back in ACTION!

Ok, so, it was a busy summer.  But not in the cupcake department, as you can probably tell by my, ahem, lack of posts!  So before September comes to an end I will update you on a couple Birthday events I have been lucky enough to create yummy confections for ;) 

A cowboy themed party had me saddling up to my handy dandy Martha mixer to make some scrumptious carrot cakes and chocolate cakes for a little guy who was turning 1!  

This month a sweet little girl who turned 2 had a lovely Indian "themed-ish" party in that the appetizers (samosas!) and drinks (mango lassis!) were super duper delicious :)  To accompany such yummy treats I baked up some mango cupcakes and salted caramel cupcakes.  The mango cupcakes were a lot of fun to make; I made a simple vanilla cake and then filled each cake with a ginger mango preserve.  I topped these cakes off with a lightly spiced buttercream.  For the salted caramel I made a vanilla cake with a hint of butterscotch and brown butter.  The frosting was a lightly caramelized buttercream and then the fun part - drizzling the cakes with a rich caramel and sprinkling with a pinch of fleur de sel.  The panda bear is just because this little girl loves her animals, especially panda bears ;) 

Oh, and the bottom image? is one from Judah's 2nd Birthday in April (refer to earlier post).  I failed to add this photo which shows the cookie dough center of cookie monster's cupcake!

 

Happy Father's Day cake!

Here's a manly protein filled cupcake for ya:  Chocolate banana cake with a marshmallow center topped with a peanut butter buttercream and toasted coconut! YUM.  After I baked these cakes I simply  cut an 'X' in the top as they came right out of the oven, so they were HOT, then I plunked a marshmallow into them so that the mallow got nice and creamy in the center.  The banana in the chocolate cake added a wonderful moistness.  And who doesn't like the combination of peanut butter and chocolate?! I think it's my favorite :)

Happy Father's Day to all those wonderful daddys out there, especially mine and Judah's!

Every kid's favorite monster...

ELMO!  He is also my 2 year old's favorite monster so we celebrated his birthday this year with Sesame Street themed cupcakes!

I wanted to try out some new flavors for the cakes so I did a creamsicle cake and a cookie dough cake (appropriately representing Cookie Monster ;)  For the creamsicle cake I added Fanta orange soda in place of liquid and a bit of orange zest.  For the cookie dough ones, I made little balls of cookie dough (sans eggs), froze them and then poured a bit of vanilla batter in the pans, placed cookie dough ball in and then topped with more batter.  I think Cookie Monster would have approved.  Judah approved.  And that's really all that mattered ;)

Coconut, Raspberry and Marshmallow yummyness

I've been wanting to try this recipe out for a while.  My mouth just waters at the very idea of pairing a moist coconut cake together with raspberry preserves. YUM.  So I did just that last weekend and topped the cake off with a dollop of marshmallow frosting.  

Now, I'm still in experimental mode with the marshmallow frosting, mine always seems to 'melt' right off the cupcake and make a gooey mess.  I've seen pictures of this frosting and it appears to have a nice form kinda looking like a swirled ice cream on top of the cupcake.  Maybe I need to beat it more??? I will post again on said topic when I have reached the marshmallow-ness that I desire.  I broiled some of the cake to make a nice meringue frosting which held the it in place much better. 

Anyway, these cakes tasted so yummy, I added sweetened coconut flakes to my batter and just a drop of coconut flavoring to amp up the coconut goodness.  I also added coconut cream in place of the liquid called for.  Before sending these babies off to ovenland, I swirled a bit of raspberry preserves on top of the cake.  Topped with a super pretty raspberry candy, my cakes were done.  Good thing church was the next day so that I could share them there otherwise they would all be resting peacefully, or not so peacefully...in my tummy ;)

Lord CUPCAKE

I was not aware of such a cupcake.  The "Irish car bomb" cupcake came to me through Pinterest, another hobby of mine ;)  Just in time for St. Patty's day! I thought as I re-pinned this curious post.  And perfect for a bunch of engineer guys I was sending a sampler off to the Friday before 4leafcloverday.  

This is the Lord of Lady CUPCAKE I think:  a chocolate stout coffee cake - and by stout I mean Guinness Lager, and by coffee I mean reallllly strong coffee, filled with a bourbon vanilla whipped cream and topped with a Baileys white chocolate buttercream.  Whoa.  I hope those guys were able to engineer straight after one of these babies.  I have yet to find a white chocolate ganache recipe that works because that was the attempt before I settled with the buttercream frosting, which still tasted quite yummy anyway.  Technically you are supposed to add Jameson Whiskey to the batch but I didn't have that on hand, that's where my vanilla bean infused bourbon came in *note: save your scraped vanilla beans and add to a small bottle of bourbon, whiskey, vodka....*  

So there you have it!  Lord of the cupcake!  Do a little jig.

rock-a-bye pink leopard baby shower

Personally, I find leopard print a bit too 'vegas' and flashy but PINK leopard print?  Okay, that's pretty cute especially when I get to paint the print onto marshmallow fondant hearts for a baby girl's shower.

If you are the artsy type, you will LOVE edible markers.  They allow you to take cake decorating to the next level where you can reproduce a master's painting onto fondant if your heart was so inclined.  For me, it was re-creating a pink leopard print :)  I googled leopard print cupcakes and came across a helpful site called "my cake school" .com.  She had a small tutorial specifically for leopard print cakes; I used her tutorial to help me with the leopard print but used my markers in place of multiple bags of icing and Viva paper towels - but that method looked great too.  Here's her link:  

http://www.mycakeschool.com/blog/leopard-print-cupcakes/

I made my special spiced chai cakes with a vanilla bean frosting; adding the seeds from one vanilla bean per batch of frosting makes it taste like vanilla ice cream.  Yum.

a belated Valentine's post...

February went by in a whirl, mostly because there are only 28 days in the month, but also because I think I lost track of the days due to sickness hovering over our little apartment.  Finally on the mend - a trip to Florida must have helped! - I have finally found the energy within to sit down and update this blog.  And what an update huh?!  Yes, "cupcake couture" is now the even more sophisticated "lady CUPCAKE"...I think it has a nice ring to it and I feel like I've earned the title since I've been ms. cupcake for the past almost 4 years.  And watching multiple episodes of "Cupcake Wars" I feel also legitimizes this  change of name ;)

So what has the lady been up to?  Well, Valentines has been long over and Easter is well on its way but here are the cakes I made for V day:  Chocolate raspberry truffle cupcakes and spiced chai vanilla bean cupcakes.  I made a yummy ganache and piped some in to the chocolate cupcakes by steaming some heavy whipping cream and then adding chocolate and raspberry preserves.  I let this mixture chill overnight and then whipped it up the next day.  For the chai cakes, I brewed my own tea with loose leaf black chai tea, some star anise, crushed cardamom pods, a cinnamon stick and fresh ginger.  I let the tea steep overnight in the spices so that the flavours would come through nicely in the baked cakes, and they did :)  For a finishing touch I piped some chocolate decorations in the shapes of hearts and 'love' to top the cakes - note:  chocolate candy melts harden better than melted chips!

PAC-MAN eats cupcakes too

This, my friends, was a FUN project.  Cupcake meet video game icon.

These cakes are brought to you by: marshmallow fondant.  And lots of it.  Black circles to place on each cake (30), blue lines to create the 'hallways' of the game, 4 ghosts in their respective colors and yummy yellow dots and cherries for Pac-Man to eat!  

I brewed some of my own chai tea with fragrant cardamom pods, star anise, cloves, black pepper and tea to make a yummy spiced cupcake.  Chocolate paired with the chai and both cakes were stuffed with a caramel rolo inside.  I swirled some buttercream frosting on each cake to 'glue' the fondant in place which also gave guests the option of eating the fondant with the cake or to take the fondant off and still have some frosting on top of their cake.  I must say though, marshmallow fondant is a LOT tastier than the commercial stuff and who doesn't like marshmallow?! (says the girl who could easily inhale a bag of the fluffy stuff back in my high school and college days...it was a staple in college).

Now you can have your video game and eat it too!

noggin' cakes

Eggnog.  Yum.  Eggnog cupcakes? Double yum.  Replaced liquid with eggnog, added a TON of nutmeg (spices always seem to lose a bit of their spice-ness when baked, so I usually double, triple? the amount).  Finished with a swirl of buttercream frosting, spiked with a little Bermuda Rum.  Triple yum. 

Merry Christmas!

mice pops for Walt's birthday

Walt and I share something in common...we were both born on December 5!  Walt has a good 81 years on me so Happy 111th Birthday to you, Walt! and Happy 30th to Me! :)

Cake pops cake pops, Mickey Mouse cake pops! and Minnie too!  For this special occasion I made chocolate cake pops with a hint of spices.  I double dipped the balls first in melted chocolate, cooled them, then dipped them again half way to 'dress' these critters in their trousers or skirts.  Sprinkles made for buttons and polka dots.  I wasn't sure what I was going to use for ears until I found Hershey's chocolate drops in the candy aisle; how perfect!  For Minnie's bow I rolled teeny pieces of strawberry starburst to create the ball center and then I used two heart shaped sprinkles on either side.

And what better way to share these mice then with my friends and co-workers at the Walt Disney Family Museum :)

Happy cake-popping to you!

showering baby Sage

Wow! I haven't been very cupcake-creative since August!  I was so excited to dive back into my kitchen and get baking for a baby shower!  I had a lot of fun experimenting with gum paste in August so I did it again with this cake by rolling out tiny baby items and molding a piece onto a paper umbrella to create the parasol.  Edible markers were definitely easier to use to color my objects than painting them with food coloring.  

I baked a banana cardamom cake which was fragrant and yummy with a cream cheese white chocolate buttercream frosting.  I made additional minis and some regular size super chocolate cupcakes with lindor truffles hidden inside.  The cakes were a hit! the shower a success! and we are all excited to meet this little man soon :)

a wedding cake for Heather and Ian...and their little dog too

Lemony lemon cake and a chocolatey chocolate raspberry cake arrived at Heather and Ian's reception in San Francisco last week!  And what a FUN reception it was complete with great people and yummy food (Judah, my one-year-old gobbled up the crab cakes and probably his weight in pineapple and watermelon).  

Another challenge awaited me on these cakes as it was my first attempt at gum paste.  The gum paste was fun to work with once I got a hang of it and how I was to make dogwood flowers out of the sugary stuff.  I ended up making my own cookie cutter once again out of a lasagna pan and then pressed the cut out flowers onto a textured bowl I had to make it look more realistic.  To dry, I placed the flowers on a sheet of tin foil and crumpled it up so that the flowers didn't dry flat but had some body to them.  To finish off, I dusted the dried flowers with petal dust and 'glued' a ball of gum paste rolled in yellow sugar in the center with water.  The branch was made with cocoa fondant by twisting two fondant pieces into a rope and wrapping around the cake.  The lacy design on the cake was made using a small circle icing tip and buttercream.

The groom's cake was an indulgent chocolate cake with a chocolate raspberry ganache filling.  My gum paste skills were put to the test as I studied pictures of westie dogs in order to sculpt the canine to place on top of the cake.  I used a tooth pick to make 'fur' and then rolled out teeny tiny ropes for the face to add a little more detail on the snout and around the eyes.  Edible markers colored in the eyes and added a little pink to the ears!  Here's to Duncan the Westie who was not able to attend the reception but was represented in sugary form :)

something borrowed...something BLUE

These high heeled cakes were for a bridal shower that I actually just delivered today!  The shower theme was "something blue" and the evite had this pretty blue shoe which I borrowed for the inspiration for my blue velvet cupcakes.  

Here's what I did!  I made the blue velvet cake replacing some odwalla blueberry smoothie for some of the liquid and then amped the blue value up with a little sky blue wilton food gel (this way I didn't add a whole gallon of just food coloring - yuck).  As blue velvet calls for, I added a couple tbsp of cocoa and voila!  A beautiful blue batter which baked into yummy cakes.  

For the blue shoes, this got a little tricky as I had to make my own cookie cutter.  I cut up the sides of a sturdy foil lasagna pan and then shaped a shoe out of a strip of foil.  Because the foil was a little creased, I did need to smooth the edges once they were cut out so it was a time consuming project - thank goodness I only had to make 36!  Once the the shoes were cut out, I pressed edible pearls and silver balls in to make the flower.  I made these a few days in advance so that the fondant could harden.

Cream cheese frosting topped these blue cakes off along with some edible pearls - so pretty!  

cupcake couture's 5th wedding!

A beautiful Sonoma wedding took place just last week and I was privileged enough to be able to create this cake for the occasion!  And OH MY! what a fun time as it was, ahem, my second..? attempt at fondant...but I think it turned out pretty nicely!  Thankfully, the fondant rolled onto the cake the first time without a hitch, but man, can I just say that if you want to get an arm workout, take up cake decorating - with a heavy emphasis on rolling out fondant!  

I made a marshmallow fondant, which in my opinion, has a wonderful taste, mind you, I am a self proclaimed marshmallow addict.  But really, compared to the other stuff, this fondant has a nice light and sweet taste and looks great on cake.  I made a chocolate cake with a chocolate raspberry ganache and I could have just had a bowl of that ganache; it was like super rich, thick, velvety mousse and it was compliments of Bobby Flay - here's the link to the recipe:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/bobby-flay/raspberry-ganache-fudge-cake-recipe/index.html

just a note; I didn't use 1.5 lbs of chocolate, I probably used less than half that amount and it turned out great.

As I added the ganache between the cake layers I topped each layer with fresh raspberries for some added berry goodness :) 

I love the challenge of wedding cakes and I'm learning each time from the experiences I have, so Congratulations Alison and Alex and here's to many anniversaries that your cake will survive in the freezer and STILL taste good!

*photos courtesy of Alison and her wedding guests*