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: