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!!!!