I Do More Than Cupcakes!

Here is some of my non-cupcake work:


I do mini pies:

Pumpkin

Pecan

And frosted Sugar Cookies. I can do them in specific designs and colors, but I don't use royal icing (the stuff that turns hard) I use a light fluffy frosting that tastes much better, although doesn't lend itself to neatness the way royal icing does. I choose taste over appearance any day!

Holiday Flavors

Vacation over, and I hit the ground running with an order for over 200 cupcakes almost 100 mini pies. Tis the season right?

Well along with the Christmas season comes some new holiday flavors!

Introducing:

Eggnog Cupcakes, that in my opinion are way better calories spent than drinking the stuff, and they taste just like it! I think I am going to make these a Christmas tradition for our family!

And Peppermint Mocha cupcakes

So far I've had these compared to Andes mints and girl scout cookies, all I know is that from a person whose typical Starbucks order during wintertime is a peppermint mocha, I've found something new to snuggle up with!

I am now accepting all holiday orders and the closer we get to the holidays the more limited availability will be, so book early!

Both of these flavors are great for holiday parties and get togethers, in fact I'm planning on making them for my own!

Cookies and Cream

I've added a new member to the family

My new Cookies and Cream cupcake. It's a chocolate cupcake with an oreo type cookie inside topped with cookies and cream frosting.

If I do say so myself, they were delicious! Actually my taste testers deemed them as one of their new favorites as well.

My father-in-law's birthday co-incided with it's conception so I thought I would give shipping another go and see how they fared.

They made it in tact with no harm done. You just snip the tip of the frosting bag and frost the cupcakes yourself. They may not be quite as pretty, but they still are tasty!

Halloween and a Party

I'm a little late in getting the last of my Halloween cupcakes up. Oh well, ideas for next year!

These are vanilla cupcakes tinted orange with chocolate buttercream. I had the cute bat liners so I thought I would match that. I had some leftover pie crust from something so I used that to cut out tiny bats and baked them. After they cooled I piped chocolate on the tops of them and took orange sprinkles and cut them in half for the eyes.

Sometimes I'm a little hesitant to reveal my secrets because then ya'll will know how easy it all really is : )

In addition to the Halloween cupcakes I did this cute cupcake tower this weekend for a surprise 50th birthday party. I'm a little rusty on cakes (as in it's been a year since I've made one?!), so I was thrilled with how it turned out. No worries though the cake pans are officially dusted off and my cake skills are returning.

The cake and bottom layer cupcakes are Snickerdoodle cupcakes and the other ones are double chocolate. All the decorations are edible.

So now that Halloween has passed (in my mind) it's officially Christmas season. I am SO excited. I have so many Christmas cupcake ideas swirling in my head that I can't wait to try out. and show ya'll. Except we just have to get over this whole Thanksgiving pie phase I'm in. Oh well, only a few more weeks!

Thanksgiving Flavors

I've had some more questions regarding holiday orders. So here is my attempt to answer some of them:

I do cupcakes and pies (among other things, but for the holidays...)

I can do full size pies or mini pies (pictures below)

Recommended cupcake flavors for the holiday would be: caramel apple (apple cinnamon cupcake with a dulce de leche frosting), pumpkin spice with cinnamon cream cheese frosting, or snickerdoodle cupcakes, but all flavors are available and feel free to do something crazy, like Pina Colada!

Pie flavors: apple pie, apple crisp pie (instead of a crust on top it's topped with a crisp topping), pumpkin, pecan, and chocolate

All holiday orders must be placed by November 20th. ATL day for holiday order pick ups will be the Monday of Thanksgiving week. STL order pick ups will be the day before Thanksgiving (Wednesday). My hope is to do most of the pick ups in STL around the Chesterfield Valley area.

If you have any other questions, or want pricing information, please feel free to email me at cupkatesforyou@gmail.com

Mini Pumpkin pies

Mini pecan pies

Apple Crisp Pie

Snickerdoodle cupcakes

Caramel Apple Cupcake

Spider, Bats and Cupcakes, Oh My!

My cupcakes (and one of my children) were featured in a photographers blog!

They were round 1 of my Halloween cupcakes I made for a playdate. Pumpkin spice with cinnamon buttercream. Those are chocolate bats and spiderwebs on top of the cupcakes.

Baby Shower and Favors

I have so much stuff I have been doing in the last couple of weeks. I'm so excited to get to show it to ya'll! Keep your eyes open for additional posts this week.

I did a baby shower this weekend for a friend. It was a boy and we went with the blue and brown theme. To compliment it we did double chocolate cupcakes and pina colada cupcakes (her favorite of mine, and I tinted the frosting blue to match).

We also did cupcakes as the favors. They were pumpkin spice with cinnamon cream cheese frosting. I have a Halloween themed version of these I will put up soon.

Proof that I can do more than bake cupcakes! I made those letters for my friend to use in her new babies room. It helped that they matched the decor as well!

I know I have had several requests for the cupcake towers so I wanted to give some of ya'll a visual for what they would/can look like. I put scrapbook paper underneath the cupcakes that co-ordinated with our decor. I have also seen people put ribbon around the edges that really makes it pop. I hope to get to try that soon!

Also, just a heads up for my STL and ATL clients. I am starting to take orders for the Thanksgiving holiday right now. I can do the pumpkin spice with cinnamon cream cheese frosting cupcakes or the caramel apple cupcakes (apple cinnamon cupcake with dulce de leche frosting) I also do mini or full sized pies including pumpkin, apple, apple crisp(my husbands person favorite), pecan pie, and chocolate pie. I will be in STL the day before Thanksgiving so people from ATL and STL can get orders in. ATL orders must be picked up the Monday before Thanksgiving (pies freeze well, and will also keep in the fridge great until Thanksgiving). I am limited on the amount of orders I will be able to fill so let me know what you want early! As always, feel free to call, or post comments with any questions!

Bananas

Growing up my mom had two (major) things things she was allergic to: bananas and tree nuts. So naturally as any deprived girl would, I dived head first into experimenting with these two culinary sensations as quickly as I could. I love them both, but for today we will focus on the bananas.



They are a staple in our home, and I love their frugality. If at any point the bananas start to look like they are going bad, I simply pop them in the freezer to use for a host of recipes. I never waste money on bananas and they never go unused. One of our family favorites is my banana oatmeal chocolate chip muffins (someone remind me to give ya'll that recipe at some point!). Another trick I learned from a friend who is a dietitian is to take frozen bananas and pop them in a container you can use your immersion blender in. Add a tiny bit of milk and start pulsing away. After a few minutes you will have a substance that looks like ice cream, and which with young unsuspecting children easily passes for such as well. A touch of peanut butter is delicious in it too. Add some sprinkles and you are a mommy superstar.



So banana cupcakes seemed fairly natural to me, the hard part however, was picking out the frosting. I personally think chocolate and bananas were made for each other, but some people feel that way about the cream cheese frosting. Not wanting my personal tastes to bias things, I made both. And they both had fabulous reviews (although my personal favorite was the chocolate, just as I knew it would be!). They blended in well, and only my discerning tasters were able to distinguish the flavor before I told them.

Double Chocolate

Back to our previously scheduled program : )

These are some double chocolate cupcakes I made this week. I did something a little bit different with the sprinkles on the mini ones, and I kind of like it, they are more fun I think.

I finally found the perfect cupcake tower that I had to go to three stores to find. For the record, I ended up finding it at Hobby Lobby at my trips to Michael's were fruitless (as they usually are). Hobby Lobby has my heart and I would drive half an hour to go there, but thankfully I have one about two minutes away.

All that to say, I hope to be posting pictures within the next couple of weeks of some projects I am doing featuring the cupcake tower and the possibilities of customizing it for personal use, or for rental.

Here are my top requested (and loved by non-chocolate lovers too) cupcakes:

Salmon

Now for the salmon recipe!



Ya'll will have to bear with me a bit as I start the recipe documentation process. Most of my cooking (and baking for that matter) is a conglomeration of several recipes with my own tweaks, or something completely formulated in my head. That being said, specific ratios and measurements are something somewhat new to me. So feel free to ask any questions about anything that I put here if you are unclear or are getting different results.



Mustard Glazed Salmon:



equal parts dijon and brown sugar (i.e. 2 tablespoons of each is usually what I use), my favorite dijon is Emeril's
salt and pepper
salmon fillet (I prefer without skin)



Preheat your grill (this could be made in an over probably at 400F). Place salmon on aluminum foil and season with salt and pepper, place on top rack of grill (if you place it on the bottom the glaze will burn) and let cook for about 5 minutes. While salmon is cooking mix dijon and sugar together until the sugar is mostly dissolved. After 5 minutes paint the glaze onto the top of the salmon, with any of the extra drizzling right along the top middle of the fillet. Let cook an additional 4-10 minutes (depending on how hot your grill is and how thick the salmon is) until an internal temperature of 140F is reached.



In the picture I made this with quinoa, which is a tasty healthy whole grain. I get mine at Trader Joe's but I think you can find it in any grocery store now. I make it according to the direction on the box but instead of water I use chicken stock (vegetable would be fine) about a tablespoon of lemon juice and some garlic powder. Normally I would add some chopped parsley too, but I was rushed. Basil or mint would be good with it as well.



I love this meal because it has a gourmet feel yet can easily be made in half an hour and is so easy.



Enjoy!

Key Lime Pie- with recipe!

I debated which recipe to give you first, salmon or key lime pie, and since summer is quickly coming to an end (as in today...), I thought I would throw the key lime pie your way before it's time for all my apple recipes.



I saw this on Oprah, and I thought I would give it a try. I'm normally not a huge key lime pie person, just because it's usually too tart and not very well balanced. This exceeded my expectations. Not only was it delicious, I was impressed with how easy it was too. They also freeze really well. I made some mini pies in ramekins, and I've got six waiting for me in the freezer.



Mar-A-Lago Key Lime Pie



Ingredients:Serves 8

Graham Cracker Crust:

• 3/4 pound graham crackers


• 4 Tbsp. granulated sugar


• 2 sticks melted butter


• 1/4 tsp. sea salt

Filling:

• 4 egg yolks


• 1 can (14 ounces) condensed milk


• 2/3 cup fresh Key lime juice


• 1 lime , grated zest

Topping:

• 1 cup heavy or whipping cream , chilled


• 2 Tbsp. confectioners' sugar


• 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

To make graham cracker crust: Preheat the oven to 325°.

Break up the graham crackers, place in a food processor and process to crumbs. Add the melted butter, sugar and salt and pulse until combined. Press the mixture into the bottom of a 9-inch pie pan, forming an even layer on the bottom, sides and edge. Bake the crust for 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow the crust to cool.

To make filling: While the crust is resting, in an electric mixer with the wire whisk attachment, whip the egg yolks and lime zest at high speed until fluffy, or 5 to 6 minutes. Gradually add the condensed milk and continue to whip until thick, 3 to 4 minutes longer. Lower the mixer speed and slowly add the lime juice until incorporated.

Pour the mixture into the crust and bake for 15 minutes, or until the filling has just set. Cool on a wire rack, and then refrigerate for 20 minutes.

To make topping: Whip the cream, confectioners' sugar and vanilla until nearly stiff. Evenly spread the whipped cream on top of the pie, and place in the freezer for 20 minutes prior to serving.

On the show he put a ton of white chocolate on top. I did this at home as well (since it is what attracted me to the recipe) and I would really recommend doing this as well, it really helps the taste balance, texture and just gives it that something special.

Caramel Apple Cupcakes

A few changes coming to this site. As much as I love cupcakes, and this site is meant to be focused on cupcakes (as the general focus will remain) I plan on expanding a little. I often get asked what I enjoy more, cooking or baking, and I always have difficulty answering that question. I love baking for the creative freedom it allows me, but I also love cooking and the ability to comfort and replenish.

That is why I am going to start including some of the meals that I make here and there (and hopefully the recipes if I am organized enough!). This will help me to document what I make and give me a source for brainstorming weekly meal plans, plus it will hopefully inspire you or give you some new recipes to try.

I have a few recipes waiting to share as soon as I have a little bit more time to type them out, but for now I wanted to inform you of the inclusion.

I will leave you with these:

My twist on a caramel apple: apple cinnamon cupcakes with a dulce de leche frosting

Minis

I have made a whole bunch of fun new cupcakes recently, but have been a big fat failure when it comes to documenting them. I just have too many people chomping at the bit to eat them! My new favorites, raspberry almond, with chocolate frosting should have pictures coming soon since I have an order for this weekend, which I will be SURE to take pictures of. I'm pretty excited to share those with y'all anyways.

But for today, I have cute, petite mini red velvets.

I do regular and mini size cupcakes, but I must admit I am a little partial to the minis. They are a bit more complicated, but for parties, gatherings with large people, and kids, they are absolutely perfect! They are easy to manage, make you feel less guilty, are less of a sugar buzz for the kiddos, and give you the option to try several flavors. I'm dying to do a wedding cupcake stand with regular and mini sized cupcakes in different flavors mixed together. With toppers like the ones in the post below with a monogram on top. Not that I have it planned out or anything... now if only I knew people who were getting married!

Baby Boy shower

Here are some cupcakes I made for a baby shower (obviously boy). They are double chocolate cupcakes with baby themed chocolate toppers. There is a baby buggy, bootie and bottles. I was pretty happy with how these turned out. I would love to do these for a wedding in co-ordinating colors with a monogram on top. How pretty would that be?

Side View:

Top View:

Again, I realize that I may be biased, but my double chocolate cakes are SO good. I normally don't like getting double chocolate cupcakes (or cake for that matter) because people usually don't know how to make them well. Either they are too rich to eat a whole one (which come on, it's a cupcake!) or they are too sweet with no salty balance.

Mine fall into neither of those categories, and still have enough chocolate punch. My husband is not a cake person. His sweet default is ice cream every time. I know my cupcakes are really good when he will eat two in a row (or more), if he only eats one, I know they need more tweaking. Let's just say I lost count of how many of these he ate the other night.

Cupcake Cake

Another example of a cupcake cake. This cupcake cake was 15 regular sized double chocolate cupcakes filled with strawberry cream that I made for my doctors office.

I called in today to get some test results I had done and the receptionist went out of her way to tell me how good they were. I was quite flattered. My cupcakes may not always win the prettiest on the block competition (not that they are ugly by any means...), but when it comes to taste, I like to think of myself as a cupcake rockstar.

This is a side view so you can see the cupcake part:

Top View:

Peach Ice Cream- with recipe!

Recently I have been so busy baking the cupcakes, I haven't had a chance to blog about them. Hopefully this week I will be able to make up for lost time. For now I will attempt to redeem myself with a recipe.



Peaches are in season here in Georgia, and ridiculously cheap. Having such a bounty of the luscious fruits I decided to get a little creative. Sure anyone can make peach cobbler, or crisp, but boys aren't big fans of that and quite frankly I was a little bored by that thought too. However, if there is one thing my boys like it's ice cream.



So why not give peach ice cream a go? When I first got my ice cream maker I used to use it all the time, but recently I have let it be neglected for my cupcake pan. I was glad to have an excuse to dust it off (and after my success I think it will stay in a more consistently used spot!). My go to recipe inspiration website is usually epicurious.com or chow.com. Epicurious gets first dibs, and they happened to have a recipe that was exactly what I was looking for with glowing reviews.



What resulted over the next 24 hours (yes it's a process, but a rather simple one) was one of the best things I have put in my mouth this summer. Unlike my boys, I usually find ice cream lacking a little something. Whatever that is, this version had it. I plan on making it again soon, and the same basic concept to give blackberry ice cream a try too.



Here is the recipe, and the results :

My only notes would be to not add the chunks of peaches, but to puree it all.

I had such success with the ice cream I thought I would give peach cupcakes a try. Somehow though they were eaten before I remembered to take pictures of them. Bummer. My taste testers all said they really liked them. I wasn't as thrilled with the texture, and I thought that they could have been more "peachy". Although that is what everyone said that they liked about them, that they weren't overly "peachy". Maybe I will just work on the texture and call them vanilla peach cupcakes instead! To give them the peach flavor I used the same concept that the ice cream uses to make the peach puree, and added that to my cake batter.

Anyhow, hopefully you can get some inspiration from this post to use whatever produce is most fresh in your area to experiment a little in your cooking/baking!

Pina Colada

CupKate hiatus #2 now over. I hoping to return to a state of normal cupcake production here soon. Summers are slow because there aren't as many gatherings to bring them to!



Here is one I made a couple weeks back, and if I do say so myself I think it is one of of my favorites to date.



When I made these I was just experimenting to see if I could get the taste profile I was looking for, of which I was very pleased turned out dead on. As far as the presentation though, well, as I said I was focused on taste and not taking much time on appearance. I'm looking forward to making them again so I can have the presentation and taste perfected.



Here are my Pina Colada cupcakes, perfect for any summer gathering.

Red, White and Blue

I have been on a cupcake hiatus. However, I couldn't let the Fourth of July be passed up without making some patriotic cupcakes. These are all red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.

Red, White and Blue swirls

Red, White and Blue "Stars"

My attempt at the "firework" cupcakes

I am headed out of town first thing Monday for a little over a week, but am backed up on cupcake sharing, so expect more upon my return. Hope you all have a wonderful holiday weekend!

Strawberry Shortcake with recipe

Strawberries are abundant here in Georgia (and cheap!) and I wanted to do something with them, the obvious place to go from there is always strawberry shortcake. My mom and Chris's mom have always made the easier healthier option of this dessert which consists of angel food cake, strawberries, and whipped cream (or cool whip). Neither of us have had the real deal, and I decided we, and our children would be deprived no more.



So I pulled out my go to biscuit recipe (omitting cream and pepper and adding 1/3 cup sugar to the mixture) and went at it. While making the biscuits I macerated the strawberries (meaning I cut them up and put them in a bowl with 1/3 cup sugar and a squirt or two of lemon juice), and made up the whipped cream (whipping cream + vanilla and powdered sugar to taste).



It turned out delightful. To get the biscuits to look like this, I used a large flower cutter I had and sprinkled the tops with sugar (raw sugar would be best, and the regular stuff wasn't that noticeable) before I baked them.

They were everything I had hoped they would be. I think I'm a shortcake convert, no more angel food cake here!

Chocolate and Bailey's

I have two words for you:



CHOCOLATE and BAILEY'S



Enough said.



(but to clarify, it's a chocolate cupcake with Bailey's frosting)

Favors

For Josh's birthday, I couldn't resist making some take home favors for the parents. Just vanilla cupcakes with a light chocolate frosting.

I made these again later in the week, and filled them with strawberry cream. I will definitely be adding those to my regular circulation, and I think I will call them neopolitan cupcakes.

Backyardigans Cupcake Cake

So I've started dappling in cupcake cakes. Because they are so cute, practical, and stick with the whole cupcake theme. Plus I think they give you a little more artistic freedom than a regular sheet cake because of the different shapes you can make with the cupcakes.

Josh loves the Backyardigans, so obviously, we decided on a Backyardigans themed birthday, and a long with it, a cake. The cake consists of vanilla cupcakes filled with strawberry cream, or whipped chocolate ganache, and a vanilla cream cheese frosting. The characters are all in their "backyard", and the green is the closest to grass you can get with a piping bag. The dark green blobs are shrubs. I wanted to make them a little taller, but to get them that dark required a lot of coloring, and the amount of powdered sugar to get them stiff enough to stand taller was never ending, so I settled for these.

All in all, I was pretty happy with it!

Front View:

Top View:

Peanut Butter Cup

I'm on blog back up due to a stomach flu that hit our house two weeks ago, and then all the preparation for Josh's birthday, and that fact that baking takes time. So expect a slew of posts in the next couple of days.

For Josh's real birthday I had planned on making him peanut butter cup cupcakes. In case you haven't realized yet, my family and my small group girls are who I do most of my experimenting and perfecting on.

I made homemade peanut butter cups to go inside the cupcakes

They turned out fabulous on their own, but I had made them for a purpose, so inside the chocolate cupcakes they went. Then I topped the chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting. And chocolate sprinkles. They were everything I hoped they would be.

Chocolate Chip Cookies, my favorite recipe

I love cookies. I think it is something about the salty/sweet combination that really does me in. In a perfect world, chocolate chip cookies are my favorite. Yet the perfect chocolate chip cookie is rather elusive. Not to mention, depending on the season, time of day, or what kind of day I am having, what constitutes the perfect CCC changes. Some days I want nothing but soft goodness, other days I like a little crisp on the outside, and some days I like chewy.



All this considered, I think I have found my perfect CCC recipe. It may not be yours, and I won't take offense if it's not, but I do think this recipe has a little of all the types in ones. It's worth a go anyhow. Jacques Torres is kind of a big deal, so he must be able to lend something to the world of CCC's. So here is the recipe, courtesy of Jacques: (I usually half this recipe, or freeze the other half, and I use regular all purpose flour without any issues, and Ghiradelli semi-sweet or dark chocolate chips)



Makes twenty-six 5-inch cookies or 8 1/2 dozen 1 1/4-inch cookies


1 pound unsalted butter
1 3/4 cups granulated sugar
2 1/4 cups packed light-brown sugar
4 large eggs
3 cups plus 2 tablespoons pastry flour
3 cups bread flour
1 tablespoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
2 pounds Jacques Torres House (60 percent cocoa) Chocolate or other best-quality semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped


Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper or nonstick baking mats; set aside.


In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together butter and sugars. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Reduce speed to low and add both flours, baking powder, baking soda, vanilla, and chocolate; mix until well combined.


Using a 4-ounce scoop for larger cookies or a 1-ounce scoop for smaller cookies, scoop cookie dough onto prepared baking sheets, about 2 inches apart. Bake until lightly browned, but still soft, about 20 minutes for larger cookies and about 15 minutes for smaller cookies. Cool slightly on baking sheets before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.


The result:

Experiments in frosting

I tried a few new things with cupkates last week. One of them was a new kind of wrapper:




I think they turned out very cute. However, I am not sure I will be using them again. First off, they are very difficult to proportion correctly. If you fill it up the typical 2/3, they overflow, and when you do it only 1/2 full, they don't come all the way to the top. Not to mention you can add the exact same amount of batter to two cups and they will rise to different levels. For someone who values uniformity in her cupkates, this was a big negative.

Then there is the eating factor. As in, no one knows how. You can't really pull them off, so do you just squeeze it in your mouth? Try to take a bite without pulling the paper down? I too have been left guessing as to the proper technique.

So like a lot of pretty things, these just aren't practical.


I also tried a different icing technique:



I like how the flowers turned out, especially considering I didn't have the right tip for them. I hope once I get the right tip I can perfect this look. I think it would look really cute with a brightly colored frosting also.

And finally, here is a quick picture I grabbed of some cupkates I took for my small group girls:




Notice the one on the bottom and the right, these are chocolate cupkates with orange cream cheese frosting. I had more of that icing on hand than any others this week, and the combination sounded good, so I thought I would give it a try. I was very pleased with the result! I'm not even the biggest orange fan, but these just really seemed to lighten up the chocolate a bit. A chocolate cake with orange cream cheese filling, covered in ganache sound heavenly. I think I'll have to work on a cupkate version of that...