Cupcakes for The Cupcake - 2nd Birthday

 

The Cupcake turned two in January, and we celebrated with a small gathering at a local ice cream shop. It was a smashing success - though TC wouldn't be tied down in her high chair or pose for any non-blurry photos (2 year olds, sheesh), because she was much too busy mingling.

I chose a very small location (max occupancy 12) and just a few projects to keep the party personal but manageable. Elmo HAD to be the theme, as TC is nuts over him, and I didn't mind the bright fun color scheme the little monster brings. One of the projects I decided to do early on was Elmo cupcakes:

 

They turned out great, and were so easy! Chocolate mini cupcakes were baked from a mix. Red frosting was made from 2 cans of white store brand frosting and a whole bottle of Wilton no-taste red. Yeah, that's a lot, and will probably stain clothes, but I didn't want pink Elmos so I kept adding more and more, and in the end it turned out GREAT (this would totally stain clothes I'm guessing, and will make mouths red - but it's a b-day party, and a toddler - we knew stains would happen).

 

 

Here's the process - I used a mix to make mini cupcakes in foil liners. Then I piped stars as a base (or "fur" for my little monsters), added candy eyes by Wilton that are available at a lot of grocery and Target stores now, an orange jelly bean nose, and a chocolate piped smile. I didn't try to hard to make anything perfect (monsters are messy) and I cranked them out really quickly.

Heather's Mailbag: Hello, Cupcake!

I've mentioned my cousin Holly before, she's an avid scrapbooker and queen of pretty presents. A few weeks ago she send me a delightful surprise in the mail, a chipboard album in the shape of a cupcake!



She had personalized it with images of my wonderful surprise party:



It's so stinkin' cute!



Each page is embellished too - she put a raised "30" in place of the candles on the cake page above. Such attention to detail!



Ahh, I can relive the fun each time I look through it :)

Thanks so much Holly, I love it!

Possibly the cutest birthday present ever...

Here's one more of the adorable b-day gifts I received at the epic 3-0 surprise. It's from my uber-creative cousin Holly, who we should all convince to create a blog of her own, since she actually gets projects done (unlike me lately). Her gift was so creative, both inside and OUT!



With the re-usable printed box, thick pink bow, and adorable ceramic gift tag, it was almost too pretty to open. Inside was a a fabulous Glitterville (Dept. 56) gift card holder, filled with a Visa gift card! Yay fun! Also, a beautiful blown glass cupcake ornament - how great will that look on my sweets tree next year?

Then there was also a "cup-a-cake" cupcake holder that I am so excited to try! They are single serving containers supposed to keep a decorated cupcake somewhat undestroyed in transit, i.e. for you to take to lunch:



You know I'll have to run a test and tell you how it performs. Speaking of cupcake disasters, this is hardly related, but worth passing along - at the memorial last weekend it was so warm, all of the cream cheese frosting slid off my otherwise adorable mini cupcakes:



I had little dessert platters on each table, hoping that would encourage people to munch as they were sitting. The chocolate frosting actually held up just fine, so I'll have to remember in the future that cream cheese frosting is not suited for warm temps or sitting out very long. Especially at a slight angle :)

Classic Cupcakes for Christmas

I'm still struggling with indoor shots and balancing light/shutter speeds, but dang if my new camera doesn't take the prettiest dessert photos:



Mmmmm. This was a last-minute addition to our rescheduled Christmas Day meal, finally held last night when our Wisconsin family was able to battle through the weather. It was definitely a hit with hubby's two cousins, age 2 and 5. Claire in particular (the toddler) found it amusing to individually remove ever sprinkle and eat it separately. At last count she had 3 cupcakes for the evening.

These were just vanilla with chocolate and vanilla frosting, white sprinkles on the chocolate and multi on the vanilla. I love the look of a classic, simple cupcake.

AWARD WINNING True Blood Paper Doll Cupcake Smackdown

I think I was waiting to crop photos for this post (which I never did), and then forgot about it completely - but now that they were featured on CampBlood, I just had to share one of my "book club" member's craftastic creation: True Blood Paper Doll Cupcake Smackdown!

Confused?

You know I used to be in a book club, and that book club reorganized as a TV watching club ("art film night") watching - True Blood in particular. Each week we'd gather for deep discussions and half naked Ryan Kwanten, cheering of Eric and contemplation of Bill's awful hair.

CampBlood is a website that looks at horror movies and culture, and one of their features is a video blog (or vlog, if you prefer) called "Blood Work" where two hilarious dudes comment on each True Blood episode, and one of said dudes created a line of PAPER DOLLS based on characters of the show.

The paper dolls are fantabulous, and available here. They've even added the long awaited Eric now!

On finale night, Carin brought our group yummy Byerly's cupcakes each decorated with a TB paper doll! She actually colored them by hand when her printer died, how's that for dedication? She mounted each one on a straw like a stick puppet.


To determine which cupcake you got, you drew a "speech bubble" with an excellent quote from the series, and matched them up. We then spent an inordinate amount of time dressing our characters


Well, we dressed SOME of them... like Jason got his boots...


But Sam was just too cute in his "I just shifted back into human form and haven't found my clothes yet" get up:


You can click on the photos for a larger version to read the quotes - which of course we were spouting and impersonating the whole time. More quotes also listed on today's LovingTrueBloodinDallas, and seriously these run through my head all the time as my silent yet hilarious commentary on the world.


She even added an extra character, the "Big-Ass-motha-fucking-Paul-Bunyan-Pig!" and that's the one I got :) He's now chillin' his bacon in my car, and we scream at bad drivers together.


Anyways, as if that wasn't enough, CampBlood also hosted a "cubicle puppet show contest" which Carin entered as well as sent a photo of the "book club" cupcakes, and she was featured on the site today! She didn't win the grand prize, but what an awesome shout out. Carin, you rock! So glad you joined our "book club."

Carrying Cupcakes - a review of products

I love bringing cupcakes to events since they don't require plates, forks, or major serving utensils and involve relatively little clean up. But unfortunately, cupcakes are not immensely portable. I've tried several different routes over the years, and here are some of my thoughts:


1. Tupperware cupcake courier
This holds an odd # of cupcakes - 18, which is really strange to me. Cupcake mixes generally make 24, even muffins usually do at least 12, so it's pretty strange to build a carrier that takes 18 cupcakes. The bottom has round cavities for each cupcake that are less than 1" deep, and therefore kind of useless when it comes to keeping the cupcakes upright and secure. It also flips to convert to a 1/4 sheet rectangular cake, though I've never used it as such. I appreciate how well Tupperware makes the pieces snap together, they feel relatively secure and I don't worry about the bottom falling out, but I do wish I didn't have to work so hard to keep the cupcakes from falling over and ruining the frosting.


2. Snapware Cupcake system
I scooped up one of these at Costco, mine came with 3 layers and supposedly you can hook up to 6 together, though I can't imagine that would be very easy to carry. Nor do I believe for a moment that the handle would support it, even with just 3 layers I felt it pulling and warping, and it sucked in a big bunch of air every time I picked it up and used the handle to support the weight. This has an insert for each level much like the Tupperware version, with spaces for 12 cupcakes in each level. But again, the cavities are less than an inch deep, so with this carrier as above, any jostling tipped the cupcakes out of the cavities and into each other. I had high hopes, but it's really just a less expensive and more stackable version of the Tupperware one.


3. Disposable cupcake containers
This are awful for the earth, I know, but they are really the best way to keep cupcakes secure and upright. Sometimes you have to be careful that there is enough frosting room, and there aren't a ton of places to get them at a reasonable price, but they are worth it for many occasions. I've found them at Lynn's Cake & Candy Supply and used both the half dozen (good for bake sales) and full dozen sizes. Next I want to try the individual cupcake holders, but they're usually close to $1 each, which really ups the price per cupcake.


4. Tupperware Pie Holder
I've found that the 12" rounds, marketed as pie storers, are actually a great size for keeping cupcakes. They are deep enough to allow a decent pile of frosting, and you can load them up so that they fit snugly and keep each other from tipping over. The Tupperware seal means it's airtight, and I really like to use these for cupcakes I'm refrigerating before travel. In general, I've had much better luck with cupcakes surviving travel in this container than the others.



5. Window Box
I picked up a package of these at target and they really are adorable...and spendy. Over $1 each seems difficult for a single serve and quickly discarded item. The cardboard box is easy to set up with an insert to set the cupcake in, it seemed to keep things relatively stable.

Hey mom, these are just, um, rockets?

I know my mother reads this blog, generally in the wee hours of the morning. She was already scandalized at the half naked mermaids from my Coney Island trip, so I can only imagine what this is going to do to her. Sorry mom. But I couldn't deny the creative public this fun bachelorette project.

And seriously folks, how cute are these?!?!? Bachelorette party #1 is this weekend, and I volunteered to bring a couple dozen cupcakes. I baked my traditional extra moist dark chocolate cupcakes in fuscia foil cups. I frosted half in vanilla (my favorite combo) and the other half in fudge, and topped each with one of these tiny peanut butter peckers. I actually think they look pretty adorable.

And, the giving person I am, I'm going to tell you how to make these little darlings at home!

First, the molds - I got mine in the "adult" drawer at Lynn's Cake & Candy Supply in Spring Lake Park. They have strange hours but are one of the best resources for cake & candy supplies in the metro area. They just have one little drawer under the candy molds that says "adult" and it's rather hilarious to dig through. These were around $3.50, and I got 2 - one thing about candy molding, the more molds you have, the more you can do at once which sounds basic, but every time you need to wash, dry, and re-melt candy for another batch, it takes wayyyyy longer than just doing a bunch at once - well worth a few bucks more.

Second, the candy. I looked around at a lot of options, and had intended on coloring my own "flesh" candy, but when I was digging around at Michael's I came across peanut butter candy melts - PERFECT! Candy melts are the easiest for these types of molds, you can control the portion you melt, they melt quickly and in the microwave, and come in many colors. Buying the right color saves a ton of time and mess over self-coloring.


I put 1/3 of a bag of candy melts or so into a disposable pastry bag and melted them in the microwave. Melt them in short bursts of 30 seconds or less, and massage the bag in between to keep the temperature even. Snip the tip of the bag and pipe the melted mixture into the molds. Do not overfill.

Once all the cavities are filled, lightly tap the mold on the counter for 10 - 20 seconds as the mixture spreads throughout the mold and the air bubbles rise to the surface and pop.


Place the molds in the fridge for a short time until hard (I find this happens in less than 15 minutes). Carefully remove candies from mold.



Voila! Naughty pastries for a ladies' night out!

I have more bachelorette-related posts to come, but I don't want to ruin all the surprises right now, so I'll put them up later on :)

Our NYC Cupcake Tour!

***Forgive me, I can't seem to get a grip on the layout features that allow me to space my photos through the text, so I apologize for the awkwardness. It's a work in progress.


While in NYC we had this great idea to go on a cupcake tour of the city, stopping at various acclaimed bakeries and sampling their wares. Monday seemed the perfect day (and the rain actually stopped to accommodate us!) so Ryan plotted a course and we set off to our first stop - Cheeks bakery in Williamsburg.

It was closed. Permanently. Boo.

So we kept walking across a windy bridge into Manhattan, and the next stop was Butter Lane. I was really excited for this one because Cupcakes Take the Cake raves about it all the time. The outside was adorable - just this little cottage-feeling store front tucked into the side of a neighborhood. They didn't have a big display, just a few pans of cupcakes sitting on the counter. I asked the worker what kind he suggested, and boldly (for me) took his advice - chocolate cake with maple frosting. Ry got white cake with raspberry frosting. They looked adorable.

We split them in half to try both...and didn't really like them. The cake was on the dry side, and the frosting was a little crusted from sitting out exposed to the air. The raspberry was too subtle to taste, and the maple was like chewing on a mouthful of brown sugar. Ugh. Sadly, we weren't very happy with these...and they were out of milk, so we had to wash them down with water. On the up side, they do use all organic ingredients...

Then off we went to our next location, Eleni's in Chelsea Market. What a great shop! They had a long clear display case the length of the store with all clear stands and props, so you really saw the cupcakes and cookies (they seem to specialize in very cute but very expensive themed sugar cookies - like $4 each little baseball bats. Cute, but too rich for my pocketbook). Their sign & accent walls were a cheerful pink, and it was all really eye catching. We again asked what the most popular flavors were, and went with two of them - Oreo and peanut butter cup. The Oreo flavor had an Oreo baked inside the chocolate cake as well as on top, toasted marshmallows, and Oreo-cream-flavored frosting. The peanut butter was also chocolate cake with a peanut butter cup baked inside, topped with peanut butter frosting.

They were AMAZING.

The cake was really moist and light, the frostings were flavorful but not pure sugar, and in general, these got a big thumbs up. Eleni's for the win!

On our way out, we saw another bakery that was not on our list just right next door - "Ruthy's" I think? They had the most elaborately decorated cupcakes I'd seen in a long time, including large flowers, Muppets, and teenage mutant ninja turtles. We admired them, and their nearly $5 price tag, and it slowly began to hit us how much sugar we had already consumed. We didn't stop at Ruth's, but continued on to our next stop, Billy's in Chelsea.

...where we realized we were already starting to feel pretty sick from sugar. I was shocked, knowing how awful my daily diet is, I thought for sure I could pack away close to a dozen before folding...but it was not so. Billy's didn't have very many flavors, and was pretty busy, so we just took a look around and decided to skip it. Maybe we were too old for a cupcake day?

Big Booty was next on our list, and the little logo guy looks exactly like the owner, David. David is beautiful. Reason enough to go in, even if you can't put down another cupcake. They also have a lot of other breads & treats, and I actually went for a croissant, hoping it would turn my cupcake appetite around, and Ryan insisted we try a red velvet cupcake. I was actually surprised we hadn't seen red velvet at the previous bakeries, and perhaps even more surprising - I've never tasted red velvet cake. I'm pretty picky, and usually stick to what I know I like, but I was being daring on this trip, so I bit.

Big Booty's red velvet cupcake was really moist with melty cream cheese frosting (it was getting hot by then) and I think had I been a fan of red velvet, I would have really liked it. As it turns out, I'm just not into that flavor, but I'd be willing to try Big Booty again - and the croissant was WONDERFUL, just what I needed at that point.

At this point you'll note that between the two of us we had only consumed 5 cupcakes + 1 croissant. And we were done. We just couldn't eat any more. I was pretty shocked, but didn't want to push it - especially since we were due to sit in the Letterman audience later that night. So, we abandoned our mission early. On the way to and from the Ed Sullivan theatre we passed our final destination (Sprinkles?Something that was a chain, but I can't seem to recall - I was in a sugar coma at that point) but our cupcake consumption couldn't be forced.

This was a super fun idea, and I LOVED seeing all the pretty cupcakes, but were I to do it again, I think I'd have to space it out, one destination per day over the course of a trip. Though it was great that all our walking CLEARLY burned off any calories we consumed during our tastings :)

Oldies but goodies...

Here are a couple of my old standbys prepared for my grandparents-in-laws' 60th wedding anniversary last year. Chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting, piped through a large star tip, topped with jumbo red heart sprinkles, and strawberry cake with vanilla pudding filling, vanilla frosting, and fresh strawberry garnish.

What's Up Doc?

I really love mini cupcakes for grazing-type buffets where people will be grabbing a little of this and a little of that throughout the event. I think people are more willing to try a new flavor of a mini (not as much commitment) and they are less mess since they are practically bite-sized. They are a little more annoying to bake since you have to pour into 2-3 more liners, but they are much easier to frost.

These are mini carrot cake cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and sliced almonds. This is sort of my "go-to" for more adult events, though I'm not a huge fan of carrot cake myself. These were for my civic group a couple years back when I was hostess for the evening.

Betty would be proud

I've helped to plan two Retro Tupperware Parties now, and these jumbo cupcakes are from the second. We served a variety of snacks invented during Tupperware's heyday (the 1950's) and cake mixes were a big one. I wanted these to look really fun and classic, so I mixed a bright pink frosting and swirled it on with a wide star tip, and sprinkled a few rainbow nonpairels on top for good measure.

Halloween Cupcakes #3

This was the 3rd type of cupcake I made for the party last year, strawberry cupcakes with vanilla-dipped strawberry ghosts!

I got the ghost recipe from Simple & Delicious, a magazine my grandma sent me for a while and they occasionally have little recipe books in the magazine area of grocery store check-out lines. I like it because they use a lot of shortcuts and show you how to take mixes & boxes and premade stuff and add a spin.

To make the strawberries:
melt vanilla almond bark or candy melts in a double boiler, add shortening to achieve desired viscosity (thick enough to cover, but thin enough to pool and dip easily).

Wash & pat dry strawberries.

Dip each strawberry individually up to just before the green top. Place on wax paper of tinfoil and be sure there is enough vanilla to "pool" in a ghost tail. Allow to cool at room temperature.

Melt a small amount of chocolate chips or black candy melts in a plastic bag in the microwave - 20 - 30 second intervals, checking in between. Over-heating will melt through the bag. Snip a small corner and pipe ghost faces.

These can't be made to far ahead of time or they'll "bleed" as the strawberry juices ooze out of the coating. Putting them in the fridge seems to really exasperate this and makes the berries "sweat." Should be save to store at room temp for 24 hours.

I iced the cupcakes with a little white frosting and just plopped one of these on each one. Voila!

Halloween Cupcakes #1 & 2

I made several flavors of cupcakes last year, including these I displayed on a two tier spiderweb stand.

The top are chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting which I decorated in what I'll call the "candy corn swirl" pattern. I thought they were bright and Halloween-ish without requiring too much attention to detail, and honestly I had to draw line somewhere or I'd still be working on the food.

The second layer is vanilla frostings on vanilla cupcakes, which honestly I would never make except I have one friend who LOVES them, so I'm making them more and more when I know she'll be in attendance and will gladly scoop up any leftovers. These required a little more attention to detail, but were still really easy - I could have flat iced with white, but I kind of suck at that so I just piped a tight swirl with a wide round tip. Then Iused another large round tip for the iris and pupil, and a smaller round for the "bloodshot" lines. It goes pretty quickly, but has a nice effect. You could easily do multiple eye colors, but I stuck with blue to avoid mixing more colors and save some time.

Stampin' Up Workshop Cupcakes

Mmmm, I could really go for one of these right now...chocolate with vanilla frosting are my personal favorites. Since this was a pre-Valentine's day event I dug out the jumbo red sprinkles, but kept it simple. I have noticed more and more my favored method of decorating cupcakes is not elaborate designs, but a solid frosting piped through a large star tip, and maybe a few sprinkles. I think they look simple and elegant and classic, like an "everycupcake."

Sweet Burger!

I'm in love with these. I don't even remember where I snagged the picture, but how adorable are they? In case you can't tell, they're not really burgers at all - they're mini cupcakes! The "buns" are yellowcake baked in cupcake or mini muffin tins, and all the rest of the pieces are cake or frosting too. How adorable would this be for a BBQ or family picnic?