~Pirate Cupcakes for Father's Day~

Happy Father's day to all you proud dads!

These cupcakes were made for a friend on a holiday that is bitter sweet for her. Her dad passed away last year and this will be her first father's day without him. She order these for her husband's dad for his Father's Day treat. So...on a lighter note...she requested Pirate theme cupcakes and although I've only done a few themed orders I was more than happy to give it a go...I did not make the sugar skulls...again I am not that good at decorations yet so I special ordered these on Etsy.com. They are chocolate cupcakes with chocolate butter cream frosting. I did a few with gold sugar crystals as they kinda looked like little gold bars...which might I add Pirates really love! Though I've never met a pirate, I'm gonna assume I right. Anyways, just my basic choc. cupcake recipe and my favorite choc. butter cream. Very rich...again...like a pirate would want to be. ;)

~Baby Shower Cupcakes~

I is for Izabella

These darling little cakes were made for my sister Emily's friend Jen. She is having a baby girl to be named Izabella (not sure on the spelling). I did not make the fondant tops, I ordered them on Etsy.com because the larger size of the order, I was not confident enough to do my own...but now that I've seen them I think I could make them...not as well but practice makes perfect! They are all chocolate cupcakes with either chocolate or vanilla bean butter cream frosting. I love the look of the over all cupcake and maybe soon I can display some of my own fondant work.

Chocolate butter cream piled high on a Chocolate cupcake

working on getting them all ready to go.... Baby Giraffe for Baby Izabella

~Cherry & Chocolate...take-two!~

~ A Marriage of Chocolate & Cherries ~

So...I liked the last recipe for these sweet cupcakes...but I wanted to try it again with just a few tweaks. I really like this version of the recipe better. Plus the frosting (vanilla cream cheese) and one fresh Bing Cherry on top kinda made the cupcake complete. I'm very happy to present these to a friend...hope they're just as happy to accept! They consist of my basic chocolate cupcake recipe then I folded in coarsely chopped dark chocolate and tart dried cherries that I had soaked over night in 100% organic cherry juice and a little sugar. I like to keep things simple and I think this cupcake is a perfect example of delicious simplicity. Glad I saved a few for myself ; )

~Lemon Cupcakes~

Lemon cupcakes filled with lemon curd and topped with lemon zest cream cheese frosting....my kitchen smells like summer! I love love love lemons so I used the extra ones to make Cherry Lemonade too! This recipe is just my basic lemon cupcake recipe and I decided to buy some organic lemon curd I saw at the local grocery store. The cream cheese frosting is pretty basic too...then I decided to candy some of the lemon peel to top it off. Fresh pretty cupcakes.

If life gives you lemons...

candy them?

and make cupcakes!

I decided to use these simple cupcake liners
because one of my fave blogs "Cupcake Bake Shop"
posts cupcakes in them all the time. They're classic and
gorgeous!

Fresh Cherry Lemonade

~Chocolate and Cherry~

These are practice cupcakes for a request I have in 2 weeks...and I'm really feeling like an amateur at the moment. I feel passionately about quality ingredients in addition to putting time and effort into all my cupcakes so naturally I did that with these Cherry Chocolate cupcakes. I used dried cherries and "rejuvenated them" with 100% Cherry juice (thought about using a nice liquor....maybe next time). Coarsely chopped dark chocolate and lots of butter! The cupcake itself was very moist and the cherries were slightly bitter yet went very well with the chocolate. Although I followed all my recipe rules to a "t" they still fell in the center. But the result was so rich and delish that I can't complain. I used cherry juice and one whole vanilla bean to make a butter cream frosting. I love the pale pink color next to the dark chocolate cake. Pretty little cupcakes. I'm not 100% happy with them yet...so I'll keep working on them for now. I loved the red cupcake liners I bought but the color dyed my cupcake pan?! Oops! Well...at least they tasted good!50% cocoa chocolate chopped

folding in cherries and chocolate

cooling off

the results

just having a little girly fun with cupcakes & my fave tea cup

~Vanilla Bean Butter Cream on Pound Cake~

These are the same cupcakes as the previous post (pound cake) but without the Chocolate ganache filling. I topped these cakes with vanilla bean butter cream and large red fondant hearts. I had some paper ribbon with writing on it so I wrapped some around a few of the cupcakes...very sweet. There was no real purpose for making these cupcakes other than wanting to try a pound cake cupcake recipe. But right about the time I was done taking these pictures I got a call from family members requesting cupcakes for our Memorial Day BBQ tomorrow. Perfect timing & this way I can't eat them all! Happy Memorial Day everyone!

~Pound Cake filled with Chocolate Ganache & Browned Butter Cream Frosting~

These gorgeous little cakes couldn't have turned out better! The cake part is a Martha Stewart recipe that can be found in her book "Martha Stewart's Cupcakes" on page 270 "Pound Cake". They aren't extremely sweet cakes but simple and perfect if you want to add sugary frosting or toppings. I filled each cake with chocolate ganache then topped with browned butter cream. I fancied them up with multi colored fondant hearts. They are almost too pretty to eat...almost. ; )

So sweet.