Chocolate or Vanilla?

Of course I've been making cupcakes. But I also have some other desserts I've been making and playing with that I look forward to sharing with you soon. For now here is a glimpse at what I've been up to:

My sons bubble themed three year old birthday party

They were double vanilla bubblegum cupcakes

Baby shower cupcakes. Sorry for the horrible pics, the lighting was impossible

These were coconut cream (with pink tinted coconut) and raspberry almond with chocolate frosting

More baby shower goodness, and a new flavor. The ones with chocolate frosting and pink dots are the raspberry almond (one of the most popular flavor in case you haven't noticed), the yellow dotted ones are double lemon and the ones in the cute little cups with black stuff sprinkled on top are....earl grey cupcakes with honey buttercream.

Mind you I'm a tea person. Not just that, I'm an earl grey person. A cup about every morning, even in the summer. So I do have a bit of partiality, but seriously...these were so. stinking. good. Like I would eat them for breakfast without shame.

So I recently put up a post on my facebook site (become a fan if you aren't...I do giveaways, more pictures and interaction there) asking if anyone would be interested in my recipes for making their own CupKates. There were quite a few interested and with my lightening up on orders (although I'm itching for a few more for fall...I will have two boys in school and will need a distraction!) and many fans in other parts of the country (mainly STL, woot woot!) I thought I would aid in your own cupcake creations.

Almost all of my cupcakes are either vanilla based or chocolate based. Meaning if you have a strong basic recipe for either of those all you have to do is get creative to come up with new cupcakes. So for example my Guinness and Bailey's cupcake (chocolate cupcake made with Guinness topped with Bailey's buttercream) is a chocolate cupcake with the Guinness beer substituted for the water it typically calls for. To make my snickerdoodle cupcake all I do is add cinnamon to my vanilla cupcake recipe. Make sense?

Great. So I'm going to get together the recipe basics and their deviations. Now the only question is which to start with, chocolate or vanilla?

Update and CakePops

Well I've been busy making cupcakes and keeping up with three kiddos. It's been so nice to have more time with the kidders and not feel so stressed. I love summer schedules!

I have lots of cupcakes to update on with more to come, so here is a just a glimpse at what I've been up to.

Rede Velvet popcorn themed cupcakes for a "She's about to pop" themed shower. So cute. Sorry for the poor iPhone pic

Cupcakes gift box. Can be made with any flavor, but these were double vanilla. These were made as end of the year teachers gifts.

Cupcakes favors in vanilla with chocolate cream cheese frosting. Made to match wedding/shower colors.

So there is a quick glimpse with more to come.

If you are interested in ordering, don't forget to defer to the previous post for what I am/am not doing right now. I think I'm open for accepting larger orders again come September.

I've been asked a couple of times about cakepops. I wanted to explain why I prefer not to do those.

The main reason I started CupKates was because I was tired of having mediocre cake that I knew was made with ingredients that were really bad for me. If i do say so myself I think my cupcakes are some of the best I've tasted (and yes I do check out the "competition" from time to time : ). Not only that, but I don't put hydrogenated oils, or high fructose corn syrup in anything I make. Even when it comes to toppings or additions I try to use something I would be ok with my kids eating . I won't go so far as to say my cupcakes are healthy, but if you're going to eat a cupcake, mine are on the healthier side. I make all organic cupcakes for an additional charge, and am starting to experiment with different sweeteners like agave and sucanet.

That said, cakepops are dipped in a "candy coating" which is made up mostly of hydrogenated oils and food coloring. It's not something I'm ok with giving to my family, so I would prefer not to sell it to the masses as well.

That said, they are cute, I just don't make them.

Silly that the cupcake girl is taking a stance for health, but that's how I roll. Thanks for understanding!

What I've Been Up To

In the past few months we've been consumed by all things baby. First we got her room done:

Which was quite the process as we decided to redo all the furniture, meaning it all was repainted by my wonderful husband. I worked on the things I could (namely not that with lots of fumes-the painting) like the artwork, and reupholstering the rocking chair and making the pillow. As well as making sure our daughter had a plethora of bows ready to go (see below).

And for the last few weeks we've got to enjoy of the girly sweet wonderfulness that her arrival has brought.

EvaKate Liana was born on February 15 and weighed 7 pounds 4 oz and was 19 inches long.

Now that we've gotten a taste for what being a family of 5 is like, and her temperament, I feel like I'm in a better place to determine what I want to do with CupKates.

Admittedly, (and maybe this is the post baby hormones talking) I've wanted to do nothing but spend a ton of time with my kids feeling extra sensitive to how quickly this parenting little ones is passing by.

That combined with baseball season (the highlight of my oldests year) and being heavily involved with our church and I've seriously questioned shutting the business down.

As much as I love doing this, I know I will never regret giving more time to parenting well. That said, I know in a few years when all of my kids are in school and I have more time on my hands, I think I would regret that decision. So I've been trying to come up with a happy compromise where I get to spend more time with the family and am not as busy as I was before the baby and get to keep the business going.

And here is where I think I'm at, and what I'm going to try at least through the summer:

-I'll take orders that are 100 or less

-Cupcakes only, for now no more cookies or pies

-I'll probably only take one or two orders per weekend (depending on the size)

-All orders must be picked up Friday (this will allow us to have one family day a week on Saturday, which is very important to us)

-No weddings through August at the least

That's where I'm starting. Some of this may change as I still figure out what will work best for me and my family, thanks for being co-operative and understanding!

I've been asked about March availability, and I'm going to not take any orders until April.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask!

Final 2010 Wedding and Maternity Leave

I finished my last wedding of the season, and am officially putting myself on maternity leave. As much as I love my job I'm breathing a bit of a sigh of relief.

I think it's the fact that we decided to refinish all the nursery furniture (on top of painting the room and making the curtains and bed skirt and recovering a chair) and the amount of time that is taking combined with the lack of weather co-operation. And the fact that standing on my feet more than two hours at a time makes them start to go numb that is helping breathe a bit easier being able to focus on her room and Christmas.

So here are the pictures of the last wedding I did.

120 key lime pies

120 mini chocolate guinness cupcakes with Bailey's frosting

120 mini pumpkin spice with cinnamon cream cheese frosting

A few details as far as future booking goes:

• I will be on maternity leave until at the least the end of March
• I won't be taking any bookings until then (since I won't really know the temperament of my new child so I won't be able to anticipate how much I can handle with her addition). As big of an inconvenience as it may be, this includes weddings.
• I will post on the blog and on facebook as soon as I am open to booking again.
• Even though I won't be making bookings, I am happy to respond to emails and phone calls providing you with all the information you may need in order to make a decision.

I plan on occasionally updating the blog and facebook during this time and will respond to all correspondence, just more than likely at a slower pace than usual.

If you have any questions don't hesitate to email.

Sugar Cookies

So I really was thinking through how I was going to do a step by step video post for y'all on how to decorate christmas cookies, then after checking several of my favorite blogs as the cookie season rolled around, I realized it would be a bit of a waste.

These tutorials are probably better than anything I would have done (being new at it), so I figured I would give you my recipes and tricks and then direct you to their sites for more guidance.

Here is the biggest tip I can give you ahead of time...I make sugar cookies in at least a two day process, some times three. Not only does this make it less stressful, but I feel the process produces more fool proof cookies. So before you decide to jump head first, consider instead of making it a whole one day process taking an hour or so over three days to make these cookies.

Here is what my timeline usually looks like:

Day 1- make cookie dough, refrigerate

Days 2- roll out and cut out cookie dough, refrigerate

Day 3- bake and frost (admittedly if I'm doing 200+ cookies these get split up into separate days as well)

Sugar Cookie Recipe

• ¾ cups Butter
• 1 cup White Sugar
• 2 whole Eggs
• 1-½ teaspoon Vanilla Extract
• 1/2 teaspoon Almond Extract
• 2-½ cups All-purpose Flour
• 1 teaspoon Baking Powder
• ½ teaspoons Salt

In a large mixing bowl, combine room temperature butter and sugar until smooth. Add eggs and vanilla and combine.

In a separate bowl, blend together flour, baking powder, and salt.

Slowly add dry ingredients into wet batter until fully incorporated.

Drop dough onto a large piece (or two) of saran wrap and refrigerate overnight.

When ready to roll out the cookies, generously flour a flat surface and roll out the dough to desired thickness (I like mine on the thicker side). You can use as much flour as you need! Side note: with other recipes I used powdered sugar to roll out on, but with this one I find the flour works best.

For best results, bake on silpat or parchment paper or well oiled cookie sheet.

Bake at 325 degrees for 5 to 8 minutes. You want to remove from the oven before the edges brown at all. Let sit about a minute or two before taking up from the cookie sheet, if they start to break, let them sit longer. I recommend using a metal spatula.

After I roll out the cookie dough and cut it out into the shapes I want I place them in a tupperware container lined with parchment or waxed paper and stack them in the container and refrigerate as long as I need to, usually over night. When ready to bake I simply place on the cookie sheet. If you're producing lots of cookies, or doing it with kids this usually make life much more simple.

After the cookies have cooled and you've gotten the flour off your shirt, apron, pants, floor, cabinets and sink you are ready to make the frosting. What, am I the only one that cooks messy?

I'll be straight with y'all, if you're going for taste (and most baking with kids is usually more about that) I would stay away from the royal icing and go with buttercream. One of the tastiest and easiest Christmas cookies I'll make is to make small sugar cookie circles, take buttercream and place it in the middle of two, slightly squeeze together and roll the edges of icing peeking out in Christmas sprinkles (sometimes I just mix red and green sanding sugar together for this). These will transport fairly well.

The other option is to just spread buttercream on top and cover with sprinkles. These will get messed up if touched so they are a bit more precarious for travel.

If you are interested here is a very general vanilla buttercream recipe (general because I can't give away my exact secrets!): 2 sticks room temperature butter, powdered sugar (2-4 cups depending on how sweet you like it), vanilla and salt. Blend butter and sugar first and then add other ingredients.

Now that I've given you the tasty easy way let's move on to the more involved but oh so pretty method:

Royal Icing:

• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 1 teaspoon powdered egg whites (also called meringue powder, can be found at places like Hobby Lobby and Michael's, but take you 40% off coupon as the smaller containers will run you about $8 before hand. While it may be an upfront investment it lasts forever and really is the secret to safe, well made royal icing)
• 3 tablespoons warm water (guesstimate, may need more or less depending on humidity)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 teaspoon almond flavoring

Lightly blend sugar and meringue powder together. With mixer on slowly add vanilla and almond flavorings, then slowly add warm water.

Remember the more you mix the wetter the mixture will become so always start with less liquid and add more. Also remember if you plan on adding food coloring (even gel ones) those will add moisture to the frosting later on that will make it more liquid.

Once you think you are close to the desired consistency crank up your mixer and whip away. For at least 5 minutes. You can add more water at this point if you think it needs it, then mix some more.

This is a great blog for showing you the proper consistency the frosting needs to be.

I typically make the thicker outlining frosting first because I can always add more water to that and use it to flood the cookies. I love getting away with only using one large bowl. I then divide up the amount I think I'll need into smaller bowls and mix in the coloring I want. When I'm ready to make it into flooding icing I just add a little bit of warm water at a time.

A few more tips:

• Don't forget royal icing dries VERY quickly! Always keep it covered (even your frosting tips, a damp paper towel works well for this). I even rinse my beaters off right after I'm done making it so I don't have cement on my hands later. If you forget, a long soak in hot water usually does the trick.
• This requires a steady hand which is typically learned over time. While you are in the learning process a damp (not wet or it will mess up the icing) finger tip can smooth out quite a bit.
• Keep your tip clean. This helps to make those clean lines.

If y'all have any questions before hand, or while you are in the process of making these, feel free to post them on the facebook wall or in the comments section and I will answer them as quickly as possible. Good luck!

Beach Wedding

I got to do my first destination wedding.

An excuse to go to the beach, in October....count me IN!

Admittedly transportation and finishing touches ended up being a bit more time consuming that I had originally planned, but thankfully the husband and I had planned to spend the night in Savannah so I got a little extra rest, kiddo free. And he makes a great sous chef when need be.

Did I mention we used the wedding as an excuse for a babymoon?

*Tangent* I never really got babymoons, or even date nights before or after our first. We could make all the time we needed to get whatever we wanted done, or have our own little date night after bedtime. All that changed after two. No more co-ordinating naps (or naps at all sometimes!), sleeping in, or checking every thing off our to-do list, and especially no time for after hours date night. After bedtime is now used to work on the to-do list, and date nights only happen when grandparents come in town or we hire a babysitter. Which we try to do often for our own sanity.

All that to say, if you're about to have your second, rock out the babymoon and start saving for a date night fund. Mom and Dad time makes everyone so much happier!

*Tangent Over*

Peanut Butter Cups. I wanted to do chocolate curls to make it a bit fancier (since chocolate sprinkles don't scream "wedding" to me). Hubs did a fantastic job or expertly placing these while I tried to crank out the rest of the frosting at 1am.

The only specification the bride had was lemon. She didn't care what, just lemon. Thankfully I did her wedding shower and made key lime pies, I told her I could do a lemon version of those and she was sold. This tower is the lemon pies with whipped cream and double vanilla cupcakes.

Peanut Butter Cups and Double Vanilla.

The dessert table.

So admittedly, the key lime pie recipe I mentioned earlier isn't mine. The first time I made key lime pie it turned out so perfect I couldn't think of anything to change, so it's my go to recipe. And I've given it to y'all before here. To make the lemon version, you essentially use the same recipe, but I would do just over 1/2 cup of lemon juice instead of 2/3, especially is you're using the fresh stuff. Lemon is a bit sour than I find lime to be so I dialed it back. It doesn't effect the recipe at all.

After the last post I heard back from several of y'all interested in the sugar cookie information. I'm for sure going to give y'all my recipe and tips, and I'm even contemplating doing a video instructional to go along with it, probably focusing on icing because that's the more tedious part. We'll see how the month goes though : )

At the latest I hope to have that up by early December.

I'm also about 95% sure that my last week of orders will be the week before Christmas, so if you're considering placing a holiday order (for Christmas, parties, Thanksgiving, or cookies) contact me SOON. There will be very limited availability. There may be one or two weekends I'm willing to exceed my 100 count limit as well. On cupcakes, not sugar cookies- those things take too much time : )

A wedding and the scoop on ordering. Thank y'all again for your flexibility and continued loyalty! I can't tell you how hard it has been to tell some of you no. And admittedly, some of you I haven't been able to say it to yet. Oh well, I'm transitioning into maternity leave, right?

Thanks!

Thank you all so much for your patience and understanding! I've had quite a few questions about the parameters of my "stepping back". The short answer would be, just email me. There are lots of unique circumstances that several of you have proposed and really it all depends on how crazy my week is.

Our baseball season just ended as well so I have a bit more free time to fit things in. Weekday orders will also be the easiest for me to say yes to.

I don't think I will be completely shutting things down until sometimes in January.

Hopefully that answers a few basic questions for y'all.

Despite not taking as many orders for the future, I've still been quite busy fulfilling orders already in place. I've had two weddings in the last two weeks that I've done that I'm looking forward to sharing with you.

This one was for a fall wedding outside of Atlanta. They had several people coming in from out of town and wanted something to put in the hotel rooms to greet people as they arrived.

These are the cookies all bagged and tagged ready to go.

These are the autumn leaf cookies before being bagged up. Maybe it's my love for fall, but I adore these cookies and the different color combinations (I had several more not pictured) turned out really pretty and added a fun dimension.

When I put these up on my facebook page I had several people ask how I get the icing so smooth. Basically I use royal icing, and make sure to have the right consistency.

I'm not sure I have time to do a video, but would y'all be interested in written directions and recipes for the cookies and royal icing to get you ready for the holidays?