Christmas Cupcakes

When I was a kid, we went to our maternal grandparents house every Christmas.  My grandmother always made this white cake with cherries and pecans called Whipped Cream Cherry cake.  It was just a white cake with cherry juice poured in, chopped cherries, pecans and homemade whipped cream frosting.
Last year, I made cupcakes with the recipe.  This year, my whipped frosting didn't turn out so I just used cherry buttercream frosting instead.  It still turned out fabulous!

Here is another picture with all the Christmas cupcakes.

All of these were made with the same white cake.  The Whipped Cream Cherry have a cherry on top.  I used peppermint buttercream frosting for the ones with the peppermint candy on top.  The angel cupcakes have almond buttercream frosting on top with silver sprinkles and a fondant angel on top.  The Christmas tree cupcakes are made with ice cream cones, piped stars, red hot candies and a fondant star on top.

The poinsettia cupcakes are done with a leaf tip.

Merry Christmas everyone!  Thanks for reading and sharing in my adventures.  Love and blessings, Deana :)

Nutella Cupcakes and Star Wars Cake

Last week I made Nutella Cupcakes for a wedding shower and some for my niece.  For the shower, I cut out stars with white fondant and then added their initials in purple to go along with her wedding colors of purple and white. Added some purple buttercream frosting.  The cupcakes are chocolate with nutella filling.

For my niece, I made chocolate cupcakes with nutella filling and nutella buttercream frosting with hazelnut chocolate candy on top. I've made these before and they are one of my favorites! 

 

My biggest challenge of the week was the Star Wars Cake.  I made fondant letters ahead of time so that I could just add them at the bottom instead of writing with icing.  But when I started to place the letters on the cake they broke and I ended up having to write it out instead.  :( Oh well, things don't always go exactly as planned with cupcakes and cakes!  I was happy with the way it turned out and I sure hope 5 year old Aaron loved it.  The Darth Vader cake is chocolate and the bottom layer is white.  Next up are Christmas cupcakes!  Remember if you are having a party or just want to serve pretty cupcakes for a Holiday gathering, I would be happy to make it special with cupcakes!  6 for $15 or 12 for $30.  281-804-3032.  Thanks for taking the time to read my blog.  Deana :)

 

 

Trip to Paris and Halloween Cupcakes

I finally convinced my husband to go to Paris a few weeks ago for our September vacation.  Once he agreed that it would be fun, he bought books and downloaded google translate on his phone to learn some French expressions.  Every day he practiced and would often speak to me with his new phrases.  He even learned how to say, "You are the love of my life" "Tu es l"amour de ma vie"  to which I responded, "Vous etes un bon mari" which means "You are a good husband."

We visited all the touristy places and took pictures of everything.  But on the 3rd day while on a very crowded Metro train back to our hotel, my camera was stolen right out of my purse.  I knew to be careful of pick pockets but this person must have been quite the professional.  After that, I held on to my purse like my life depended on it!  But all my pictures, gone!!  Not to worry, we still had one more day so we literally retraced our steps to get as many pictures as possible on our last day there running from train to train.  Would you like to know why French women are so skinny?  They walk miles and miles very fast, up and down Metro train stairs in ballerina flats, no heels even though they smoke incessantly, drink lots of wine and eat bread but no butter.  And let's not forget those fabulous pastries!  I like this French lifestyle!  You can see pictures of our trip on my regular facebook page but here are just a few in case you missed them.

As soon as I recover from the shin splints from running and walking and carpel tunnel from holding on to my possessions, I'm going to be a skinny little French girl too!  After all you can still eat cupcakes or French pastries as long as you walk all day. 

Here are some pictures of some Halloween cupcakes I made this week:  These are chocolate cupcakes with vanilla buttercream frosting.  Now all you have to do is go walk for miles and miles and you can have some!  Bon Appetit!  Thanks for sharing in my adventures!  Until next time....Deana :)

Frankenstein Cake

I could hardly wait to get home from my regular job to make this Frankenstein Cake I found at Bird On A Cake.  Since this is a practice cake, I used a cake mix just to see if I could actually do it, but I did make my own buttercream frosting.  Just added green gel food color and then chocolate buttercream for the hair with a Wilton basket tip #47.  It's supposed to look messy.  Good thing because it wasn't as easy as it looked, but still fun.  The eyes are white candy melts and brown M&M's.  The nose is a red peanut M&M and then twix bars on each side.  Kinda cute, isn't he? 

I have some cute ideas for my Halloween cupcakes that I'll be working on this week too.  Those will be my fabulous chocolate cupcakes from scratch. Stay tuned!

Watermelon Cupcakes for Labor Day

Normally I don't make cupcakes from a box but I found this recipe for watermelon cupcakes from Hoosierhomemade.com and thought they would be perfect for Labor Day.  If you happen to go to her website you will see that she used red and green ice cream cones to put the cake batter in.  I tried that but mine didn't turn out that great.  The batter in the cone wasn't cooked enough so instead of going back to the store to start over, I just made regular cupcakes.  Kroger didn't have watermelon jello but for those of you who live in Texas, I found it at HEB, however if you make the cones, Kroger has those.  I also added green and pink gel color because otherwise you will have a slightly pale looking cupcake. 

1 box white cake mix
4 eggs
1 cup buttermilk with 1/2 tsp. vinegar mixed in buttermilk and let set for a couple of minutes
1/3 cup oil
1 small box watermelon jello
1 cup mini chocolate chips

Mix all ingredients together.  Add pink gel color to half and green gel color to other half.  Fold in 1/2 cup chocolate chips to pink batter and 1/2 cup to green batter. 
Bake at 350 for 15 minutes.
Frosting:  White, pink and green

For the frosting I used a cream cheese frosting and added mini chocolate chips for decoration.  Then for the topping I cut some watermelon with a small star cookie cutter and inserted with a toothpick. If you add the watermelon, I would recommend doing it right before serving the cupcakes and wipe off the excess liquid with a paper towel. 

Now excuse while I go eat the rest of my watermelon!  Yummy!!  The cupcakes are for a neighbor (and not the ones who always left their trash cans out by my kitchen window)  They moved!  Yay!

Orange Sherbet Cupcakes

My friend, Charlene asked me if I could make cupcakes out of a recipe called Orange Sherbet Bundt Cake by SK Hunter which she published on Just a Pinch Recipes.  Of course I can make cupcakes out of any cake recipe, but I knew I would change the frosting because the cake just has a glaze.  Here is the original recipe:

2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 salt
3 eggs
1 stick butter
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup melted orange sherbet
1/2 orange with peel/remove core/process in a food processor
1/2 cup instant vanilla pudding or 1 small box
1 cup crushed walnuts (optional)

Glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar
3 Tbsp. melted orange sherbet

1.  Preheat oven to 350.  In a small bow, whisk together flour, dry pudding mix, baking powder and salt.  Set aside.
2.  Place sugar and butter in mixer bowl and beat until well combined.  Add eggs, one at a time, blending well after each addition.  Turn the mixer speed down to low and add vanilla extract and orange.
3.  Add the flour mixture and sherbet alternating to the sugar and butter mixture.  When it is all combined mix for about 3 minutes on medium speed.  Stir in the nuts by hand.
4.  Put the batter into a bundt pan that has been greased and floured.  Bake for 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.  Let rest for 10 minutes before inverting on to a plate.
5.  When the cake is cool mix together the orange sherbet and the powdered sugar and drizzle over cake. 

The only thing I did different for the cupcakes is I didn't add walnuts mainly because I don't like nuts inside the cupcakes.  For the frosting I used my buttercream frosting recipe but substituted orange juice and the sherbet for the milk until I got the desired consistency for piping and also added a bit of orange flavoring and orange food gel to make it a pale orange color.  Then a fondant tulip on top!

I hope Charlene enjoyed them.  She had been in the hospital lately and I wanted to surprise her with a little something to cheer her up! 

Thanks for reading!  Deana :)

Halloween Cake

Halloween Cake

Since you know I took a cake decorating class, I've been practicing making cakes as well as cupcakes.  My second course got canceled for this month which has given me an opportunity to just practice on my own.  I've worked with fondant before so I thought this would be fairly easy to cover the cake and cut out the Halloween designs, a piece of cake as the saying goes.  But Ha, not quite!  The marbled effect that you see is actually on purpose.  I liked the way it looked when I was adding the color so I left it this way although it doesn't quite look as pretty in the pictures.  You guys also know that I am not a photographer, but perhaps that will be my next class! 

I dragged my sweet husband all over town looking for something to attach the top witch, bat and ghost to until I finally decided to just use popsicle type sticks.  The orange, white, and black bottom border and top for the display is rolled fondant. 

More Halloween designs to come because I have all these new Halloween cookie cutters to make some fun things!  Until next time, thanks for reading.  Deana :)

Olympic Cupcakes

I had been planning to make Olympic cupcakes in July but as you can see it is now the weekend of the end of the 2012 Olympics so these will be the closing ceremony cupcakes.  Perhaps I will start thinking about the 2014 Olympics now so I might have those ready before the winter olympics start.

Making the fondant olympic rings was not as easy as I had envisioned.  I don't have any round cookie cutters that tiny and since I waited until the last minute it was a little too late to order anything.  While making the beach cupcakes, it occurred to me that I could use the back of the decorating tip for the outside and a smaller round tip for the inside.  Ah, perfect! 

The printable cupcake round toppers I found from thepurplepumpkin.co.uk, cut them out, glued them on a popsicle stick and tied red, white and blue ribbon around it.

Maybe I should start contemplating Halloween now!  
Deana :)

Cake Decorating

I've been taking the Wilton Cake Decorating class for the last few weeks and last night was the end of Course 1 where you actually have to decorate a cake.  Now you guys know that I am a cupcake decorator but I thought this course would help me be more creative with cupcakes and learn a few things. 

I missed the very first lesson so I was already behind the other students.  When I showed up for class for lesson 2, they all had their cakes ready to learn new decorating techniques.  I had all kinds of decorating tools but no cake, lol.  Not a good start.  But nevertheless I practiced on the practice board and at home.  I wish I knew how many cakes ended up in the trash, too many to count.  I started buying Kroger brand white cake mix for practice sessions since no one was going to be eating these cakes anyway. 

Last night we had to bring a 2 layer cake with a smooth icing technique.  OMG, who knew how much time that takes?  Cake decorators, that's who!! 3 Kroger brand white cake mixes later, a couple of you tube videos, reading my instructions at least 30 times,  I finally had a somewhat smooth cake.

Now to get it to class with the cake in the cake container without icing touching anything.  I'm driving soooo slow already when a deer darts out across the road.  My cake survived, who cares about the car?  Just kidding, no damage to the car or the deer!

My instructor tells me that I did an excellent job.  But right at the very end when I was putting the finishing touches on my cake, my arm brushed the side and messed up my cake, <sigh>.  No worries, my pantry is full of Kroger brand white cake mixes and I have 3 more courses to go!

4th of July Cupcakes

Last night my mind was filled with thoughts of what kind of topping would I make for my 4th of July Cupcakes.  I had already decided the strawberry cupcakes would be great for this holiday and I made pretty stars out of fondant for Memorial Day so I wanted something different for the 4th.  Something sparkling like fireworks.  My first thought was to use candy melts and make squiggly lines or make them out of fondant, but that wouldn't really give me the sparkle that I was looking for.

Luckily Hobby Lobby had some red, white and blue tinsel left.  I cut them about 2 inches long, taped the ends together and glued a toothpick on the end to make my own homemade picks.  They even had little flags in  the tinsel but now that I look at it in the picture, maybe that is supposed to be a hat. lol

So there we have it, strawberry cupcakes with buttercream frosting, red, white and blue sprinkles and something that sort of resembles fireworks on top! 

Father's Day Cupcakes

Today is Father's Day.  I wanted to create a cupcake in honor of my Dad.  He loved coconut pie so naturally I thought of making a coconut cupcake.  One of my nieces, Regina thought I should have a tractor theme.  Ahhh perfect!  All the grandkids loved riding with their Grandpa on his tractor.  I remember my Dad sneaking out the backdoor and return shortly with the tractor in the driveway.  What a thrill for the grandkids!  I found a few old pictures of my son, Derek riding with his Grandpa in 1985.

I made a coconut cupcake with coconut buttercream frosting sprinkled with green colored coconut and wrapped the cupcake with John Deere wrappers and a John Deere tractor pick for the topping.  Oh and they taste delicious too!  I miss you Dad today and everyday but I bet you were delighted to see my little creation!  :)