Cupcakes!

Ever since Jade's wedding I've been on the cupcake bandwagon. Instead of sorting these by date, here's an assortment of almost all the cupcake creations I've made (in addition to the ones in previous posts). One of my favorite parts about cupcakes is that they are adorable and easy to gift (instead of cutting a piece of pie or cake). They are also a lot of fun to make with people (I have extra piping bags and tips just for the occassion) and many of these creations I made with girls from our youth group (and most were made to give away since there is no way Greg and I could polish off two dozen cupcakes!). Please also excuse some of the bad photography. Unfornately I tended to bake after work so I would have to rely on electric lighting as opposed to natural light. I always have a few cupcake ideas floating around in my head, but unfortunately never enough time and occassion. Thankfully Lauren and Chase got me this book which has been so inspiring! Perhaps one day you will see this guy on this webpage. And eventually I am determined to pull off a salted caramel cupcake. 

Oreo Cupcake- cookies and cream cupcake with vanilla buttercream, oreo sprinkles and an oreo garnish. There's also an oreo baked on the bottom of the cupcake but I forgot to take a pic of it!

Chocolate Caramel- chocolate cake with caramel center, vanilla buttercream and caramel drizzle (and no, the caramel is not made from scratch... candy making scares me...)

I love this cake stand from Williams-Sonoma. It makes whatever is in it so much cuter! 

Chocolate Excite-mint (haha I only made creative names for some of my cupcakes)- Chocolate cake with mint buttercream and mini-chocolate chips. This one makes me smile b/c I love mint-chip ice cream and for once my mint creation didn't taste like toothpaste. 

This was my second cupcake commission. I was way way way too ambitious (thanks to spending too much time on: http://cupcakeblog.com/) and tried to tackle a piped whipped chocolate ganache. Greg and Oby said it looks like something rather unpleasant, but I'm glad the raspberry kind of distracts from the look. And the cupcake itself was pretty tasty as it was a brownie/cupcake from scratch. The ganache gave me trouble though and was overall way to liquidy even after being in the fridge for awhile. Piped ganache is still something I haven't mastered, but I would love to be able to make this.

Ganache Hostess "Cupcake"- At least I was able to do dipped ganache! These are chocolate cake topped and filled with vanilla buttercream with a glaze of chocolate ganache and buttercream embellishments. Personally I think the flower looking ones and cupcake swirlies looked the best.

Filling! Just like a ding dong!  

Irish Creme- Chocolate irish creme cupcake with irish creme buttercream and chocolate shavings. I like the way this tip pipes and actually I don't use it quite enough. Also, to be honest, I was trying to do chocolate curls but they came out as shavings so I just went with that. I have yet to be able to curl chocolate well.

 Peanut butter Cup- chocolate cake with a reese mini baked in, peanut butter buttercream and a reese quarter on top. The best part of this recipe is that the frosting uses a lot of peanut butter which means less butter/shortening, always a good thing!

Lemon Mini Cupcakes- lemon cupcake with lemon buttercream with lemon zest. This was for a baby shower and I made some blue royal icing baby rattles to put on top, but I guess I forgot to take a pic!

Red Velvet- so Sprinkles in LA has made red velvet THE ultimate cupcake so I thought I'd give it a try. They look nice, but honestly, I'd rather just have a chocolate cupcake. Who needs to eat so much red dye? Although I have to say this was the perfect project for those wonderful snow days that come too far and few between. The best part was that this introduced me to cream cheese frosting. Now that is YUM. I also took one of the reject cupcakes and crumbled it up then baked the crumbles to make the red velvet sprinkles/crumbles. Unfortunately some of them burned so I had to sort through charred red velvet crumbles!  

Strawberry #1 cupcake- made for my mom's ladies retreat. White cupcake (what flavor is "white"?) with strawberry filling, vanilla buttercream adn strawberry drizzle. 

I REALLY wanted to make sugared flower petals but ran out of time. One of these days...

I like how these cupcakes were a lot lighter and the buttercream was a lot lighter too.

Strawberry #2- strawberry cupcake with vanilla buttercream. You can see I was testing out my pampered chef egg slicer on that strawberry garnish too.

Using the above strawberry cupcake base I had my first attempt and Itallian Meringue Buttercream. It was messy and sticky, but I really like the light texture and the strawberry flavor really stood out which is what I was going for. This was for my co-worker's baby shower. In the future I think I won't print out the picks on the computer b/c colors aren't as strong. I guess I'll have to be old fashioned and use scrapbooking stuff.

 OLI- Olivia Leigh Irvin
I love the bits of strawberry in the frosting!

Somethin' Pumpkin (yes one of my more clever names)- pumpkin cupcake, cream cheese frosting with either nutmeg, cinnamon or pumpkin spice on top (I can't remember!)

We're just jumping around all the holidays here! So obviously this is a boxed cake, but I do love funfetti cake mix and had been thinking about this combo as a fun valentine's cupcake. Funfetti cupcake with vanila buttercream topped with a conversation heart.

 "fax me"- conversation hearts are getting way to technical!

And I love how this one says "do good". A little demanding for a love note, huh?



More New Old Stuff 2009

This is just a continuation of the previous post. Hopefully after all this archiving is done I'll be able to post real (and much shorter) posts that have more of a tutorial, step-by-step effect.

This was my friend Patricia's bridal shower. Since her maid-of-honor was also planning her own wedding I offered to take the bridal shower off her hands.

June 2009

I wanted it to have a spa theme which meant lots of candles and spa elements. I made a towel cake in the entryway and went to the flower market earlier the previous day to get some of her favorite flowers, orchids to submerge for decoration. (note: the crepe paper bouquet is courtesy of my inspiration, Martha Stewart although one day I'd love to learn to make one myself).

Orchids are so beautiful! 

 Our appetizer table. The other girls were so helpful in bringing so many yummy goodies.

Cupcake strike again! At this point I haven't gotten past the kaluah chocolate cake with white buttercream. Fresh flowers make the easiest and best decorations ever.

 And these cake stands from our wedding came in handy!

My first trifle! Brownies, whipped cream and chocolate pudding with strawberries and heath bar. I certainly hope Jonathan enjoyed it for his b-day!

April 2000

 I was inspired by Bakerella and tried our her cakeballs. These are chocolate cover red velvet cake balls for mother's day. May 2009

 For our first Thanksgiving in Louisville my co-worker Tricia invited us over. I made a two layed pumpkin cheesecake and bought slice and bake gingerbread dough to roll out and make these adornments. Definitely a williams-sonoma splurge on those cookie cutters but so worth it for the acorn alone!

I'm not sure what these were for, but apparently I gave some to Greg to take to work and he was quite popular. I have to say, I got a lot better at the presentation of these cream puffs.
January 2010

 The infamous White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake. Oreo crust, whitechocolate cheesecake with raspberry swirl and white chocolate drizzle. The first time I made it during undergrad and Greg's friends offered to pay me to make it for them on a regular basis. This was for my dear friend/mento Zena's birthday. Her children got more excited that I brought by the leftover raspberries than over the cheesecake. She has them trained well. July 2009

 And there is that creme brulee again! I bought a bag of what I thought were Ghiradellli white chocolate chips only to find out that a silver bag means milk chocolate chips. But thankfully it tasted yummy anyways. Without my torch we had to broil this one which means the edges are totally crisp, but it was still yummy.
New Year's 2009-2010



New Old Stuff

It seems a bit strange for a new blog to post about old stuff, but I guess I'll just try to be chronological here. I've always loved being crafty and I guess baking was just an extension of that! I remember early on I loved making potholders out of those stretchy bands and working on (hideous) latch hook rugs tirelessly. My mom still hoards my huge acrylic paint collection when I got into painting useless blocks of wood for fun and I have far far far too much scrapbooking items from my cardmaking days (you can ask my husband about it, it's a sore subject). So here are some past projects in loose chronological order (and yes, I will spare you the ugly elementary school art projects. I'm crafty, not artsy. There is a difference).

One of my first ever layer cakes. The frosting job is horrendous, but I was pretty pleased with the chocolate leaves and chocolate covered strawberries. It was a good way to make an impression on my future in-laws (it was for Greg's birthday right before we started dating). Maybe one day I'll try it again utilizing some piping skills instead of spatula mangling the frosting.

June 2004

 Haha, we like this pic b/c for some reason we look kind of buff.

My first attempt at cream puffs. Actually I still use this recipe today!
Fall 2004

 This was a mini-scrapbook I made for my small group leader Jade. Looking at it I'm reminded again why I find scrapbooking so incredibly tedious (although I did like the end product). I'm also glad my photography skills got a bit better over time.
July 2005

I love giving gifts so Valentines was the perfect opportunity to shower people with love. Cookie pops, hershey kiss roses, love pops and veggie tales. What's not to love?
February 2005

I think this was my first cheesecake ever and actually it turned out pretty good, especially since I had no conception of hot water baths or mixing techniques. I love fruit as decoration. It is so easy and looks appetizing and festive!
February 2005

I don't even remember making this, but it must be my first cupcake from scratch. This just goes to show that there is hope for everyone. I'm almost embarrassed to put this up.
Fall 2004

 Wow, the globbage is terrible on that frosting!

Kimber and I tried to tackle pumpkin cheesecake. The swirls turned out ok, but as I recall I hadn't yet come up with the brilliant idea of putting foil around the pan for the water bath which meant soggy crust...gross.
Winter 2005

I discovered the wonders of butter cookies and decided to use it like playdough. This was for Greg for some sort of occassion.
March 2005

Those butter cookies again! This time I thought I'd be smart and add some color. All I can say now is cookie cutters and pie rollers are your friends. But the rough edges do give it a homemade sort of look.
Easter 2006

Yup, butter cookies are popping up everywhere! This was in celebration of our 1 year dating anniversary. Luckily they made the shipping trip to Sacramento intact.
July 2005

Another cheesecake attempt- chocolate irish creme with a chocolate ganache. I'm glad to say that I've come a long way from this lumpy ganache, but it was tasty nonetheless.
For our 1.5 dating anniversary, February 2006


Our first attempt at crepes! Greg actually was able to pull a 360 turn and catch the airborne crepe, but we did have a couple of fatalities in the process.
February 2006 for valentines day.

Heart shaped scones for Bethany's baby shower tea.
May 2006.

First evidences of party planning and decorating. Patricia's 21st birthday!
May 2006

Some more party planning going on. Spring banquet 2006. Those poor beta fish!

And yup, we even made our own corsages.

A simple bracelet project involving rings that had different attributes "passionate", "love", etc. and some jewelry twine. I used to be really into jewelry making but this project for my bridesmaids was probably the most recent jewelry endeavor in a long while. In retrospect I wish I had just gotten silver chains b/c the bracelets didn't really lay flat. In fact I still have mine in my coin purse as I type.
May 2007

Some stamped and decorated shoe boxes for my bridesmaids with their wedding shoes.
May 2007


MUCH better on the cupcake decorating this time. These were "Million Dollar Cake" cupcakes with pineapple and mandarin orange frosting for our housewarming party post-wedding.
September 2007

Greg's coworker made a delicious margarita cheesecake so I attempted to follow suit. It was not very tasty and I have since discarded the recipe. Blah.
September 2007

One thing Greg raves about was this cannoli from his aunt's wedding. I attempted to copycat (I bought the shells and dipped them, these were not from scratch). Like the cheesecake they were also kind of blah and I have yet to reproduce this treat.
July 2007

Finally I get it right with the pumpkin cheesecake. This was to impress the new in-laws for Thanksgiving. And this time no soggy crust, yay!
November 2007

My first attempt at creme brulee. I'm only sad that I didn't get a shot of the final product. I think homemade creme brulee has got to be one of my favorite desserts ever. If only TSA hadn't stolen my torch from my check-in baggage. Grrrrrr.
Valentines Day 2008

In a shameless attempt to get our high school girls to come to my Bible study WOW (women of worship) I made mini-cheesecake. Needless to say though the cheesecake was good, the turn out was not.
Janurary 2008

Finally some more non-baked goods. Here's my fall decoration display from Fall 2008. I love my leaf sconce! And yes, I love love love acorns so I wired some to hang on the sconce.

Now we're getting to the good stuff! During the summer my friend Vicky and I took a wilton cake decorating class at Michaels because our old small group leader, Jade had commissioned us to make cupcakes for her wedding. I had hardly progressed in my cupcake skills and was in desperate need of getting over my piping bag anxiety. After many trial runs and much practice here was the final product! Not to shabby eh?
Chocolate cupcake with raspberry filling, our own buttercream vanilla frosting recipe and a blue fondant flower with royal icing center. Sounds fancy, huh?

We also made vanilla cupcakes with chocolate frosting, but I liked the chocolate cupcakes better. And those ribbon sashes were a huge pain in butt!

I think we made about 150 cupcakes total! Whew!!! And don't be too impressed, the cake on top was purchased from a professional. But we did dress up the cupcake stand with some ribbon and pearls.

The plated version.

Decorated milano cookies were plated with the cupcakes and the extras were set out after the cupcakes were eaten. Some of our "L"s were pretty hideous, but I think I tried to eat the really ugly ones.

Christmas 2008- I wanted to start a new tradition of having cinnamon rolls for Christmas breakfast so I rolled up my sleeve and faced my yeast fear. These were "clone of a cinnabon" cinnamon rolls and I can vouch that this is an accurate namesake. Mmmm, so tasty and totally worth it to make it from scratch!
December 2008


Then I used the extra frosting to make these little guys. Kahlua chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese centers topped with chocolate ganache.

Greg's brother said I "outdid myself" hahaha. And notice, no lumpy ganache!