End of summer creations

It's been a while since I've posted here but the baking continues!  I have not been super busy, but have made cupcakes for a wedding celebration, a couple of birthdays, and  a volleyball championship party.  I even went back to the days of old-fashioned bartering and traded cupcakes for flowers.  I then turned my cupcakes into flowers!  Well, so to speak.  In between, I have just gotten that cupcake mania urge to make cupcakes for friends to share.  Here are some photos of my most recent cupcakes since I last posted:

Barbara's Birthday Blossoms - Frangelica -infused cupcake, filled with nutella cream, and frosted with Kahlua butter cream.  Topped with chocolate swirls, chocolate espresso bean, and birthday posy!

Happy Birthday Cathy!  Took a sugar-free mix and a sugar-free frosting (I typically do NOT use canned frosting,) but she had just had tummy surgery and was not allowed sugar of any kind.  Nothing says I can't try to make 'em pretty anyway!  Have to admit, they tasted pretty good!

Happy Birthday Mike!  Chocolate cupcake, filled with cherry cream cheese and frosted with vanilla butter cream.  Topped with chocolate shavings and a maraschino cherry!

A send-off to an army guy off to Germany!  Vanilla cupcake frosted with "UGA" red butter cream.  Topped with a white chocolate bulldog and black sprinkles.

For same army friend:  chocolate espresso cupcake, filled with espresso flavored marshmallow cream and frosted with chocolate espresso butter cream.  Topped with chocolate swirls and chocolate espresso beans.

Above cupcakes joined by "bam-bam" shooters!  Amaretto cupcake, glazed with Irish cream, and frosted with a Malibu rum butter cream.  Topped with almond slice, coconut, and edible glitter.

Just because - good friend Jimmy, who drives me to and from school every day gets 2 of his favorites.  Peanut butter cupcake frosted with peanut butter whipped butter cream.  Topped with "home-made" chocolate fish, boats, and fishing poles.

Double Birthday celebration!  Chocolate peanut butter cupcakes, filled with chocolate peanut butter ganache, and frosted with peanut butter whipped butter cream.  Sprinkled with chopped peanut butter cups and a gumball (private joke).  Second cupcakes are also chocolate, but are frosted with a caramel bourbon frosting.  Topped with "home-made" chocolate birthday hats and coordinating edible glitter.

A special cupcake for a special gal.  An Austrian pastry, Linzer torte, turned into a cocktail, turned into a cupcake!  Amaretto and fresh citrus cupcake, frosted with a chambord butter cream.  Topped with a fresh raspberry and mint leaf.

Volleyball all-stars!  Red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.  Topped with chocolate stars and blue glitter, or "dressed" like a volleyball.

Flower garden cupcakes!  Pistachio cupcakes, filled with pistachio pudding, and frosted with pistachio whipped cream frosting.  Topped with frosting flowers.

Wedding cupcake finery.  A mix of vanilla, creme-de-menthe and "bam-bam shooters"!

Cupcakes are booming!

It's been a fairly busy last 10 days - creating cupcakes to welcome home my neice Maddie, from a vacation that ended in the hospital - thankfully she seems to be doing better - and to also make birthday celebration cucpakes as well.  I will try to include some of the recipes this time!

Only 13 days left of my summer, though - that makes me sad.  (Maybe I should make some "sympathy" cupcakes!)  I have a wedding party to make cupcakes for this Saturday - so THAT's happy!  And, I have been wanting to try some gluten-free cupcakes to honor friends who have unfortunately developed an allergy to that darn gluten found in most baked goods.  The ingredients for those are rather expensive, but I may have to just take the plunge and gather them up.  I have another baker friend - who is marvelously talented and has shared recipes on her own blog (check out the Every Day blog listed on my site).

Thought I would share the most recent cupcakes from the past couple of weeks.  And here they are...!

 Above and just below - these were actually sugar-free (yes, from a box and can) for my buddy, Cathy's birthday.  She has had recent surgery and is not supposed to have sugar.  Of course I did add some edible glitter to make them sparkle!  And I also added my usual "mix additions" of sugar free instant pudding and sour cream to the cake mix.  They actually tasted pretty good!

 Above and just below - my chocolate coffee creation - I call it my Chocolate Coffee Double Decadence.  Chocolate cupcake filled with khalua cream cheese and frosted with Bailey's butter cream.  Decorated "just for fun" with chocolate swirl on top photo; (idea from http://nonnaluna.wordpress.com/recipes/mocha-cappuccino-cupcakes-caramel-buttercream-frosting/)%20decorated; decorated with birthday balloon picks,surrounded by chocolate "balloon" on bottom photo.

 This birthday girl wanted chocolate peanut butter for her party.  So chocolate peanut butter she got!  I started with my own chocolate cupcakes and filled them with a chocolate/peanut butter ganache and a really yummy peanut butter frosting (http://www.cakeandallie.com/2011/06/chocolate-peanut-butter-cupcakes/.  I will post entire recipe soon.

 Another birthday wish cupcake.  My version of pink lemonade, found on http://www.ericasweettooth.com/2010/04/pink-lemonade-cupcakes.html with my own sparkly additions!  I call this my "Pink Lemonlade" in honor of my own daughter, Erica, (no relation to website, but how ironic is that?!) who LOVES these cupcakes and when she was about 3, called it "lemonlade" - she's 23 now! 

And for Maddie, upon her return home -a red velvet cupcake frosted with cream cheese frosting and topped with chocolate shavings and pink and purple edible glitter!

I also made a trial batch of the bam-bam shooter (amaretto, Bailey's, and Malibu rum) cupcakes that I'm doing for an upcoming "post-wedding" party this Saturday.  Wasn't sure how the combination of liquors would turn out, but according to my "official" taste-testers (Erica, some employee/friends of mine at the local liquor store, and friends of Erica's at the tire store) they are actually pretty darn good!  I started with the amaretto cake and then divided the first 24 into half  and on 12 did the Bailey's glaze and Malibu butter cream and on the other 12, did the Malibu glaze and the Bailey's butter cream.  The first combination was the majority favorite, so that's what I will do for the wedding gig on Saturday.  Since I made mini cupcakes (they are shooters after all!), I ended up with 84 total cupcakes!!!  Plenty for the taste testers; plenty for the wedding party!  Will post recipe and pics when complete.

Cupcake photo update

Summer time means a bit of a slow-down for new cupcake orders, but at least it's given me a chance to get a little bit caught up on some much needed house and yard work. Of course, some grass in my back yard would be nice but with large shade trees and four dogs who run around, that will be quite the challenge. And I would love to have a magic wand to do SOMEthing with my garage, but that's another day or two or three...  My most recent cupcakes went to a very special young lady - my niece, Maddie - who had some unfortunate medical issues at the end of the family vacay.  She is better now, but I just had to have some red velvet chocolate cupcakes waiting for her upon her return home.  They were very sparkly - sprinkled with pink and purple edible glitter along with the chocolate shavings.  She LOVES chocolate!  She and I also have a date to go see the new Winnie the Pooh movie!  I LOVE Tigger!

I do believe today will be a "trial and error" kind of day - as I attempt to make the special "shooter" cupcake for the upcoming wedding party.  I will do my best to create a "bam-bam" cupcake to honor the new bride and groom and their friends. I have never heard of these ingredients together, but I will attempt to create a cupcake deliciousness with amaretto, Malibu rum, and Bailey's.  However, before I retire to the kitchen to start my "creation", I do have some photos of other cupcakes from recent weeks.  So thought I would share some of them here:

Margarita in a cupcake!  Basic vanilla cupcakes filled with margarita/rum flavored vanilla pudding.  Frosted with margarita flavored butter cream and garnished with fresh lime slice and green edible glitter.

Cupcakes for future Mississippi State student!  Lemon filled lemon cupcake frosted with fresh blueberry butter cream and garnished with white chocolate bulldog and fresh blueberry.  The Mississippi State colors (maroon and white) are vanilla cupcakes frosted with butter cream and garnished again with white chocolate bulldog.

Mojito cupcake.  Vanilla cupcake glazed with mojito mix and rum.  Frosted with mojto butter cream and garnished with fresh lime slice and mint.

A week-night creation - made with some "left-over" goodies.  Neapolitan goodness! Vanilla cupcake frosted with chocolate and strawberry butter creams - just like the ice cream!  Topped with maraschino cherry.  Alex and friends loved it!

Something a little different - a root beer float in a cupcake!  Vanilla cupcake with root beer soda substituted for the water.  Glazed with root beer liqueur and frosted with root beer liqueur butter cream.  Topped with maraschino cherry. A definite summer treat!

Happy Birthday Baby!  A combination of pink (blue) lemonade and angel food cupcakes.  Baby shower centered around a train theme, so the cupcakes went into the shape of a train.

Happy Birthday America!  Vanilla cupcake frosted with a trio of red white and blue butter cream.  Sprinkled with white edible glitter.

So, off to the kitchen to see how my Bam-bam creations turn out!  I will post results!

Beach time cupcakes!

One of my favorite friends and cupcake customers called for cupcakes for his step-daughter's birthday.  He and his wife wanted a beachy theme and I asked what her favorite colors were - her dorm room for her first year of college coming up is going to be aqua, lime and a hint of yellow.  Needless to say, I had a lot of fun gathering some cute beachy decor and serving pieces.  This is what I came up with! 

I am very happy to say the cupcakes AND the presentation were big hits.  I even met a new friend at the party who asked me to do cupcakes for her upcoming "post-wedding" party!  YAY!

Back from the beach!

Just returned from a fabulous trip to Daytona Beach with friends.  We went for my friend's daughter's national dance competition and it was awesome!  I think it's the longest I have gone without making a single cupcake in about 3 months though!  Happily, I received a request from a school friend to make cupcakes for tomorrow, so I am excited to get back into the swing of things!

Creme de menthe deliciousness

Back from Mobile - fabulous wedding and a very  happy couple!  Had a good time traveling with friends too.  Just had to make some cupcakes upon my return home, though.  I decided to make one of Janie's favorite recipes - actually a cake, but she turned it into a cupcake, so I figured why couldn't I?  I had all the ingredients so why not?  I don't think they turned out as pretty as her's did in her last big presentation, but "just for fun" (and the fact that I wanted to take some cupcake goodness into the workshop at school tomorrow), they turned out ok.  It's white cake (started with Duncan Hines, following the recipe and added the instant vanilla pudding and sour cream) made with the half water/half creme de menthe, topped with chocolate fudge sundae topping and then frosted with whipped cream and creme de menthe frosting.  I garnished these with chocolate shavings and a mint leaf.  So glad I bought my own mint plant - I think I've pulled mint leaves from it three or four times in just the 2 weeks I've had it!

It HAS BEEN a flip-flop day in the land of Kimi's cupcake creations!

By golly, I think I've done it!  I finally "perfected" a chocolate cupcake recipe (yea, I know that earlier, it was the basic vanilla I was wanting to perfect), but I was in the mood for chocolate today.  So I went through my recipes and laid out the 4 I have printed out - a couple I've tried, a couple not.  I chose this recipe from the for the love of cooking (http://fortheloveofcooking-recipes.blogspot.com/2010/12/super-moist-chocolate-cupcake-with.html )site and tweaked it just a bit.  My main change was to use boiling coffee in place of the boiling water, since that is what my bestest cupcake buddy, Janie, taught me to do with chocolate cupcakes. BTW, she called from IL with some very exciting news today - she may be a huge step closer to opening up HER own storefront!! YAY!!  How I would LOVE to move back up there and help her out.  I think maybe she would like for me to as well. :) Alas, with 5 years left to go until full retirement from teaching, I'm afraid it just won't work for me now. :(  She and I chatted, too, about how to possibly make our basic vanillas taste more like the mix - yea, I guess we're weird like that - but we both prefer the taste of a "tweaked" mix over the regular TFS recipes.  SO, my thoughts are too use this chocolate recipe and turn it into a basic vanilla, by using the boiling water called for and substituting the cocoa powder with powder milk or the instant vanilla pudding, which is one of the things we add to our mix recipes.  I won't be able to try it until Monday, though, as this weekend is a wedding in Mobile, AL.  I will definitely let you all know, though!

Another great thing, today, too, was the discovery of a butter cream that held its shape!  I went in Google and typed in crusted butter cream.  I found this recipe that makes a ton, so I halved  it.  http://www.cakeartisan.com/2009/01/crusting-cream-cheese-buttercream/ It still made quite a bit!  And it definitely seems to hold its shape better than any other recipe I have tried.  I just had to add more powder sugar than I normally do - which I guess I could have figured out by myself, but I was always just a little too reluctant to overload it.  But, I followed this exactly (using half of the amounts) and it truly did turn out fabulously! I took out part of the original frosting to make chocolate (added a couple of tablespoons of good cocoa powder) and still have quite a bit of the basic butter cream left.  I plan to freeze it for Monday's cupcakes - no matter what "flavor" I may choose to make.

Unfortunately, no photos to share.  I was in a hurry to get the chocolate ones to my son, Alex, and his roommates - they just moved into a new apartment in downtown Atlanta and I wanted to take cupcakes as a little housewarming.  (I already took them a vacuum cleaner!  Let's hope they use it!)  I will definitely take pictures of whatever I make on Monday.