~Fondant~

Fondant is officially my friend. It took me a while to come around but I do like working with fondant. It's messy at times and dries out pretty fast but it can make for some really pretty decorations. Here are a few fondant decorated cupcakes...I realize there is a craft to this and I am slowly getting better. Slowly. :) But I am open to trying anything.

Fondant Hearts in shades of blue and green

Script letters on fondants then painted with edible luster dust

Fondant Hearts

Fondant Script letters

Fondant Paw Prints and Bones with Letter C

and fondant hearts

Fondant hearts layered in different colors

Fondant flowers that come in different sizes and colors

I like the look of layering them too. But no pics yet of that.

Script letters, gift boxes and flower bouquets all of fondant

White and pale pink rose bouquet

Front of flowers

Fondant letters layered and hand painted with luster dust

Side of roses with ribbon all fondant

Front of pink roses

Top of flowers on fondant disk

Fondant Script
all letters painted with edible luster dust on fondant

~Cupcake Open House~

~Vanilla Bean Cupcake Open House~

I held my very first (hopefully not last) open house early this month. It was a great time and I sold lots of cupcakes! That's success in my eyes! I made five featured flavors to give everyone there an idea of what I am able to make as well as decorations on each one. Some of these pictures are not the greatest as the lighting wasn't perfect, but you get the idea. I hope as I host more of these the set up will get better and the more orders I will have. Fingers crossed!

Business Cards and Cupcake Display

Display Table

Strawberry Cupcakes with tinted Vanilla Bean Butter Cream

Red Velvet Cupcakes with Vanilla Bean Cream Cheese Frosting

Topped with black fondant flowers

Vanilla Bean Cupcakes with Chocolate Sour Cream Frosting

Chocolate and Toasted Hazelnut Cupcakes with Salted Caramel Butter Cream

Topped with Cute Pin Wheels!

Key Lime Cupcakes with Citrus Cream Cheese Frosting

~Strawberry Cupcake~

~Strawberry Cupcakes with Chocolate Butter Cream~

How do you capture the sweet taste of fresh strawberries!? I did my very best to not use strawberry extract and just use fresh strawberries. However...these cupcakes were not the delicious "reminiscent of my childhood summers" strawberry cupcakes I had hoped for. Not one bit. They were not really horrible but they didn't taste like anything. Not even vanilla. Needless to say I used them as props for cute pictures, sadly they ended up in the trash. So now I am on a mad hunt for a good strawberry cupcake recipe I can use seeing as the one I made up failed horribly. I'm no longer worried about great, good will do. Here are the photos I took, the only good part of these sad little cakes.

I did a quick search for Strawberry Cupcakes on Google and believe it or not Sprinkles Cupcakes gave Martha Stewart their recipe for strawberry cupcakes...hmm...maybe I can try theirs?

My issue there is that then they are not of my recipe. Well...I'll try try again then. Maybe using strawberry extract isn't so bad?

I topped them with "wild strawberries" I had left over from my very own

wedding cake...you can find them at http://www.wendykromer.com/

I used pink gel food coloring as I thought it would pop against the

dark brown liner and frosting. I love the look of it.

~Red Velvet~

~Red Velvet~

Red velvet is really 2 things...vanilla cake with a whole lotta red food coloring or chocolate cake with a whole lotta red rood coloring (or beets which some people use in place of artificial coloring). I don't love this cupcake for any reason other than aesthetics. Which isn't a really bad reason to love a cupcake, but what's the point if the pretty little thing tastes like some boring old chocolate cupcake? So I researched all the different versions of this cake. Some have buttermilk, some don't. Some use vinegar, some don't. It was a whole lot of different ideas of what makes this "classic" a classic. So I used a little bit of everything and I am actually impressed! The one thing that stayed consistent in each recipe was the cream cheese frosting. So that too stayed the same for my version. I did enjoy reading all the urban legends that came along with googling "red velvet cake". I added some of the pics of this trial. I think they turned out well, not as red as they could be but they tasted good.

They are red...maybe not red red but chocolaty red.

Classic Vanilla Bean Cream Cheese Frosting
Edible glitter from Michael'sPeople seem to think Red Velvet is so fancy pants...

so I made this cupcake a star on it's very own red carpet.

~Coconut Cupcakes~

~Coconut Cupcake~

On a whim I decided to make coconut cupcakes. I was looking through my many cupcake books last night and saw a gorgeous cupcake in Martha Stewart Cupcakes. I have never made coconut cupcakes and I'm not really a fan of coconut itself, but they were sooo pretty. I made my basic vanilla cupcakes but added 3/4 a cup light coconut milk (that I had left over from a Thai style pasta I made the night before) in place of regular milk. I also had shredded coconut from the German Choc. cupcakes I made a while back (I froze it and it was just as good thawed out). They were so light and fluffy but not very coconutty. So I decided to make a marshmallow filling and flavor that with coconut milk. Still not very coconutty. I wanted a light airy frosting as well to pair with the light cupcake, the "7 minute frosting" on Martha's cupcake looked like perfection. So I tried my hand in that....it's deceiving! I figured oh...7 minutes isn't long. Well that's the minimum for whisking it as it cools. Thank the Heavens for my Kitchen Aid mixer!! It was pretty much perfect with this cupcake. Over all not a coconut flavor in any of it, maybe I'd add coconut extract next time. But it was a delicious cupcake and everyone at my office seemed to enjoy it.

One toasted One not
Toasted Coconut...2nd batch as I burned the first to a crisp.
Watch it as it browns fast...
(300 degrees for 5 min. then shake and brown another 5 min. or until done to your liking)

7 minute frosting that takes a lot longer than 7 minutes to make!

cooking down the sugar and water

Coconut Flakes

~Peanut Butter and Chocolate Cupcakes~

Peanut butter butter cream topped chocolate cupcakes with a Reese's peanut butter cup in the middle (per my niece Cassie's request). She also wanted them "dog" themed with green cupcake liners, she even emailed me to make the order "official". Pretty cute! I made paw prints out of fondant using oval and round mini cookie cutters and dog bone mini cookie cutters and imprinted the bones with a "C" for Cassie. The frosting was amazing, however the peanut butter cup sank to the bottom in the oven and slightly burned...other than that they were good. I am not a fan of peanut butter and chocolate at all (odd I know) so I am going off the kid's opinions. I did try the frosting and it was delicious! Just a basic butter cream recipe I made and I added half a cup smooth peanut butter. I think she was happy with her order :)

~Mocha Cupcakes~

Mocha cupcakes sound so decadent...one should think of chocolate, espresso, whipped cream and of course sugary sweet! But making a cupcake taste like that can be tricky...too much espresso and you get a bitter after taste not enough and it's just a chocolate cupcake. So I tried a few batches before getting it right. I went with a whipped vanilla bean butter cream frosting as it's not as sweet as regular butter cream or as heavy, plus when I think of a gourmet coffee drink I think of whipped cream on top. I made fondant hearts and just over lapped them on a round white piece of fondant as my sister Samantha (birthday girl) loves girly colorful stuff. I love the look of the bright clean hearts on the dark brown chocolate cake. When the cupcakes were presented my youngest niece Emily took hers and wiped the fondant and frosting off and threw it in the trash! She just looked at me and said "frosting is gross". ; ) Over all the cupcakes were a hit.