A Beginning and an End

After years of inconvenience, I am happy to announce that I’m finally going to begin the Wilton Decorating Classes! I start in April and will be blogging my journey through this. My goal is to perfect my already acclaimed talent and apply this and new skills to my cupcakes! Wish me luck!

At long last, I now own all 3 of the “Hello Cupcake!” series thanks to a fellow fan of my cupcakes! The books are: “Hello Cupcake!”, “What’s New Cupcakes?” and “Cupcakes, Cookies, and Pies, Oh My!” In this third book, they expand their creativity beyond the cupcakes and I hope to do so too. If you know of these books and would like to see me create one of the topics, please contact me with your request! I love taking requests!

Erin Go Brach Cupcakes

My goal was to make the Irish Car Bomb cupcakes on Saint Patty’s Day to celebrate my Irish heritage. Well, as I previously said, my best friend got married on that day (I was Maid of Honor and it was a LOVELY wedding!). I was still determined to make the cupcakes however and my goodness they turned out amazing!

They are Stout (Recipes calls for Guiness and I used Murphy’s) chocolate cupcakes, with a Bailey’s cream/chocolate filling and topped with a Bailey’s cream frosting and edible shamrock! Delicious and moist they were!

A tip: When recipe calls for Unsalted butter you don’t dare use salted or even butter/margarine with sodium in it. (Unless you want the results to be dry).  I tempted to make a chocolate Guinness cake last year and made that mistake; but you learn from mistakes and haven’t done it since!

Harry Potter Butterbeer Cupcakes

Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light. ~ Albus Dumbledore

So one of my very good friends stayed with me for the week and since we’re huge Harry Potter fans, why not have a Harry Potter marathon? She did this back when the final DVD of the series was released and unfortunately, my cupcakes and I missed out. But not this time!!

 Instead of watching all 8 movies in one sitting, we did 2 a night and I created Butterbeer cupcakes. She did the butterbeer drink and Pumpkin pasties (not pastries). We indulged the sweets while watching Harry and his friends grow and triumph over the Dark Lord. 

Ooh La La Bachelorette Party Cupcakes

My best friend got married on St. Patty’s Day and the week before was the bachelorette party! I was requested by her to make some awesome cupcakes matching the theme.

I chose the white champagne flavor  baked in Zebra print liners and did a BRIGHT pink frosting. Then using the chocolate almond bark, I created legs with a pink garter and lingerie tops with accent of pink on them. They were a huge hit and super delicious!

I also decorated penis shaped cakes.

Here's the lovely bride enjoying the night!

"Mardi Gras Themed!"

I happened to remember Mardi Gras before it happened this year. I asked a dear friend (it’s one of her Favorites!) about ideal flavors and she gave me:

-King’s Cake or Pina Colida

I decided to go with a flavor towards King’s cake which is a sweet cinnamon flavor. I looked up different recipes but decided to modify my vanilla recipe. I added double the baking soda and add cinnamon and nutmeg. The results?

Here’s what people commented:

-Perfect combination! Spongy and moist flavored!

-They taste just like Cinnamon Rolls!

-Best ones yet! Love, love LOVE the flavor!

I believe they were a success! I did the fluffy white frosting colored green, I created masks using colored candy wafers and nutter butters. I then added mini-non perils that were colored to bring out the colors of Mardi Gras:

Purple-Justice

Yellow(Gold)- Power

Green- Faith

I’m still not 100% sure how Mardi Gras got started, but I’d greatly appreciate it if someone did post the history on it when commenting on this!! ;)

I was very happy with the turn out and the flavor is an original recipe! Success!