Wedding Season

I'm giving myself a pat on the back. Seriously.

Not only did I take pictures of the cupcakes I made for the wedding today, but here I am writing about it just a matter of hours after completion! In fact, the guests at the wedding are probably just starting to dig into the little guys.

Side view of the cupcake display

The bride and groom were SUPER laid back, which was fantastic for me. I basically had creative reign over the display and decorations and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

The flavor menu is as follows:

- Vanilla Cake with Lavender Frosting and Lavender Garnish

- Coffee Cake with Mocha Frosting and Chocolate Covered Espresso Bean

- Spice Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting and a Cinnamon Dusting

The lavender cupcake is the bride's favorite from one of the local cupcake shops so I tried to replicate that for her. Of course, this meant I had to buy a few for research purposes. :)

The groom's favorite type of cake is spice cake. For this one, I hit up my trusty Martha Stewart's Cupcake recipe book. She hasn't let me down thus far! The recipe is called "Mrs. Kostyra's Spice Cupcakes" and would be a fabulous choice for the quickly approaching autumn.

Speaking of which...I'm not impressed. Dear Summer, could you please stop abandoning me for nine months? Thank you so much. P.S. I love you. (by the way, a great vacation read if you're looking for one)

But I digress...

My roommate came home from a baseball game toward the end of my baking marathon last night and said the house smelled like Christmas. I take that as a compliment...everyone loves Christmas right?

The coffee cupcakes. Well, those were a different matter all together.

I don't drink coffee very often and when I do I prefer to mask the actual coffee flavor with mass amounts of sugar, milk, and whatever other fancy additives Starbucks has to offer. With that in mind, I had trouble figuring out what roast to use for the cupcakes. I'm pretty sure I ended up selecting a mild one, which resulted in the cupcakes tasting more like pancakes than coffee.

Hmmm....

Literally. Pancakes. The kitchen smelled like pancakes. They tasted like pancakes. The batter looked like pancake batter.

"Hi, excuse me Mr. Groom and Miss Bride, instead of coffee cupcakes I decided to shake things up a little bit and make PANCAKE flavored cupcakes!"

Luckily after frosting the little guys with a generous helping of mocha frosting they ended up tasting like coffee. Thank goodness. The actually ended up being my favorite! But shhhh...don't tell the other cupcakes...

See? Aren't they adorable?

The Spice Cupcakes!

I didn't take any close up shots of the lavender cupcakes. They were sort of like the red headed step child of the group. Also, the lighting in the venue was at an awkward point so I didn't manage to get a really solid photo of the whole setup. Here's one to give you an idea:



Alright. I officially need a nap. I've been up since six making and sampling frosting and my sugar high is long gone.

Have a wonderful day!

Old School

It's officially been 11 days since my birthday.

I guess that means it's coming to the point where it's no longer acceptable to drag out my celebrations. However, I will proudly say that this year I managed to make my birthday into a week-long present fest.

I am now the proud owner of this bad boy:

My precious

E really pulled through with this one. Isn't it beautiful?? I've already used it a few times and I can't understand how I ever baked without it! Please don't be too jealous.

In other news...

As usual I'm pretty terrible at taking pictures when I bake and so most of the projects I work on are not documented. Oops...

But, for your enjoyment/amusement, I've decided to share one of my early cupcake decorating attempts. I'd say it's not too bad for using a zip lock bag to pipe the designs! These babies were for the Superbowl.

Shabby chic. Or something...

I'm baking cupcakes for a wedding this weekend and have made it a resolution to take pictures this time. This may or may not pan out. Stay tuned...

MSC: Chocolate Salted-Caramel Cupcakes

Guess who's back???

Just guess. Seriously. Do it.

Ok, fine...

It's me!

I thought maybe I should write in my little blog again since it is a special occasion. Well two actually. The first being the very first Martha Stewart Cupcake Club entry! That's right. I finally joined a blog community and an awesome one at that (naturally). Basically the sitch is we'll be baking a recipe from Martha Stewart Cupcakes on the 15th of each month. Betty from Eat My Cupcake is the genius behind this fabulous group so make sure to pay her blog a visit!

The second special occasion is my birthday! August 15th. My birthday. The day of my birth. Birth-Day. Feliz Cumpleanos. Ok you get the idea.

You can imagine my joy when Martha's Chocolate Salted-Caramel Cupcakes were chosen for MSC this month since the due date happened to fall on my birthday. Thus, these little babies are doubling as my birthday cake this year!

And what do ya know? I happen to have a little crush on salted caramel at the moment.

P.S. Please don't be too jealous of the super high quality pictures...*cough cough*

Martha has done it again. Another genius creation. These cupcakes are delicious! The original recipe actually called for making minis but I opted for the big boys. It's my birthday. Go big or go home.

I halved the recipe and ended up with exactly 12 regular sized cupcakes. I also halved the frosting and caramel filling and had the perfect amount! I love the combination of salty and sweet. I will say that these are pretty rich so it's best to embark on this eating adventure with the buddy system in full effect.

What's that you say? You'd like to see some more photos? Okay, okay...

Mmmm.....look at that shine.


Check out the stylish zebra cupcake liners. Trendy cupcakes.


Like ducks in a row

Now that we have all that cupcake biz-nass out of the way, I'd like to address something very important. Piping frosting. How on earth does Martha stay so clean while doing so? She's out of this world. Unreal. I mean, just look at her:

It's unnerving. Look how clean her work area is. If I were Martha, this is how my book cover photo would look:

Yes. Those brown spots are representative of frosting. And yes, I do manage to get frosting everywhere. I like to pretend I'm saving some for later...

And with that said. It's time for me to go to bed! Happy Birthday to me and happy baking to you!