupcakes Take the Cake

I was so excited to learn that my cupcake blog was featured on one of the tops cupcake blogs out there... Cupcakes Take the Cake on August 19 th. Check it out at:
http://cupcakestakethecake.blogspot.com/2010/08/yarn-cupcakes-chocolate-boston-creme.html

I received a few comments from followers suggesting that I post my recipes along with the photos. Thanks for the suggestions and stay tuned for more recipes of my favorite cakes and frostings...

100% Edible Yarn

Frank's Ma knits beautiful scarfs, sweaters, hats and socks for all of us. I thought I'd surprise her with a color pallet for her next project. The kids picked out the colors, of course...

I made carrot cake cupcakes with our garden grown carrots and threw in some toasted walnut. After frosting with the kids desired colors I places a tinted Wiltons candy melt in the center pushing slightly so the cake and frosting indented.

I piped the "yarn" over the frosted cupcake and covered the candy just a bit to create the yarn illusion.
I made some labels on the computer and taped them in a cylinder shape then added two finished cupcakes to each side. I had to refrigerate the cupcakes to be able to work with them.

The yarn needled are 2 pringle wheat stix dipped in white chocolate.

Mama Nudo loved her surprise.

Happy Birthday Nana!!

Stout & Mini's

We were having a get together this weekend with family and friends. Most of us would be having margaritas and beer while hanging out by the pool. I had seen in a magazine beer flavored cupcakes so I figures a good stout frosting would be perfect.

Dark Chocolate with espresso cupcakes with Cream Cheese"Guinness" frosting. The stout adds a unique flavor that goes perfectly with the hint of espresso.

Stout Cream Cheese frosting
1/2 cup of butter (1 stick), room temperature
8 oz of Philly cream cheese (1 package), room temperature
2 - 3 cups of powdered sugar
2-4 teaspoon of Stout (guinness) depending on your taste buds

1 With an electric mixer, mix the butter and cream cheese together, about 3 minutes on medium speed until very smooth. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl to ensure even mixing.

2 Add the Stout and mix. Slowly add the powdered sugar. Keep adding until you get to desired sweetness and thickness.

Chocolate cupcakes filled with a bit of Salted Carmel with dark chocolate frosting. So I decided to make these little guys again since they were a hit last time we had friends over.
Mmmm... delicious!

Stella & Dot with Discovery Toys

Me, my sister and mother-in-law hosted a Mommy and Me party

with Stella & Dot and Discovery Toys.

We had so much fun trying on gorgeous pieces of jewelry and watching our kids enjoying all of the toys. I thought mini-cakes would complete the theme of fun and sassy.

Salted-Caramel Filling
• 2 1/2 cups sugar
• 2/3 cup water
• 1 tablespoon light corn syrup
• 3/4 cup heavy cream
• 2 1/2 teaspoons sea salt, preferably Fleur de Sel
1. Place sugar, water, and corn syrup in a medium-sized heavy saucepan. Heat over high heat, stirring occasionally, until syrup is clear; clip a candy thermometer to side of pan. Stop stirring, and cook until syrup comes to a boil, washing down sides of pan with a wet pastry brush as needed.
2. Boil, gently swirling pan occasionally, until mixture is caramelized and just reaches 360° F.
Remove from heat; slowly pour in cream (be careful, mixture will spatter) and stir with a wooden spoon until smooth. Stir in sea salt. Use immediately; if at any time caramel begins to harden, reheat gently until pourable.

I wanted to thank my handsome husband for monitoring the carmel temp while I tried to multi-tasked with the other one.

Chocolate with Peanut Butter Frosting

• 6 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
• 1/3 cup confectioners’ sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup creamy peanut butter
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
1. With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat cream cheese and confectioners’ sugar until pale and fluffy. Add salt and peanut butter, and beat to combine. Beat in vanilla.
2. In another bowl, with an electric mixer on medium-speed, whisk cream until medium-stiff peaks form. Fold cream into peanut-butter mixture.

I made these little signs to catch the eyes of our family and friends.

Thanks Everyone for stopping by.

Enjoy!

Double Chocolate Peanut Butter Buttercream

What 16 year old doesn't love chocolate and peanut butter? For my brother in law I wanted to make something special that him and his friends can enjoy to celebrate his 16th birthday.

Double Chocolate with mini chocolate chips

Topped with a delicate peanut butter buttercream with semi sweet chocolate shavings.

Added princess cupcake liner for a laugh.

Happy Birthday Dominic!

Happy Fourth of July

These were pretty simple. I used two different style tips with 2 colors of frosting. The stars are made from fondant which our Nana helped me dye blue and roll out. The inside is a white cake with blue and red marbling that I colored in 3 separate bowls and layed them prior to baking. I forgot to take a photo before the kids dug in. = )

Happy Fourth of July!

Chocolate for Heather

My sis-in-law absolutely LOVES chocolate. We had plans to have dinner at her house over weekend so I decided what's Heather going to like more than delicous chocolate...on chocolate...on more chocolate? NOTHING!

I took a take on Boston Creme Pie cupcakes since that's one of my husbands favorite things I make. Instead, I went all chocolate.

Triple Chocolate fudge cupcakes +

Chocolate fudge custard+

Semi-sweet chocolate ganache = Chocolate heaven

Added fresh strawberries for color.

Happy Mothers Day!

I saw this amazing Cupcake Flower tree in the FoodNetwork Magazine a few months back and had to make it for our Mother's Day brunch.Instead of cupcakes I made breakfast muffins: Banana nut with cream cheese frosting, Bran with cream cheese frosting and blueberry with lemon cream cheese frosting. I used a different tip to get a rose like look on the purple ones.

I left the muffins out for a few hours to set the frosting to get ready for assembling.

I painted a styrofoam ball and use a stick that my husband cut off the tree outside and placed it in a flower pot I got at Target for about a dollar. About 3 toothpicks per muffin to attach to the ball. This definitely needed a little weight around the bottom so I used some marbles to make sure it wouldn't topple over.

Happy Mother's Day!

A Must Have Apron.

Okay so not everything is going to be about cupcakes. I found these adorable aprons at Anthropoloy and I had to share. I've never seen aprons so stylish with such flare. These three are my favorite but their selection is so big that it will please anyones style. I can definitely see my little sis, Brianna, wearing the black and white one while she's baking for her new hubby.

anthropology.com