Sunday, November 30, 2008

Snake cake




I made this for a birthday earlier in the year, and it turned out great. It's a truffle cake made out of cake crumbs, melted chocolate, and jam. It was then rolled in chocolate fondant, and decorated with more fondant and icing colors.

I made cupcakes to go with it so the cake could last a little while.

Mint chocolate cupcakes


These came from a love of mint, and a nice change on the regular cupcakes I make. They are mint chocolate cake with mint cream cheese icing..tasted a lot like an Andes piece of chocolate.

Saturday cupcakes



So I work in retail, and it can be tough at times. To say thanks to my employees, I will make cupcakes for the team working on a busy Saturday.

These cupcakes were milk chocolate with a cream cheese icing. I love color, so that combined with sprinkles made these not only good to look at, but yummy as well.

Valentine's Day for school




My 3 year old, Aiden, loves to make cupcakes with me, so when we decided to make some for his class, he was very excited.

These are basic butter cupcakes colored red, with a pink buttercream icing. Aiden had a great time helping me, and loved the fact he got to wear his robot apron!

Banana cupcakes with peanut butter icing




I buy bananas all of the time because I have a 3 year old, and bananas are just good to have around. When I made these cupcakes, I had purchased a ton of bananas from Costco, and just never got around to eating them all.

Being that I had so many, I thought to make banana bread, but then decided to try a cupcake with it instead. They turned out great, and are a favorite of many.

The icing is a combination of a few recipes I have found, adding cream cheese to make it lighter in flavor. Kids love them too!

Hello Cupcake! TV Dinner





I really can't begin to tell you how much I love this cupcake book, Hello Cupcake. Seriously, I was so excited to make these for another recent birthday!! These are a spoof on traditional frozen tv dinners: mashed potatoes, turkey legs, peas and carrots, and even a brownie dessert!

The mashed potatoes and gravy are really swirled vanilla icing with butterscotch syrup and a lemon Starburst for the butter.
The turkey legs are mounds of icing rolled in Frosted Flakes and then a white chocolate "bone".
Peas and carrots are green runts and orange Starburst candy cut into quarters.

Hello Cupcake! "Starry Night"




Wow. I never thought cupcakes could look like this. This is by far one of the coolest cupcake presentations I have ever made. This was the 3rd cupcake I made out of Hello Cupcake.

To say the least, I found it to be time consuming in the prep more so than the execution of the design. While the art isn't close to the original, I do agree with the authors that differences help it to be your own interpretation of it.

Hello Cupcake! Werewolves





So this is the 2nd cupcake I made from the book, and this was for a die hard fan of horror movies. He loved the idea of werewolves in cupcake form, so I did it. Again, I'm pretty happy with the results, but had I more time, these could have been perfect.

marshmallows provided the ears and mouth, and all of the "fur" is hand piped, with a fruit roll up for the mouth, and candies for the eyes and nose.

Hello Cupcake! Owls




So I work at Urban Outfitters, and we got the most amazing cupcake book in about 6 months ago. I got it, and decided to try to make as many of the different cupcakes that I could. September and October were months that we had a lot of birthdays in the store, so I had all of the management team pick out cupcakes that they wanted me to make.

This was the first cupcake I made from the book, and while time consuming, they turned out great. I personally love owls as well, so this was really fun to do too!

Lavender cupcakes with lemon curd filling




This is another recipe from Chockylit, and while I loved the tartness of the lemon curd paired with delicate lavender, some weren't crazy about it. I had to explain to many that lavender can be eaten, and many liked it after I explained a bit about the idea of savory and sweet.

The icing I decided to make purple, primarily because I like to use color in my creations whenever I can.

Dark chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter icing



Yum. That's all I can say about these. They are comprised of a dark chocolate cake, a peanut butter icing, and then topped with organic banana chips I got on a trip during the summer to Maine. The icing wasn't as sweet as other icings, as the cake was so intensely chocolate, which paired really well together.

Peach, blueberry and thyme cupcakes



So I read a lot of cupcake blogs, and one of my favorites is Cupcake Bakeshop by Chockylit. She is beyond talented, and I have made this cupcake from her recipe, and only switched the ingredients to organic.

These have a roasted peach mush and blueberries in the batter, as well as chopped thyme. The icing is a thicker cream cheese with vanilla bean and thyme.

Sounds like a weird combination, but rest assured these were such an amazing flavor combination, and light enough for the summertime.

Pecan Pie cupcakes




As I loved the results with the pumpkin pie cupcakes, I decided to try it with pecan pie. While the pecan pie aspect was present, I found more success in the end result with mini cupcakes. While baking, the larger cakes spilled over when the filling was added, creating more of a mess I didn't need.

The end result wasn't bad by any means, but overall I was told that the pumpkin pie outshone the pecan pie.

I also topped this cupcake with a whipped chocolate ganache, which was amazing.


Another Southern favorite: red velvet cake. This cake is super moist with just the right flavor of chocolate and buttermilk. It is paired with a thick cream cheese icing.

Pumpkin Pie cupcakes





Around Halloween this year, I was inspired to create a cupcake for the fall season.What better than twisting a holiday favorite, pumpkin pie, into a cupcake? For this cupcake, it has a pie crust bottom, organic pumpkin cake (using a lot of canned pumpkin puree,) and a spiced cream cheese icing. This is another favorite among those who have tried it.

S'mores Cupcakes



So this is a tried and true favorite among my testers (my employees!) The idea came for this one because one of the managers I work with wanted to have a dinner party with the dessert theme being s'mores. I created a cupcake that has a dark chocolate cake, a graham cracker crust on the bottom, and a marshmallow icing.