Napoleon Cupcakes, oh wait, I mean Neapolitan Cupcakes

I was pondering what kind of cupcakes I should make for my dessert loving friend's birthday celebration. I wanted to make something that I hadn't made before, and before I knew it, I came up with Neapolitan cupcakes. It was a little bit of a challenge to decide how to incorporate strawberry, chocolate, and vanilla all into one cupcake. After much deep thought, I settled on chocolate and vanilla cake, with strawberry swiss meringue frosting. I added some ghiradelli chocolate chips for extra flavor and frosting accents. I thought they were very delicious.


At one point while I was making the cupcakes, I remembered that I use to ask for Napoleon ice cream, and I would always get funny looks, but no one corrected me. I'm not sure when I finally figured out that the proper term was Neapolitan. Thank goodness I figured it out for these cupcakes!

A Birthday Wish

My mom's birthday was this past weekend. She made a special request for a dessert that she had loved as a child. She described a chocolate cake with a cream filling, it had a marshmallow type frosting, and then the whole thing was covered in a chocolate shell. I attempted to recreate this childhood dessert in the form of a cupcake. I first researched different types of filling and settled on trying a Chantilly cream. Chantilly cream sounds like it might be a difficult thing to make, after all it is French, but it was actually really easy. Turns out that is really just whipped cream, with sugar and vanilla, it was definitely good. I wanted to use a good frosting, not just marshmallow cream for the frosting. After a little bit of looking, I remembered that my Hello, Cupcake book had a 7 minute frosting, that has a marshmallow type texture/flavor. So we were set. I made the chocolate cupcakes, filled them with Chantilly cream, and then made the 7 minute frosting, which actually was more like a 10 minute frosting; and then the fun began.

I had decided to use some enrobbing chocolate to cover the cupcakes, but the enrobbing chocolate was old, and let's just say that once we got it melted, I'm not sure it ever was chocolate. So then we decided to try some magic shell that people put on ice cream. It kind of worked, it worked well for covering the frosting, but it became apparent that it wasn't going to cover all of the cupcakes. So then we melted some chocolate almond bark and dipped the base of the cupcakes in that. It was a very long messy process, and I will admit that I did have the thought "is all this work, worth it?"
I got the answer to my question, with the first bite, and yes, it was totally worth all the work and mess for this very tasty cupcake. I'm not sure if they were an accurate representation of my mom's favorite childhood dessert, but I think everyone enjoyed it. I know I did, in fact, I wish I had one right now...maybe when I fall asleep, I will get to eat one in my dreams.

Last tastes of summer

I have a hard time welcoming the cool days of fall and saying good-bye to the hot days of summer. So in the memory of summer, I made some key lime cupcakes. It brought me great satisfaction grating the limes, and squeezing them for every last drop of lime juice. I had intended to put lime curd in the centers, and decided to cheat and buy pre-made lime curd. Turns out, pre-made lime curd is NASTY. Because I want this to be an appetizing blog, I won't go into how disgusting it was. Needless to say, I didn't put any lime curd into the centers of the lime cupcakes. While the cupcakes were baking, I made swiss meringue buttercream frosting. That stuff is amazing, it is very light, not overly sweet, and can be eaten by the spoonfuls (yes, I ate the frosting in spoonfuls). After the cupcakes cooled, I frosted them, added lime peel, and topped the cupcakes off with a graham cracker. Such a cruel world, that I won't be able to enjoy the hot summers and delicious summer foods for quite some time.

That's A Lot of Cupcakes

"That's a lot of cupcakes," and "that's a lot of work," were common responses when hearing that I would make two hundred cupcakes, for a friend's wedding. My friend's wedding was anything but traditional, it was a rock concert wedding, with a band, groupies, and an internet licensed minister or should I say ministeress. With keeping with the theme of the wedding, I wanted my cupcakes to be unique too, so I made eleven different flavors. We had:

1. lemon cupcakes with lemon frosting
2. strawberry cupcakes with strawberry frosting
3. cherry cupcakes with limeade frosting
4. spice cupcakes with cream cheese frosting
5. chocolate cupcakes with raspberry frosting
6. Italian Creme cupcakes with cream cheese frosting
7. margarita cupcakes with lemon-lime frosting
8. chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting
9. orange cupcakes with orange frosting
10. vanilla cupcakes with vanilla frosting
11. chocolate cupcakes with chocolate cream cheese frosting

I think I went through at least 12 bags of powdered sugar, 8 boxes of unsalted butter, and half a gallon of milk, just for the frosting! Overall I had so much fun making the cupcakes, the wedding cake was a little bit more stressful, but I would happily do it all over again. Thanks Jenn and Cody for letting me provide your wedding with Katie-Cakes. Thanks also to my amazing husband and wonderful friends for helping transport the baked goodies. Couldn't have done it without you!

Some cupcake fun

My dessert loving friend and I decided to collaborate on some cupcake masterpieces. The result? Pure genius, combined with heaven, equals amazing. We made two different kinds. Both cupcakes were chocolate cake, but we cut out the centers of the cupcakes and put raspberry ganache in one and mint ganache in the other.
Then we put raspberry chocolate frosting and mint chocolate frosting on the respective cupcakes. Our ganache didn't really have time to set up, so when we cut into the cupcakes it was like a molten lava cake.
The mint cupcakes were really good, but the raspberry cupcakes were amazing. I wish I had one right now... and then we took silly pictures with our cupcakes.
I think we had a little too much sugar at that point. I'm looking forward to our next collaborate effort, especially eating it. In fact I'll probably dream of it tonight.

Happy Birthday to...meeeee!

I'm a little late in posting this. But they always say, better late than never... My birthday wish came true, my dessert loving friend made me some strawberry cupcakes with strawberry frosting, and topped the cupcakes off with delicious sprinkles. Some people don't get sprinkles. But they really are a necessity. They add so much delightful texture. I will admit that I have been known to eat just a spoonful of sprinkles...so good. Of course it has to be the right kind of sprinkles, because if they are really crunchy, then it totally ruins it. Enough about sprinkles right now, the cupcakes were absolutely delicious, and this picture is of the very last one. Yep, it was good till the last bite. Dessert loving friend-please send more :)

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice

With the coming of fall, comes the great taste of pumpkin and spices like cinnamon and nutmeg. Probably the two greatest spices ever made. My mom especially has a soft spot for those flavors and she made a special request for some spice cakes, and I decided to spice up the cupcakes with some pumpkin puree. I made the cupcakes in a foreign kitchen, meaning not my kitchen. I had to use a hand held mixer and didn't have my double ovens for baking. But I did have my dessert loving niece as my cupcake helper. So we made a spice cake, added pumpkin puree and then topped them with cream cheese frosting. My niece added the cinnamon sugar topping, she is about cute as a cupcake and just as sweet!

Cupcakes were harmed in the transportation...

I was commissioned by my coworkers to make some cupcakes for a wedding shower. It is a big deal for my coworkers to pay for a non-grocery store bakery item, I felt some serious pressure to deliver an above quality product. So I made some delicious cupcakes, vanilla-white chocolate chip, and chocolate chocolate chip cupcakes. They turned out so cute. As my fellow cake decorators know, delivering bakery products is one of the most stressful events, but cupcakes should be easy...
Well I got to work, and realized that some of the cupcakes had not stayed in their carrier, I was mortified to show my coworker the dozen cupcakes that had been ruined due to my carelessness. She was very nice and didn't seem the least bit bothered by it, she said, "Don't worry about it, we're just going to eat them." I was relieved that she was very nice about it, but I still felt awful. I will not be using that cupcake carrier again.

Now accepting cupcakes

Sunday is my birthday! As a result I am now accepting all donations, gifts, contributions etc. in the form of cupcakes. You may hand deliver them to me, put them in the mail, or surpise me with them, whichever works best for you. Of course, I can't post my address on my blog, my husband would FREAK OUT, so you'll have to be sneaky if you don't know my address. Just in case you are wondering what kind I want or don't want, reading over previous blogs will help. But just to be clear, I don't want any vegetables in my cupcakes, and I highly recommend the cupcakes have lots of sprinkles! Thanks so much for my birthday cupcakes!!!!

Not dreaming of these cupcakes

A few months ago I decided to make some delicious blueberry cupcakes, I was even going to make them with real blueberries. I'm not really a fan of real blueberries, something about the texture makes them unappealing; I'm more of a fan of the fake, completely artificial "blueberries " that come in the 44 cent box of Jiffy Blueberry muffins. Having never made anything with real blueberries I decided to puree them and add them to the cake mix. Pureed blueberries do not look at all appetizing. Maybe our blender isn't the best, but there were lots of skins and it was an unattractive blue/brownish liquid, mush sort of stuff. Another great decision was that I wanted to make sure I had a nice blueberry flavor so I decided to add some blueberry jello as well, except I couldn't find plain blueberry jello, I could only find berry jello. The box had a picture of two blueberries and one raspberry, so it was as close to blueberry as I was going to get. The result of the experiment...not good. I didn't even make the frosting for the cupcakes, they weren't horrible, but they weren't the cupcakes I had been dreaming of. They tasted like candy, and while that might seem like a good thing for some people, these weren't the kind of candy you want to eat more than one piece. I guess everyone has to have the unsuccessful experiment once and awhile.

Cherry Limeade Cupcakes

I made these awhile ago, but haven't really had time to post them. I must say that they have been very well received. They were very simple to make too! Of course the pictures don't do them justice. The cake was cherry flavored and then I added lime buttercream frosting.

So many cupcakes to choose from...

I'm so far behind in my cupcake posting. During the month of June, I went to two cupcakes stores and made over 200 cupcakes and a wedding cake during that time. So where to start? I think that tonight I will blog about the cupcake bakery visits. On a roadtrip that was taken mid-Junish, we stopped in St. Louis at a cute little cupcake store called the Cupcakery.
It was a smaller store, nicely decorated, with very nice people working the counter. The store had only been open a few months, but they seemed to be doing very well. They had a basic selection, with a weekly selection to chose from. We chose six cupcakes to take on our travels. We got 2 Lemon Cupcakes, A Mocha Cupcake, a Peanut Butter Chocolate Cupcake, a Vanilla Cupcake, and, a Vanilla Cupcake with Chocolate Frosting.

The Cupcakes were HUGE, but not overwhelming with frosting, so that was nice. The Lemon Cupcakes were really good, but my favorite was the Vanilla Cupcake with Chocolate Frosting. It was quite tasty. The frosting, had a great chocolate flavor, but with still nice and sweet.
The next place we went to was Gigi's in Nashville. This place had a huge selection of cupcakes, and the staff was very helpful, I ended up getting 7 cupcakes, and I think I ate a good portion of them...by myself. I got a Red Velvet, Orange Dream, Pink Lemonade, Lemon, a Chocolate Malt Cupcake, Chocolate with Vanilla Frosting, and Vanilla with PINK frosting. These cupcakes were very tasty, but I would have to say, that there was WAY TOO much frosting on them. I know this is blasphemy to some, but it just didn't have the right ratio of cake to frosting. Seriously, how can someone eat the whole thing? I can think of a few people who would like to try...


If I had to pick a favorite though, it probably would be the chocolate malt cupcake. The cake had a nice light chocolate cake with a cinnamon aftertaste, and then a nice chocolate frosting with chocolate malt balls sprinkled on the sides. YUM.
Overall, I'd say our cupcake shop visits were a huge success. I think that I was on a constant sugar high the entire length of our trip though!

An interview

Well, I'm bored at work, and Cupcakes Take the Cake hasn't called me yet to interview me about my love for cupcakes. I'm pretty disappointed about this, but decided, I can at least interview myself, and then when they do finally call me, I can say, "see my blog, I did that two years ago."

1. Why did you start your blog and how did you get interested in cupcakes?
Well I have some extra time at work that allows me to surf the internet. I kept coming across these amazing cupcake blogs and thought it would be so much fun to be a part of the cupcake community. So I started a blog, and while, I don't think I'm a part of any cupcake communities, yet, I'm hoping that it just takes time. As far as being interested in cupcakes, well, ask anyone that knows me well, and I'm a dessert fanatic. Who cares what's for supper, what's for dessert? But sometime this past February I wanted to do something nice for my friends and family so I made a bunch of cupcakes and delivered them to their doorsteps. After that I realized everyone loves cupcakes and they are so easy to make and decorate, and they taste amazing.

2. Which are your favorite OKC cupcakes that you've tried so far?
Unfortunately, I live in Oklahoma City and we don't have any cupcake bakeries. So I'm going to be biased and say that I have the best cupcakes in OKC.

3. How do you think the OKC cupcake scene compares to cities like New York or LA? Is there anything that's missing from the OKC bakeries you'd like to see them offer?
Since we don't have a cupcake scene in OKC, it doesn't compare at all to New York or LA. I can't imagine what it must be like to live in a town, with so many cupcake options. I really think that OKC could support a couple of cupcake bakeries. I like to dream that in a few years, I'll be one of those bakeries.

4. What do you think makes for the perfect cupcake?
Excellent question. I think cupcakes are a balance between frosting and cake. Some places that I've been put way too much frosting on the cake part (this could be blasphemy to some people), but when the frosting is piled so high that there is more frosting than cupcake, I just feel overwhelmed by it all. So a nice size, moist cupcake, with a nice helping of gooey sugary frosting is awesome. I'll take one now if you have one...

5. How often do you eat cupcakes?
Hmmm, not really sure I should answer this one. Well I probably bake cupcakes once a week...seriously can't do it, none of your business, how many times I eat cupcakes in a week.

6. What's the best thing about making cupcakes?
Cupcakes have endless flavor combinations, so many different ways to decorate them, that I never feel bored, like I'm making the same cake over and over again. It's a different cake every time.

7. What's your favorite type of cupcake?
I love strawberry cupcakes with strawberry frosting. So good. But I love cupcakes that are colorful, have sprinkles, and not just vanilla or chocolate, but something that makes it unique. Granted, not too unique, because then my 5 year old taste buds kick in, and say "no thank you," see previous posts concerning those cupcakes.

8. How do cupcakes compare/contrast to other baked goods for you?
That is a hard question. I love cupcakes a lot, but I also love chocolate chip cookies, ice cream, truffles etc. But as far as making those items, my cookies never turn out right, I've never made ice cream, and I'm not a huge fan of tempering chocolate, so cupcakes WIN!

9. Is there any innovation you'd like to see made to the cupcake that would improve it for you?
I can't think of anything right now, except I would like a Kitchen Aid Mixer, my Sun Beam Mixer is great, but doesn't have quite the power that the Kitchen Aid is known for. But please don't buy me one, those things are heavy, and I'm afraid you wouldn't get the right color.

10. Do you bake your own cupcakes? Or (even better) have someone who bakes them for you?
I love baking and decorating my own cupcakes, and I'm not sure that I would want someone to consistently bake the cupcakes for me. But I will admit that it is my secret desire to have someone provide a cake/cupcakes, not from the frozen bakery section, that is been beautifully decorated and taste amazing. Now don't get me wrong, I've been grateful and very happy with all desserts that have been provided for me, but I've made quite a few cakes/cupcakes for other people and would love to know how it feels to be on the receiving end of it.

11. What's your first cupcake-related memory?
You know, I can't really think of any childhood cupcake memories. I do remember my first cake memory though. For my 5th birthday, my parents got me an Annie cake. It had Annie and Sandy (her dog) airbrushed on it, and I don't remember how it tasted, but I remember I thought it looked amazing.

12. What's the most fun you've ever had with a cupcake?
That's a tough question. I really enjoyed discovering the cupcake bakery, Sprinkles, with some of my dessert loving friends. Making the owl cupcakes with my Thursday night friends was a lot of fun too. Making the cupcakes for my friends and delivering them to their houses, and hearing people's reaction to finding cupcakes on their doorstep was probably the best. I really felt like I was making the world a better place one cupcake at a time :)

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

I made these cupcakes awhile ago, but am just now getting a chance to add them. I remember that when I told my husband I was going to make cupcakes, he said "why are you doing that, the kitchen is clean, you'll just mess it up." He is so ungrateful sometimes :) He must not have been too upset about it because he came into the kitchen several times asking when he would be able to have one.
Onto the cupcakes, I had originally intended to use a peanut butter frosting and dip them in Mercken's chocolate and create kind of a Reese's peanut butter cup, but the frosting was too thick and it just wouldn't spread. But I'm glad that didn't work, otherwise it just would have been way too rich. So I made a peanut butter cake, added chocolate chips to the batter and baked it. Once they had cooled I dipped them in the chocolate and let the chocolate harden. Then I used my secret peanut butter candy recipe (it isn't really a secret, I would tell you if you asked me) and made sort of a Hershey's kiss design on the top. They turned out very tasty and I would definitely make/eat them again. Once again, my picture is blurry...but now that I remember, my husband took the photo, so we will blame him.

That is not a cupcake!

A new addition to the nasty cupcake list/ideas has been found:


What is this colorful new creation you ask? It is a meatloaf "cupcake", with mashed potato "frosting", and green pepper "sprinkles." I'll be honest, I'm not a big meatloaf fan, so of course I'm even less thrilled with this creation, but when the frosting is dyed red to make it appear even more like a dessert, it just grosses me out. Once again, don't call it a dessert name if it isn't a dessert.

Cupcake Night

My friends and I decided that we should make some cupcakes from the amazing book, Hello Cupcake. The book has some amazing ideas of how to decorate cupcakes. The book uses lots of candy and everyday items to make cupcakes look like dogs, owls, cats, popcorn etc. We decided to start off with an easy cupcake idea, and we made the owls. The decorating part was a little labor intensive due to the massive amounts of oreos needed. There was some doubt as to how they would turn out, but overall I think they turned out very nicely. Plus they tasted great too!

Hey, Cupcake!

So this past weekend I was in Austin visiting some friends, and one of the events that I really wanted to do was...of course go to different cupcake places and taste the competition. I thought that I had done all of my research, but apparently I missed a very important part. While Austin does have lots of places to get cupcakes, most of the cupcakes come from people's homes. Except Hey, Cupcake! This place is actually an airstream trailer and someone delivers massive amounts of cupcakes to the trailer. So your car pulls up to this trailer with a cute pink cupcake sitting on top of the trailer. There is a slow moving line of about 30 people waiting to get their bites of heaven. Are people mad that they are having to wait 30 minutes, no, people are patiently waiting their turn; visiting with fellow cupcake lovers like themselves. Ok, I wanted to push a few people out of the way, I heard a few people say,"it's just a cupcake." Mainly those people were in my group and I tried to teach them the error of their ways, but I'm not sure how successful I was. So we finally get our chance to order. I got a Red Velvet, Vanilla Dream, Double Dose, The Standard and a Snowcap. I let my husband eat the Double Dose (chocolate cake chocolate icing) and our new friend Alissa eat Snowcap (chocolate cake, white icing) Everyone seemed to really enjoy the cupcake experience, Mitch (my husband) wasn't too impressed with the actual cupcake but loved their business model. Daniel and Janella both raved about how great their cupcakes were. Alissa and Ryan (Austin natives) said they would be back for more delicious cupcakes. My favorite cupcake was the Red Velvet cupcake(not pictured because I ate it), I thought it needed a little bit more flavor, but the cream cheese frosting was delicious and made me want another one. The Vanilla Dream wasn't quite what I was dreaming of. However, I loved that they used pink frosting. It is a scientific FACT that pink frosting is 66% more attractive than plain white frosting to girls age 2-99. Anyways, the cake lacked vanilla flavor, and it was very crummy, and while the icing was pink and had sprinkles it just wasn't the perfect cupcake. In all fairness, I do think that Hey, Cupcake is doing a great job making the world a better place, one cupcake at a time. After all they did sell 1500 cupcakes in one day.

Bad Ideas

I know that I mentioned that my taste buds are equivalent to a 5 year old's taste buds, but I've found some cupcakes that I genuinely think are bad ideas. The first one I came across seems kind of tame now, but I found a place that makes Tomato Soup cupcakes. Gross. They add walnuts and raisins to the cupcakes and use cream cheese frosting. Thoughts on this?
Another bad idea, a broccoli and cheese cupcake. Now if they took out the broccoli and called it a cheese biscuit, it might be different, but don't suggest this could be a dessert, because it isn't. They didn't use a frosting, really what kind of frosting could you use?

The next cupcake I saw had a musk flavored buttercream. Need I say more? I was really hoping that it wasn't referring to the scent of some animals. The description said it tasted just like a musk flavored lolly. Not helpful. I googled it, and apparently musk is a really popular Australian flavor that is perfume flavored. I once tasted my mom's perfume and I can honestly say that I wouldn't want frosting that tasted like that.

Cakespy, a normally really great website, had the nasty idea of using vegetables to make cupcakes. I understand that lots of people enjoy carrot cake, but they took this a little too far. They made cupcakes, with Snap Peas (gross), Radishes (nasty), Parsnips (ick), but by far the most nauseous cupcake was BRUSSELSPROUTS. And then they tried to make it look cute...

I really hope the cupcake mafia doesn't raid my house for this posting...

Mint Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

I've seen lots of different varieties of mint and chocolate cupcakes. Most of them involve a chocolate cupcake with either mint buttercream or chocolate mint ganache. I have also seen a couple cupcakes that are mint cake with lavender buttercream. I'm not sure how I feel about lavender flavored buttercream, but sometimes I think my taste buds never developed past age 5, so lavender buttercream might be good... In all my searches I haven't seen any mint cupcakes with chocolate chips in it, so I did some thinking, what if I made a mint cupcake, with chocolate chips mixed in it? And that's what I did, the whole time I was thinking, "I hope this tastes as good as mint chocolate chip ice cream." I made chocolate buttercream frosting and added peppermint extract, and then topped the cupcakes off with a junior mint. The overall result? They were really good, the peppermint had a nice cooling taste to it, plus they were green! My husband said they were probably his favorite of my creations. And that is saying a lot, since he says that he isn't really a dessert person. But I don't really believe him. What I really learned from this experience, is that, I'm not really so good at taking pictures. How do people do that?

Red Velvet Cupcake

Last Saturday night I went to Coco Flow for dessert. Coco Flow is a wonderful little chocolate cafe with delightful hand made chocolate creations. In their display case they had Red Velvet cupcakes for purchase of 4 dollars. I thought this was a little pricey compared to lots of the other cupcakes prices I've seen at speciality cupcake stores. But I splurged and bought the cupcake. Oh what a disappointment that little cupcake was. The cake was dry and lacked the silky flavor that Red Velvet is known for. The frosting was nice though, it had a light cream cheese flavor. Despite my disappointment, I did eat the whole thing.

What does Grandma Betty taste like?

I've been looking at different cupcake bakery websites and have developed some pet peeves concerning cupcake names. All of which I will try to avoid for my cupcakes.
1. Naming your cupcake after a person. I saw a cupcake named Grandma Betty. Now, no offense to Grandma Betty, but how am I suppose to know what this cupcake tastes like? It isn't very descriptive, in fact it might be a form of cannibalism. Who knows? In case you were wondering what Grandma Betty tastes like, she is a brown sugar cake with toffee bits, topped with caramel buttercream, mini chocolate chips, with extra toffee bits. She sounds delicious, I guess I would eat Grandma Betty.
2. Naming your cupcake after a town/state etc. Why would you name your cupcake Michigan? This is even less descriptive than Grandma Betty. When I think of a yummy lemon cupcake with lemon buttercream icing, the state of Michigan does not come to mind. I think of an industrial city where it is way too cold, and smog clogs your lungs. And no one wants to eat that...
3. Naming your banana/chocolate/marshmallow cupcake something to do with Elvis. I'm not sure this fact can be verified, but I'm pretty sure Elvis was not the first person to enjoy this combination. It just seems a little limiting.

Cupcake Pops

I saw this creation on Bakerella's blog and thought they were so cute. She even got to be on Martha Stewart's show for them. I'm not sure I want to be on the Martha Stewart show, but it must mean you're good if you're on her show. Anyways, I decided that I needed to make them. Since I had never made them before, I decided to follow her recommendations. I used Red Velvet cake with cream cheese as the cake part, bought some Mercken's chocolates, and decorated them with sprinkles and M&M's. It definitely is a learning process. I think the most important step was to refrigerate them in between steps. Overall I was very happy with them, and more importantly, they tasted really good. In fact, I'm going to get another one...

Decisions!

While I would love to have my first post be about cupcakes, or decorating cakes, it won't be. I've never really had a blog before, and therefore never designed a blog. There are so many options and choices, I find it a little overwhelming! Do I make it cute or sophisticated? How do I post pictures? Are there any legal things I should know? Will anybody actually read this or care? All I know is that I've looked at a lot of cupcake/cake blogs, and decided it would be lots of fun and a great excuse to make some cupcakes!