St. Patrick's Day Cupcakes

Two days later... I know, I know. Tuesday night I made corned beef and cabbage for the St. Pat's celebration. And then I decided that we needed something sweet, too. I made some chocolate cupcakes with a buttercream frosting for dessert. This was a new chocolate cupcake recipe and boy was I pleased with it. The cakes were so moist and delicious, I thought I would melt eating them. Instead, I just gained a few pounds. No big, right? Anyway, here is the recipe.

1/2 cup (50 grams) Dutch-processed cocoa powder
1 cup (240 ml) boiling hot water
1 1/3 cups (175 grams) all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup (200 grams) granulated white sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Lightly butter, or line 16 muffin cups with paper liners.

In a small bowl stir until smooth the boiling hot water and the cocoa powder. Let cool to room temperature.

In another bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

Then in the bowl of your electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating until smooth. Beat in the vanilla extract. Add the flour mixture and beat only until incorporated. Then add the cooled cocoa mixture and stir until smooth.

Fill each muffin cup two-thirds full with batter and bake for about 16-20 minutes or until risen, springy to the touch, and a toothpick inserted into a cupcake comes out clean. Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool. Once the cupcakes have completely cooled, frost with icing.

And here are my friends Lonnie and Reggie enjoying their cupcakes.

First Friday cupcake sale

So First Friday came and went and I'm kind of glad that it was so fast. I got a pretty good response from people who stopped by the booth and I sold roughly half of what I made. I ended up giving A LOT of boxes away, but I didn't mind. Mainly I hope to get people to commission me to make cupcakes for parties, etc. I don't know if I'll be doing this again, but I have to get rid of the 14 pounds of butter I have in the fridge and the 70 cupcake boxes I have left over.

Let me also say that the icing tool I bought from Pampered Chef really helped. It's the Easy Accent Decorator I got from Dayna. If you bake or decorate at all, I highly recommend this tool. I normally use pastry bags, and by the time I ice the last cupcake, my wrists are aching. This thing has a trigger that is easy to press down, making icing come out smooth and even. I'm going to another Pampered Chef party this weekend and I plan on buying some more stuff. Too bad they don't offer something that automatically cleans your kitchen after an all-week baking binge.

Cooling off

In preparation for First Friday, I made 300 cupcakes tonight. Dayna and Will helped out with the baking and recipe alterations. I will be icing these on Thursday and Friday before the event. We only made vanilla and chocolate and I'll be using vanilla and chocolate icing. I'll take more pictures when we decorate them.

Overwhelmed with a new project

I'm starting a new cupcake project. A few events have led my roommate Will and I to think about opening a cupcake shop. To test the waters, we got a booth at our town's First Fridays where we will tempt people into consuming tasty baked morsels. We're going to bake about 25 dozen cupcakes and hope that people buy enough to at least cover our costs. That means I have to sell each 1/2 dozen for about $4. I just don't know if people will do it.

I'm already really overwhelmed at how many baking supplies we will have to buy and how long it will take us to make 300 cupcakes. I'm starting out small so I don't waste a lot of time and money on a project that might just fizzle out. I'm buying the boxes tomorrow and starting baking on Sunday. I'm only going to make chocolate and vanilla cupcakes to start with to keep the cost low.

Last weekend I bought a new mini cupcake tin and an icing tool at Dana's Pampered Chef Party. Click that link to buy some stuff of your own. It's fantastic stuff if you cook or bake at all! Dana is also going to bring over a few things to help me out. I really think I can do this and I know it will be fun to meet a lot of people in the festival-like atmosphere. Most of all, I get to lick the bowl at least 25 times! What calories?! I'll let you all know how it goes if I'm still sane enough to form sentences when it's all over.

We made pupcakes!

I finally tried one of the things I found in the book "Hello Cupcake" I got for my birthday. Dayna picked out some dachshund cupcakes for me to make on her birthday and I tried it out. They are simply vanilla cupcakes made to look like puppies. Lonnie helped me and kept me sane. She is the best baking assistant ever! I used chocolate and caramel frosting, mini M&M's, Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafers, white frosting and chocolate covered peanuts. If I practiced more, I'm sure I would get better. But they did actually taste pretty good, too!

Icing is my foe

Apparently I can't ice cupcakes to save my life. Also, I suck at making butter cream frosting. I kind of hate butter cream frosting in the first place, so I likely won't try again. Cream cheese frosting is where it's at. The cupcakes tasted good, though. I really enjoy the flavor of almond extract in cakes. I made this little cupcake for Lonnie, who is an Alabama fan.



Carson, my boyfriend's son who is 9, helped me with the process. He plays Cooking Mama on the Nintendo DS, so he loves to make things in real life that he's learned to do on the game. First we started with meatballs, but throwing them back in forth in the game is easier than doing it in real life. We ended up with a few dropped meat balls.

Carson separated the egg yolks for me. I was really nervous about letting him do it because I didn't get good at it until college. But I pulled out a practice bowl for him and he did each egg perfectly. No kidding, this 9 year old separated egg yolk for the very first time and didn't get any shell or yolk into the cake batter! I am super impressed with him.

At first I thought he was helping so he could lick the bowls and beaters (this is a trick I always pulled when I was his age), but he just wanted to bake. He measured the ingredients for me and used the hand mixer, too. I was really just supervising. He also wanted to read the recipe to me. It was a great learning experience for him because he learned about measurements and conversions. How many nine year old boys know the difference between the abbreviations of tablespoon and teaspoon?

Now that I'm done bragging on the boy... We had craft night last night and I found my groove on the wine trivet I'm cross stitching. Lonnie and I had headaches all night, but I still had a really fun time with the ladies. Lonnie's snowman looks great so far. The colors in the pattern are very nice and will look great on her mom's wall. Dayna is making a robot bag and it is the cutest thing I've ever seen. If I wasn't on handbag restriction (Corey's orders), I would buy it when she's finished. She cuts out felt into shapes and stitches them onto the bag to form a robot. She attaches gears and buttons for eyes, etc. Really cute idea. She made an owl bag previously and it turned out really cute, too.

I brought my cross stitch to work today so I can work on it at lunch. It's a nice little break from typing all day.

Snowman Christmas Ornament

In order to learn how to cross stitch, I bought an entire kit at Hobby Lobby. Well, two actually. This is the only one I've finished so far. Lonnie's mom loves snow men, so I made her this cute little ornament. I really love how it turned out! Believe it or not, the most difficult thing for me was affixing the piece to the frame. Hot glue works wonders! I am especially proud of the little black french knots for eyes. I'm getting better and better at them. I find them easier to accomplish on cross stitch pieces compared to embroidery. I am now working on the blanket stitch, which is totally evading me. I just need to sit down and get it done.

This weekend is the Alabama vs. Florida game and we're having a gathering at the house. I'm going to bake cupcakes with crimson frosting for Lonnie. I hope this turns out better than the blue frosting I was trying to make for the Notre Dame cupcakes! I've read up a little bit on how to color white frosting, so hopefully that will prove to be useful. I'm going to bake the funfetti cupcakes again because they were like crack to Lonnie. She loved them more than chocolate. Which is a big deal! I'm hoping some other friends come over to eat them so I won't be tempted to eat six in a row.

I'll also be making a butter cream frosting from scratch for the first time. I usually make cream cheese frosting, but I want to work with my new piping bags some more. I hear butter cream is easier to make fluffy and pretty. I'll be posting pictures of my confectionery delights. It will also be practice for my Christmas cupcakes I'm making for our party in December. I have some Christmas tree sprinkles (jimmies) that I can't wait to use. They'll look lovely on some red and white icing.

Cupcakes were a hit and Pilobolus

First of all, my cupcakes did not arrive in Chicago in great condition. The video below of this week's Subway Alumni Show illustrates the messiness and apparent deliciousness of my cupcakes. Thanks for the huge shout out Sprout and Eric!



Last night Corey and I went to the theater at the University of North Alabama to see Pilobolus perform. It was extraordinary to say the least. Look them up on Youtube if you have time. Their movements are so controlled and the choreography was just so different. My mind was totally blown by the final piece. The dancers wore only dancers belts in a few of the performances, and many people got up to leave. I don't understand because even the tickets and posters featured half-naked people in various formations. It's not a big surprise to see a few ass cheeks. But apparently some people found that offensive and left. I wouldn't care, except every time the doors in the back of the theater opened, it distracted everyone in the dark theater. I just found it rude. We even stayed for the Q&A session afterward. I feel so fortunate to have been able to listen to such talented performers discuss their art. The most amazing part is that the majority of the group began dancing in their early to mid twenties and haven't trained all their life for this.

I've started on my first cross stitch project and it's coming along quite nicely. I'll talk about it more later. Tonight the ladies are coming over so hopefully I'll be motivated to get a little more completed. It's chilly here, so I think I'll cook up some soup and snuggle up in my pj's tonight while I craft. I really do enjoy winter.

Inspiration strikes again

I am completely finished embroidering Telisha's apron now! It looks great. I will be posting pictures later when they're uploaded. Lonnie and I got a wild hair this morning and we're finally learning to cross stitch. It started because I thought I would make my friend Jeff a Simpsons themed piece for Christmas. I actually found a pattern that kicks so much ass that I had to get it. It looks pretty involved, so I thought I should get some practice in before the pattern gets here. That's when Lonnie and I headed to Hobby Lobby on our lunch break. I'm going to make a wine trivet for Lonnie. Luckily I don't have to hide it from her. And hopefully it will turn out nicely, even though it'll be my first cross stitch.

In other crafting news, I figured out how to make my own cross stitch patterns in Photoshop. I've made two so far today. One of a mudkip (joke for my roommate) and a Jack Skellington for Lonnie. Lonnie is actually cross stitching a bear right now and it seems to be going well.

And if you were wondering what ever came of my cupcakes, wonder no more. The Subway Alumni received them and ate some. Proof is in the video below!

Epic Cupcake Fail?

I made the cupcakes last night using a new recipe I found online. The guys at The Subway Alumni Show like confetti cupcakes, and I've never made them before. After Corey and I got the ingredients I didn't already have and got started on my experiment. These didn't turn out exactly how I imagined for several reasons. 1. I couldn't get the blue icing dark enough. 2. The cake wasn't as moist as I'm used to. 3. I've never used a piping bag to ice cupcakes. 4. I should have used buttercream frosting instead of cream cheese. But the end result is delicious, no matter how unattractive they may be. I know this because I ate one for breakfast. Diet, what?

I hope they make it to Chicago in one piece. I've packed them quite well using a new air bladder I recycled from an Office Depot shipment. I'll just go ahead now and post the recipe.

Funfetti Cupcakes
1/2 cup milk
3 large egg whites
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp almond extract
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
6 tbsp butter, soft
2 tbsp rainbow sprinkles

Preheat oven to 350F.
Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners.
In a measuring cup, whisk together milk, egg whites and extracts. Set aside
In the bowl of an electric mixer (or a large bowl if you prefer to work by hand), combine flour, sugar, salt and baking powder. Stir to combine. Cut in butter with the paddle attachment at low speed (or cut in by hand), until mixture is coarse and sandy. Add milk mixture and beat at medium speed for 1 1/2 minutes. Scrape sides of bowl and continue beating for 20-30 seconds. Stir in sprinkles.
Divide batter evenly into prepared tin. Bake for for 15 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean.
Remove from pan and cool completely on a wire cooling rack before frosting.
Makes 12.

Trying New Things

This weekend I worked a lot on the apron I'm making for my best pal, Telisha. I am using the same gnome pattern that I used on Kris' purse earlier. I went to Hobby Lobby and picked out some new floss and a floss roller. It was only 99 cents, and thank goodness because it doesn't work at all. It looks a lot like a fishing reel and it rolls the floss onto the bobbin very loosely. I don't like it at all. I think I actually left it at my parents' house, too.

Tonight is craft night at my place, and we'll be watching Forgetting Sarah Marshall while we get crafty. I will hopefully finish up most of the apron.

I ordered a few things on the Internet last week, too. First, I'm addicted to the TV series True Blood, so I ordered the first book in the Sookie Stackhouse series, Dead Until Dark. It was only $3 and I couldn't help myself. Next, I'm making some cupcakes on Wednesday for the guys at the Subway Alumni Show. I bought some icing tools that I've never tried before. Why not get fancy, ya know? The tools were actually very cheap on ebay, too. As a bonus, they're not used, either. Heh... Using used utensils freaks me out. Anyway, I'll get to try those out, along with a new recipe I found for funfetti cupcakes. It looks delicious.

Red Velvet Cupcakes

In my family, a cake isn't a cake unless it is made from scratch. No box cake mixes for us, no ma'am. Cooking has always been a big part of my life and baking an even more so. At family gatherings there would be a huge spread of Southern comfort food and a table devoted to only desserts. That was my favorite table. My Aunt Jane made a killer red velvet cake and I always got an extra large piece to split with my cousin Ashley. Since I haven't gone to family gatherings as frequently as I used to, I kind of forgot my love for red velvet cake. That is until I saw Paula Deen make some delicious looking cupcakes on TV one day. They were red velvet cupcakes and I just had to get the recipe and try them! At the time, my cousin Ashley was about to get married and I was planning her bachelorette party (I was the maid of honor). Since red velvet is her favorite, I chose to try this recipe out on her.

Everyone at the party couldn't get enough of the cupcakes. They were so moist and delicious, they couldn't believe I had actually gone to so much trouble just to make cupcakes. Little did they know that baking is kind of theraputic for me. Not only that, but the satisfaction of everyone complimenting me feels wonderful. Yeah, I'm selfish!

Since the bachelorette party, I have made these cupcakes for birthdays, fund raisers and other occasions. Every single time they turn out perfectly and I always eat more than I should. I like to dress them up with blueberries on Independence Day and sprinkles when kids will be enjoying them. My favorite topping is the suggested strawberry. It adds a wonderful sweetness.

Here is the link to the cupcake recipe on Food Network. I've played around with it, but I haven't written any of my own recipes down. Just try your own and top them however you want to! And if you're running low on time, use some pre-made cream cheese icing. It isn't as good as home made, but if the cake part is perfect, then people rarely notice the store-bought topping.

This is one of the cupcakes I made on Sunday for an event at the local university. I heard they were a big hit! And I realize it's blurry. My beautiful, lovely, amazing Nikon is currently not working so I'm using my little point and shoot Kodak. Hopefully I'll be remedying that soon.