Ole-Talk

Baby Shower Fever | Take 3

After a brief break yesterday to post Sister Sketch I am back to share some more baby shower stuff.  Today is all about cupcakes.

I made a basic vanilla cupcake and for the baby boy ones I did a blueberry marshmallow filling and buttercream frosting.  Oh and I should note here that blueberries make frosting lilac not blue...just saying!

The baby girl cupcakes have a strawberry filling and frosting, and yes strawberries do make things pink! Imagine that!

The cupcake toppers were cut with my Silhouette.  I used a regular cut shape and used the fill tool and line color tool to add color to the shapes and words and then cut them using the print and cut feature.  Attach them to both sides of a lollipop stick and your topper is done.

The cupcakes were a hit and I got the highest compliment from coworkers who thought they were from a bakery and said that they were very professionally done.

Thanks for looking.  Check out take 1 and take 2 to see what else I did.

Chocolate Raspberry Cupcakes

I have been promising my friend Carol that I would make her chocolate raspberry cupcakes and I finally got around to doing them this weekend.  I used the chocolate cake recipe from these S'mores cupcakes, made a raspberry filling with marshmallow fluff, powdered sugar and raspberry puree that I made from fresh raspberries.

The frosting is my standard buttercream with some of the fresh raspberry puree.  I love how moist the cake came out and there is just the right amount of raspberry.

Oh and Carol totally enjoyed them so mission accomplished!

Pink Cheetah Strawberry Cupcakes...

 ...and why you should always follow Vernell's cardinal rule of baking!

It has been a while since I posted about my cupcakes, not because I haven't been baking but because I have not tried anything new the last few times I baked.  However, last week I made these pink cheetah strawberry flavored cupcakes as a special request for one of the students who works for Sheldon.

Here's a peek at how these came together.

I cut the circles from homemade marshmallow fondant that I tinted with pink gel food coloring, then left them to dry for a couple days before adding the pattern.

I found the idea for doing the pattern here.  I diluted some of the pink food coloring with a bit of vodka and painted the shapes with a small paint brush.  Let dry overnight.

The next day I added the black with a food safe marker using the cupcake liner as a guide.

Make strawberry cupcakes (with a true and tried recipe that you know actually works..see below for that story) and frost with strawberry butter cream.

Add the cheetah decorated circles and viola...Pink Cheetah Strawberry Cupcakes.

Now for the why you should always follow Vernell's cardinal rule of baking... NEVER try a new recipe the night before cupcakes are supposed to be delivered.  Chances are that you will end up making two batches of cupcakes.  I decided against my better judgement to try a recipe that I had never made before totally ignoring my tingling spider senses.  Needless to say 10 minutes into the baking I realized that they were not rising. WTF!! 

They tasted really good but really, no way could I give these to someone...well maybe my friends at work?!

So while my second batch of cupcakes baked I had a light bulb moment for these.  I decided to sandwich two together with some strawberry jam, add some frosting and there you have it Vernell's strawberry jam sandwich cupcakes.  Lets just say that my friends were not complaining.

Chocolate Surprise Candy Cane Cupcakes

Chocolate cupcakes with a dark chocolate Hersey's Kiss in the middle.

With peppermint candy cane butter cream frosting.

View from atop!

Ghostly Cupcakes

Happy Halloween to those who celebrate it!  I found another pumpkin pie cupcake recipe to try this week.  This one is definitely more cake like than pie, unlike the ones I shared last week.

Of course I had to turn them into something fitting for the day so made these ghosts by adding mini chocolate chips to the frosting.

You can find the recipe I used here.  I only used the recipe for the cupcakes (with a few tweeks) and made my own version of a filling and frosting.  I call these pumpkin cupcakes with a brown sugar, maple frosting.

RIP Pumpkin Pie Cupcakes

With Halloween just around the corner here in the US I made these fun pumpkin pie cupcakes for our annual Halloween get together at our friend Monica's.

These are more pie like than cake but I love how they came out and they taste awesome.  The  tombstones are a mix of ideas that I found from doing a google search for halloween cupcake decorating ideas.

Vanilla Cupcakes

Went back to my roots and made some simple but oh so delicious vanilla cupcakes.

I did add a bit of cinnamon to the frosting and also a small amount of left over tequila frosting I was saving just to add a twist to the plain vanilla.

I also tried out one of my new extra large icing tips.  Took me a few tries to get the hang of them but I absolutely love how they frost.

Thanks for stopping by!

Hostess Inspired Cupcakes

When I saw these on Pinterest I just knew I had to make them.

The funny story is that I just automatically took eggs and butter out to bring to room temperature and after I had the cupcakes in the oven I realized that my eggs and butter were still on the counter.  I had a WTF moment and then realized that these are vegan cupcakes LOL!!  I did use a small amount of butter for the filling and the frosting but you can substitute the butter (and the milk) with non dairy products.

I brought some into work today and Sheldon took some to his office as well and they were a huge hit at both places.  So I guess you really don't need eggs and dairy to make an awesome cupcake.

You can find the recipe I based mine on here and it yielded me 36 cupcakes.

Ladybug Cupcakes

Tried my hand again at themed cupcakes, this time ladybugs for another one year old party.

I made the ladybugs from homemade marshmallow fondant that I tinted red and added the black using edible color markers.  The eyes are white fondant with the edible marker making the black pupils.

Photos by Sheldon Straker | PHOTOGRAPHY

My inspiration cupcakes can be seen here.  What did you make this weekend?

Strawberry Rhubarb Cupcakes

  
These cupcakes were inspired by these that I found here on Elise's blog.  I used the easy cupcake recipe to make my vanilla cupcakes and instead of using raspberries I remembered that I had this strawberry rhubarb jam in my fridge so decided to go the strawberry route instead. 

For the filling I combined marshmallow fluff with the jam in my mixer and added a little icing sugar to give it a bit more body.

I also wanted the frosting to have a pink tinge to it but did not want to use food coloring so I added some of the jam to the marshmallow butter cream frosting that I usually make and it came out beautifully.

Garnish with some fresh strawberry slices and enjoy!