New Year's Cupcakes

Name the most popular drink (or drinks) during New Year’s Celebration! I first think of White Champagne and/or Mimosas! So with that in mind, I decided to do those cupcakes for New Year’s. And of course, right after I created this batch, I discovered a similar recipe that when you do half champagne and half OJ, along with orange zest you have Mimosa cupcakes! Yummy! I did the swirl design (adding the white nonperils on top to represent bubbly) and randomly placed some candy wafer “fireworks”. Happy 2012!!

Tree Cupcakes

This is my final chocolate-mint cupcakes. I found a design that when you stacked the cupcakes a certain way they look like a Christmas tree. I didn’t have the proper stands, but I did just buy a spiral cupcake stand that will help with the concept design anyways.

After baking the cupcakes, I simply covered them in green frosting, placed red hots and mini-white nonperils. The “tree” part was created using green melted candy wafers drawing random zig-zag lines and placing them diagonally on the edges of the cupcakes. It didn’t work completely how I wanted it to but it was a nice try. And they tasted yummy too!

Holly-day cupcakes

So after Thanksgiving I officially celebrate the Christmas/Holiday season. Now before I discuss that, I admit I planned on doing ice-cream cupcakes with a turkey theme on top for Thanksgiving. My bf’s father’s birthday is usually around that day (and ironically he went to Virigina Tech-hoakies). I still plan on doing those this week actually. How to combine the cupcakes with the ice cream was the challenge…

So now back to the holiday themes, the décor and the music are the biggest give aways. I admit companies start that too soon. It doesn’t give us enough time to properly enjoy the other holidays!

 I’m starting out the flavor with the of Chocolate mint with the andre’s mints. I use my normal chocolate recipe and added chopped mints into the batter right before it goes into the oven. I used whipped frosting and added a little bit of Peppermint syrup (the kind used for coffee drinks). I did 3 different designs…

1.      Basic frosting with chocolate drizzles and topped with a whole Andre’s mint.

2.      A wreath design I randomly thought of:

3.      A holly theme using green melted candy wafers and red runts:

Cupcakes to someone who lost a loved one

This was the request I received this morning: A friend’s mother passed away this morning. This friend was a fan of my chocolate cupcakes. I was informed by another and they asked if I could make some for this friend as she is in grieving. The design almost seemed challenging. Nothing too fancy or big and googling ideas was hopeless. So I finally thought of powdered sugar stenciled heart shapes. Simple. I really hope she enjoys them and they help bring some happiness and comfort to her in these times.

I messed up on this many

Daisies for a Birthday

So my best friend visited me in Colorado and we celebrated her birthday! Of course there were cupcakes!

She loves pink gerbera daisies so I made some-in Zebra-striped liners; which she loves bright pink and zebra stripes!

They are vanilla flavored chocolate-filled and pink whipped frosting. While decorating the yellow middle, the bag seam broke and volia!

A happy accident turned into a caterpillar; what a cutie! I also decorated up the place too with the color theme

Boys and Girls of every age, wouldn't you like to taste something strange?

So finally Halloween came and I created TONS of cupcakes! The flavors were chocolate, banana cream surprise, and pumpkin spice. I did the full recipe of each. So for stats, I counted (after decorating) 62 regular and 33 mini which totals of 95 cupcakes! Now remember, a few had to be consumed for quality purposes and for the monsters I created they have 1-2 mini cupcakes on them. So I probably made over 110 cupcakes!! The frosting was whipped and I even went out on a limb and made some extra whipped frosting.

So for designs, here’s the line-up:

13 monsters-fell apart over the day from being moist-suggestion for next time: chill overnight then add eyes right before serving

12 mummies-super fun and easy

10 pumpkins-lined with Charlie Brown for The Great Pumpkin

9 black and white sprinkles-to use up cupcakes

9 witches-more like witch hats

9 mini-bones-again using up cupcakes

7 webs-made with almond bark and had a spider to go with

7 cauldrons-found idea online and loved the look

4 cats-from book; made with almond bark

4 hills (from Nightmare before Christmas)-made with almond bark

5 RIP-chocolate dipped graham crackers with bones

2 bats-almond bark

1 ghost-almond bark

1 Jack-almond bark-used 1 regular and 1 mini used—MY FAVORITE!

Everyone LOVED them and was excited by the designs! Also, my wonderful boyfriend finally put my cupcake box together so I captured photos of them in the box! J

Them bones them bones all around

After the first week of classes beginning for the fall quarter, I mentioned that I did cupcakes. So of course they requested that I bring some in. Chocolate flavor was in favor and the design was what I wanted. Now, I just can’t just do any design, I had to do something from my book. Luckily, I found another cupcake mural design!

It’s a skeleton and I added pumpkins at the bottom. It was really fun to make! I used leftover frosting from the falling leaves one and turned it more orange.

For Mr. Bones, I used a template provided from the book and placed wax paper over it and melted white almond bark down and drew the bones. Then I placed it in the fridge to harden. For the design, they have him lying over dirt. Well how do you make edible dirt? Simple: OREOS!! I scraped off the crème filling and crushed up the cookies. I used the filling as a frosting for the cupcakes (I don’t like to waste product) and dipped the cupcakes in the cookies crumbs or “dirt” as they would be called. I then placed the dirt cupcakes in the proper arrangement and began creating the skeleton.

Now being a music lover just about anything reminds me of a song; and being a kid at heart this particular one came to mind:

“The foot bone con-nected to the (pause) leg-.bone,
The leg bone connected to the (') knee bone,
The knee bone connected to the (') thigh bone,
The thigh bone connected to the (') back bone,
The back bone connected to the (') neck bone
The neck bone connected to the (') head bone
Oh hear the word of the Lord!

Dem bones, dem bones gon-na walk a-roun'
Dem bones, dem bones gon-na walk a-roun'
Dem bones, dem bones gonna walk aroun'
Oh hear the word of the Lord.

(Tune descends down in half steps and we retrace the body.)

The head-bone connected to the neck-bone,
the neck-bone connected to the back-bone
the backbone connected to the thigh-bone
the thighbone connected to the kee-bone
the kneebone connected to the leg bone
the leg bone connected to the foot bone
Oh hear the word of the Lord.”

And volia! I have a skeleton and surrounding pumpkins!(I also had some leftover cupcakes and almond bark so I made some “BOO” and ghost cupcakes.)

Falling Leaves

So to continue on with the fall theme, I discovered orange-cranberry cupcakes! And my, were they tasty! The original recipe called for dried cranberries but since they are in season, I used fresh ones instead!

For the décor on top, I did an orange colored frosting with leaves and acorns and orange sprinkles. I used almond bark and melted candy wafers smeared onto REAL leaves and when they dried I peeled them off and volia! Edible leaves!

The acorns are caramel squares rolled into egg shapes and then the bottom of the “egg” is dipped into the chocolate melted almond bark, and then rolled in chocolate jimmies. The stem was a dab of the almond bark after the acorn set for a bit.

These were a hit! “My best ones yet!” is what most fans said. A definite repeat and a popular style too!

Final turnout with Oak Leaf Wine in background

Experiment creates new flavor and inspires more

So the other day I was bored (ok not really), but if I don’t make cupcakes on a weekly basis, I get sad (and cupcakes make people happy!). So I looked in my fridge and found some frosting that needed to be used up ASAP! Also, I wanted to add pudding mix to a vanilla recipe. So therefore I had some cupcake creating to do. I added French vanilla pudding mix and a little less flour and more milk and volia! I have perfected a homemade vanilla recipe (moist too!)

The frosting flavor is homemade Hershey’s chocolate and there was a filling surprise inside the cupcakes! (Homemade strawberry filling) I decorated the cupcakes for a Halloween theme.

I made a few tombstones with graham crackers, almond bark fish bones and hands and I found some little bones that were spattered with red food coloring. My quality tester and I thought that what about orange flavored with filling? Or cranberry-orange cupcake since it is fall?

So I bet you can guess what the next few posts are going to be about….

Oh and with the leftover batter and filling, I made a cute cake!

Scarecrow-cupcake Mural

Tis the season to be colorful! I do love summer but the colorful fall really gets to me. The cool weather is nice because Pumpkin Spice lattes are available and leaves are turning and Colorado is the place to be! Just last weekend we visited Rock Mountain National Park and it was just beautiful and colorful! The crunching of the leaves, the turning of the seasons, warmer clothes coming out of storage and toe socks! (I’ll blog about that in my other blog)

So now that I’ve got you craving a Pumpkin Spice latte (or hot chocolate), please don’t get up! I’ve made Pumpkin Spice cupcakes in a scarecrow mural! They were amazing to the taste, and fun to decorate!

The hat is graham crackers, the hay is shredded wheat, and pretzel sticks for the sticks to "hold him up" and smoothed out caramel  and starbursts for the ruffles. We twisted starburst for the ropes, and the crows are Oreos and m&ms. I was originally going to use Ginger frosting but forgot to add ginger. However, the whipped fluffy white frosting tastes amazing with the pumpkin spice. Now this flavor was slightly a challenge; the person who wanted it, loves savory but NOT cinnamon. Well the main ingredient in pumpkin spice is cinnamon. So I added extra nutmeg and cloves to help with that. (He could still taste it but loved how it overall turned out.)

While making this of course the famous song comes to mind, so here’s the lyrics to it:

If I Only Had a Brain

I could while away the hours, conferrin' with the flowers
Consultin' with the rain.
And my head I'd be scratchin' while
my thoughts were busy hatchin'
If I only had a brain.
I'd unravel every riddle for any individ'le,
In trouble or in pain.
With the thoughts you'll be thinkin'
you could be another Lincoln
If you only had a brain.
Oh, I could tell you why The ocean's near the shore.
I could think of things I never thunk before.
And then I'd sit, and think some more.
I would not be just a nothin' my head all full of stuffin'
My heart all full of pain.
I would dance and be merry, life would be a ding-a-derry,
If I only had a brain.