Spring and Life

I consider it spring when the daffodils have bloomed and I can wear flip flops out at least once with out regretting the decision. Due to my calculations, it's officially spring! Spring always brings about the thought of flowers and Easter. I've been doing some experimenting with both:

These are half of another set that spelled out "Happy 28 Kate", the purple ones were flower inspired

This is a chocolate cupcake with vanilla buttercream decorated to look like a hydrangea

These are my Easter cupcakes. Admittedly, I'm not very into chicks or the Easter bunny, I don't want to distract from the focus of the holiday. That said, I don't mind eggs because they represent new life. So they are chocolate cupcakes with a mini Cadbury egg baked inside (and on top) frosted with vanilla buttercream and toasted coconut.

Good Friday brings the start of spring break here. My kids are not in school yet, so typically this wouldn't effect our family however I lead a small group of high school girls with the youth at our church. Every year they go on mission trips during spring break and this year I get to go with them. I'm super excited to go and serve in the inner city of Philadelphia, but that also means that I will be out of touch for a week.

So if you email me or call, I may not get back to you right away, and won't be able to do any orders for that week (April 5-10). I will have my email on auto reply with some information and my number for if there is something you need right away, but even that make take some time, so please be patient!

If you are interested in Easter orders though, I'm taking those until Thursday!

St. Patty's Day Birthday

This is my last St. Patrick's Day related post until next year, I promise! I must say, the Guinness chocolate and Bailey's cupcake was my new favorite, but after taste testing for the umpteenth time...even I'm burnt out.

But when I made these I was still in love! And I love the idea of a St. Patty's day themed party.

a jumbo cupcake used as a first birthday smash cake

green velvet cupcakes topped with vanilla buttercream and shamrock sugar cookies


green velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and four leaf clover sprinkles

Wedding Season

It's that time of year again! I must admit, it's a bit of adjustment for me. I've been out of the wedding loop for at least two years now. Almost all of my friends are married and I was just starting up last year so missed out on most of the wedding fun.

Admittedly, I thought I was over all the weddingness. Coming up on 6 years of marriage, I thought the fun of weddings was past until my (mythical at this point) daughter went through it. Thankfully I was wrong!

I had delivered cupcakes to my first wedding of the season a couple of weeks ago. She, her mom, mother in law, friends and wedding planner were all there setting up. It was gorgeous. I went home and told my husband I wanted to get married again and have it be just like hers. And just like that I was sucked into it all over again!

I still look back on my wedding and remember all of the details fondly, particularly my wedding cake. Maybe that's because even back then I was a growing foodie who had a special fondness for cake, but I think it really impresses you when people go out of their way to make a particular part of your special day extra special just for you.

I'm excited to have the opportunity to do that for my customers!

monogrammed sugar cookie favor test run for an upcoming wedding


delivery: the most dreaded part. I have nightmares of dropping one of the boxes on the way in or something!

Just a few of the snickerdoodles, although they were slightly different than my typical ones, these were made with a cinnamon cream cheese frosting instead of the typical cinnamon sugar buttercream

At the wedding. Champagne, hydrangea, cupcakes and the man of your dreams, where could a girl go wrong?

Helper

Using my high tech method again my handsome helper picked a name for me:

I must admit I'm partial to the name. It was actually my maiden name, but I got called by that more than my first name. It's a great name!

Congrats Libby!

Feeling the Love

I got a lot of love from the last cupcake giveaway. Maybe it went to my head a little bit, because I'm doing another one! I'm giving away another half dozen Guinness stout chocolate cupcakes with Bailey's frosting. The world needs more of them!

Details:
You can get multiple entries on this one, the more entries you have, the higher your chance are of winning. Here are the ways you can enter:

• write a comment on my blog
• write a comment on your facebook status about my cupcakes, either linking to my blog or putting @CupKates to link to my FB site
• write a comment on the CupKates FB site

IMPORTANT: In order to be officially entered (so I know to look at your site to see you did them) you must comment on my most recent FB status letting me know you have entered and which ways.

Go here to access my facebook site. The winner must be able to pick up late afternoon Saturday or sometime Sunday.

And the winner is....

So I did my first giveaway last night. Half a dozen St. Patrick's Day cupcakes. I did it for a couple of reasons.

1. I love my customers. Seriously, y'all are so great and sweet.

2. I wanted to do something special to celebrate my first year in business. It was almost exactly a year ago that I started CupKates.

That said, I think I am going to start doing this more often. Goodness knows we don't need any more cupcakes sitting around our house!

Sometimes the giveaways may be on the blog only, and sometimes on facebook only, or something both. So keep your eyes peeled to both sites!

And with out further ado....

I used a very high tech method to decide the winner

Thanks again for all of your support!

St. Patrick's Day

Just in time!

Chocolate Guinness Stout cupcakes with Bailey's Irish Cream Buttercream. Topped with a wee bit o' green!

Also, for those unaware, I have a facebook page where you can become a fan and get updated on CupKates news, events and giveaways. You may be especially interested in checking it out sometime this evening!

Behind

I've got my St. Patty's day cupcakes itching to get pictures of themselves on the blog. But they are still in my camera : )

I'm just teasing you so you know what to look forward to. They are Guinness chocolate cupcakes topped with a Bailey's Irish Cream frosting.

I like St. Patrick's Day. Not because I'm big into the alcohol (contrary to the way my cupcake sounds...) but because I married into an Irish family. When I met my husband he had red hair. It's more auburn now, but it was red. His mom and brothers hair still is red and him mom's maiden name is Kennedy. There's a lot of Irish in them.

Plus if you've ever had Irish butter, that would be enough to make you want to be Irish. Seriously if you haven't tried it- go. Now. Most grocery stores have it this time of year, I saw it at Costco (in bulk, I seriously considered it) but picked mine up at Trader Joe's. The most popular brand is Kerrygold.

It's fun to celebrate our history with the kids on a fun holiday too.

Other than the cupcakes I have a wedding I'm doing this weekend so hopefully I'll be posting pictures from those soon. They are going to be Snickerdoodle (although with a slight change of cinnamon cream cheese frosting), I'm hoping there are leftovers.

All that to say...go get some Irish butter.